Holy Bible - Basic English Bible

1At the first God made the heaven and the earth.

²And the earth was waste and without form; and it was dark on the face of the deep: and the Spirit of God was moving on the face of the waters.

³And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

⁴And God, looking on the light, saw that it was good: and God made a division between the light and the dark,

⁵Naming the light, Day, and the dark, Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

⁶And God said, Let there be a solid arch stretching over the waters, parting the waters from the waters.

⁷And God made the arch for a division between the waters which were under the arch and those which were over it: and it was so.

⁸And God gave the arch the name of Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.

⁹And God said, Let the waters under the heaven come together in one place, and let the dry land be seen: and it was so.

¹⁰And God gave the dry land the name of Earth; and the waters together in their place were named Seas: and God saw that it was good.

¹¹And God said, Let grass come up on the earth, and plants producing seed, and fruit-trees giving fruit, in which is their seed, after their sort: and it was so.

¹²And grass came up on the earth, and every plant producing seed of its sort, and every tree producing fruit, in which is its seed, of its sort: and God saw that it was good.

¹³And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.

¹⁴And God said, Let there be lights in the arch of heaven, for a division between the day and the night, and let them be for signs, and for marking the changes of the year, and for days and for years:

¹⁵And let them be for lights in the arch of heaven to give light on the earth: and it was so.

¹⁶And God made the two great lights: the greater light to be the ruler of the day, and the smaller light to be the ruler of the night: and he made the stars.

¹⁷And God put them in the arch of heaven, to give light on the earth;

¹⁸To have rule over the day and the night, and for a division between the light and the dark: and God saw that it was good.

¹⁹And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.

²⁰And God said, Let the waters be full of living things, and let birds be in flight over the earth under the arch of heaven.

²¹And God made great sea-beasts, and every sort of living and moving thing with which the waters were full, and every sort of winged bird: and God saw that it was good.

²²And God gave them his blessing, saying, Be fertile and have increase, making all the waters of the seas full, and let the birds be increased in the earth.

²³And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.

²⁴And God said, Let the earth give birth to all sorts of living things, cattle and all things moving on the earth, and beasts of the earth after their sort: and it was so.

²⁵And God made the beast of the earth after its sort, and the cattle after their sort, and everything moving on the face of the earth after its sort: and God saw that it was good.

²⁶And God said, Let us make man in our image, like us: and let him have rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every living thing which goes flat on the earth.

²⁷And God made man in his image, in the image of God he made him: male and female he made them.

²⁸And God gave them his blessing and said to them, Be fertile and have increase, and make the earth full and be masters of it; be rulers over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing moving on the earth.

²⁹And God said, See, I have given you every plant producing seed, on the face of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit producing seed: they will be for your food:

³⁰And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the air and every living thing moving on the face of the earth I have given every green plant for food: and it was so.

³¹And God saw everything which he had made and it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

2And the heaven and the earth and all things in them were complete.

²And on the seventh day God came to the end of all his work; and on the seventh day he took his rest from all the work which he had done.

³And God gave his blessing to the seventh day and made it holy: because on that day he took his rest from all the work which he had made and done.

⁴These are the generations of the heaven and the earth when they were made.

⁵In the day when the Lord God made earth and heaven there were no plants of the field on the earth, and no grass had come up: for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no man to do work on the land.

⁶But a mist went up from the earth, watering all the face of the land.

⁷And the Lord God made man from the dust of the earth, breathing into him the breath of life: and man became a living soul.

⁸And the Lord God made a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had made.

⁹And out of the earth the Lord made every tree to come, delighting the eye and good for food; and in the middle of the garden, the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

¹⁰And a river went out of Eden giving water to the garden; and from there it was parted and became four streams.

¹¹The name of the first is Pishon, which goes round about all the land of Havilah where there is gold.

¹²And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone.

¹³And the name of the second river is Gihon: this river goes round all the land of Cush.

¹⁴And the name of the third river is Tigris, which goes to the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates.

¹⁵And the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to do work in it and take care of it.

¹⁶And the Lord God gave the man orders, saying, You may freely take of the fruit of every tree of the garden:

¹⁷But of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you may not take; for on the day when you take of it, death will certainly come to you.

¹⁸And the Lord God said, It is not good for the man to be by himself: I will make one like himself as a help to him

¹⁹And from the earth the Lord God made every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and took them to the man to see what names he would give them: and whatever name he gave to any living thing, that was its name.

²⁰And the man gave names to all cattle and to the birds of the air and to every beast of the field; but Adam had no one like himself as a help.

²¹And the Lord God sent a deep sleep on the man, and took one of the bones from his side while he was sleeping, joining up the flesh again in its place:

²²And the bone which the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman, and took her to the man.

²³And the man said, This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh: let her name be Woman because she was taken out of Man.

²⁴For this cause will a man go away from his father and his mother and be joined to his wife; and they will be one flesh.

²⁵And the man and his wife were without clothing, and they had no sense of shame.

3Now the snake was wiser than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, Has God truly said that you may not take of the fruit of any tree in the garden?

²And the woman said, We may take of the fruit of the trees in the garden:

³But of the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God has said, If you take of it or put your hands on it, death will come to you.

⁴And the snake said, Death will not certainly come to you:

⁵For God sees that on the day when you take of its fruit, your eyes will be open, and you will be as gods, having knowledge of good and evil.

⁶And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and a delight to the eyes, and to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit, and gave it to her husband.

⁷And their eyes were open and they were conscious that they had no clothing and they made themselves coats of leaves stitched together.

⁸And there came to them the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the evening wind: and the man and his wife went to a secret place among the trees of the garden, away from the eyes of the Lord God.

⁹And the voice of the Lord God came to the man, saying, Where are you?

¹⁰And he said, Hearing your voice in the garden I was full of fear, because I was without clothing: and I kept myself from your eyes.

¹¹And he said, Who gave you the knowledge that you were without clothing? Have you taken of the fruit of the tree which I said you were not to take?

¹²And the man said, The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me the fruit of the tree and I took it.

¹³And the Lord God said to the woman, What have you done? And the woman said, I was tricked by the deceit of the snake and I took it.

¹⁴And the Lord God said to the snake, Because you have done this you are cursed more than all cattle and every beast of the field; you will go flat on the earth, and dust will be your food all the days of your life:

¹⁵And there will be war between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed: by him will your head be crushed and by you his foot will be wounded.

¹⁶To the woman he said, Great will be your pain in childbirth; in sorrow will your children come to birth; still your desire will be for your husband, but he will be your master.

¹⁷And to Adam he said, Because you gave ear to the voice of your wife and took of the fruit of the tree which I said you were not to take, the earth is cursed on your account; in pain you will get your food from it all your life.

¹⁸Thorns and waste plants will come up, and the plants of the field will be your food;

¹⁹With the hard work of your hands you will get your bread till you go back to the earth from which you were taken: for dust you are and to the dust you will go back.

²⁰And the man gave his wife the name of Eve because she was the mother of all who have life.

²¹And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife coats of skins for their clothing.

²²And the Lord God said, Now the man has become like one of us, having knowledge of good and evil; and now if he puts out his hand and takes of the fruit of the tree of life, he will go on living for ever.

²³So the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to be a worker on the earth from which he was taken.

²⁴So he sent the man out; and at the east of the garden of Eden he put winged ones and a flaming sword turning every way to keep the way to the tree of life.

4And the man had connection with Eve his wife, and she became with child and gave birth to Cain, and said, I have got a man from the Lord.

²Then again she became with child and gave birth to Abel, his brother. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a farmer.

³And after a time, Cain gave to the Lord an offering of the fruits of the earth.

⁴And Abel gave an offering of the young lambs of his flock and of their fat. And the Lord was pleased with Abel's offering;

⁵But in Cain and his offering he had no pleasure. And Cain was angry and his face became sad.

⁶And the Lord said to Cain, Why are you angry? and why is your face sad?

⁷If you do well, will you not have honour? and if you do wrong, sin is waiting at the door, desiring to have you, but do not let it be your master.

⁸And Cain said to his brother, Let us go into the field: and when they were in the field, Cain made an attack on his brother Abel and put him to death.

⁹And the Lord said to Cain, Where is your brother Abel? And he said, I have no idea: am I my brother's keeper?

¹⁰And he said, What have you done? the voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the earth.

¹¹And now you are cursed from the earth, whose mouth is open to take your brother's blood from your hand;

¹²No longer will the earth give you her fruit as the reward of your work; you will be a wanderer in flight over the earth.

¹³And Cain said, My punishment is greater than my strength.

¹⁴You have sent me out this day from the face of the earth and from before your face; I will be a wanderer in flight over the earth, and whoever sees me will put me to death.

¹⁵And the Lord said, Truly, if Cain is put to death, seven lives will be taken for his. And the Lord put a mark on Cain so that no one might put him to death.

¹⁶And Cain went away from before the face of the Lord, and made his living-place in the land of Nod on the east of Eden.

¹⁷And Cain had connection with his wife and she became with child and gave birth to Enoch: and he made a town, and gave the town the name of Enoch after his son.

¹⁸And Enoch had a son Irad: and Irad became the father of Mehujael: and Mehujael became the father of Methushael: and Methushael became the father of Lamech.

¹⁹And Lamech had two wives; the name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah.

²⁰And Adah gave birth to Jabal: he was the father of such as are living in tents and keep cattle.

²¹And his brother's name was Jubal: he was the father of all players on instruments of music.

²²And Zillah gave birth to Tubal-cain, who is the father of every maker of cutting instruments of brass and iron: and the sister of Tubal-cain was Naamah.

²³And Lamech said to his wives, Adah and Zillah, give ear to my voice; you wives of Lamech, give attention to my words, for I would put a man to death for a wound, and a young man for a blow;

²⁴If seven lives are to be taken as punishment for Cain's death, seventy-seven will be taken for Lamech's.

²⁵And Adam had connection with his wife again, and she gave birth to a son to whom she gave the name of Seth: for she said, God has given me another seed in place of Abel, whom Cain put to death.

²⁶And Seth had a son, and he gave him the name of Enosh: at this time men first made use of the name of the Lord in worship.

5This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day when God made man, he made him in the image of God;

²Male and female he made them, naming them Man, and giving them his blessing on the day when they were made.

³Adam had been living for a hundred and thirty years when he had a son like himself, after his image, and gave him the name of Seth:

⁴And after the birth of Seth, Adam went on living for eight hundred years, and had sons and daughters:

⁵And all the years of Adam's life were nine hundred and thirty: and he came to his end.

⁶And Seth was a hundred and five years old when he became the father of Enosh:

⁷And he went on living after the birth of Enosh for eight hundred and seven years, and had sons and daughters:

⁸And all the years of Seth's life were nine hundred and twelve: and he came to his end.

⁹And Enosh was ninety years old when he became the father of Kenan:

¹⁰And after the birth of Kenan, Enosh went on living for eight hundred and fifteen years, and had sons and daughters:

¹¹And all the years of Enosh were nine hundred and five: and he came to his end.

¹²And Kenan was seventy years old when he became the father of Mahalalel:

¹³And after the birth of Mahalalel, Kenan went on living for eight hundred and forty years, and had sons and daughters:

¹⁴And all the years of Kenan's life were nine hundred and ten; and he came to his end.

¹⁵And Mahalalel was sixty-five years old when he became the father of Jared:

¹⁶And after the birth of Jared, Mahalalel went on living for eight hundred and thirty years, and had sons and daughters:

¹⁷And all the years of Mahalalel's life were eight hundred and ninety-five: and he came to his end.

¹⁸And Jared was a hundred and sixty-two years old when he became the father of Enoch:

¹⁹And Jared went on living after the birth of Enoch for eight hundred years, and had sons and daughters:

²⁰And all the years of Jared's life were nine hundred and sixty-two: and he came to his end.

²¹And Enoch was sixty-five years old when he became the father of Methuselah:

²²And after the birth of Methuselah, Enoch went on in God's ways for three hundred years, and had sons and daughters:

²³And all the years of Enoch's life were three hundred and sixty-five:

²⁴And Enoch went on in God's ways: and he was not seen again, for God took him.

²⁵And Methuselah was a hundred and eighty-seven years old when he became the father of Lamech:

²⁶And after the birth of Lamech, Methuselah went on living for seven hundred and eighty-two years, and had sons and daughters:

²⁷And all the years of Methuselah's life were nine hundred and sixty-nine: and he came to his end.

²⁸And Lamech was a hundred and eighty-two years old when he had a son:

²⁹And he gave him the name of Noah, saying, Truly, he will give us rest from our trouble and the hard work of our hands, because of the earth which was cursed by God.

³⁰And after the birth of Noah, Lamech went on living for five hundred and ninety-five years, and had sons and daughters:

³¹And all the years of Lamech's life were seven hundred and seventy-seven: and he came to his end.

³²And when Noah was five hundred years old, he became the father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

6And after a time, when men were increasing on the earth, and had daughters,

²The sons of God saw that the daughters of men were fair; and they took wives for themselves from those who were pleasing to them.

³And the Lord said, My spirit will not be in man for ever, for he is only flesh; so the days of his life will be a hundred and twenty years.

⁴There were men of great strength and size on the earth in those days; and after that, when the sons of God had connection with the daughters of men, they gave birth to children: these were the great men of old days, the men of great name.

⁵And the Lord saw that the sin of man was great on the earth, and that all the thoughts of his heart were evil.

⁶And the Lord had sorrow because he had made man on the earth, and grief was in his heart.

⁷And the Lord said, I will take away man, whom I have made, from the face of the earth, even man and beast and that which goes on the earth and every bird of the air; for I have sorrow for having made them.

⁸But Noah had grace in the eyes of God.

⁹These are the generations of Noah. Noah was an upright man and without sin in his generation: he went in the ways of God.

¹⁰And Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

¹¹And the earth was evil in God's eyes and full of violent ways.

¹²And God, looking on the earth, saw that it was evil: for the way of all flesh had become evil on the earth.

¹³And God said to Noah, The end of all flesh has come; the earth is full of their violent doings, and now I will put an end to them with the earth.

¹⁴Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood with rooms in it, and make it safe from the water inside and out.

¹⁵And this is the way you are to make it: it is to be three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide, and thirty cubits high.

¹⁶You are to put a window in the ark, a cubit from the roof, and a door in the side of it, and you are to make it with a lower and second and third floors.

¹⁷For truly, I will send a great flow of waters over the earth, for the destruction from under the heaven of all flesh in which is the breath of life; everything on the earth will come to an end.

¹⁸But with you I will make an agreement; and you will come into the ark, you and your sons and your wife and your sons' wives with you.

¹⁹And you will take with you into the ark two of every sort of living thing, and keep them safe with you; they will be male and female.

²⁰Two of every sort of bird and cattle and of every sort of living thing which goes on the earth will you take with you to keep them from destruction.

²¹And make a store of every sort of food for yourself and them.

²²And all these things Noah did; as God said, so he did.

7And the Lord said to Noah, Take all your family and go into the ark, for you only in this generation have I seen to be upright.

²Of every clean beast you will take seven males and seven females, and of the beasts which are not clean, two, the male and his female;

³And of the birds of the air, seven males and seven females, so that their seed may still be living on the face of the earth.

⁴For after seven days I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, for the destruction of every living thing which I have made on the face of the earth.

⁵And Noah did everything which the Lord said he was to do.

⁶And Noah was six hundred years old when the waters came flowing over all the earth.

⁷And Noah, with his sons and his wife and his sons' wives, went into the ark because of the flowing of the waters.

⁸Of clean beasts, and of beasts which are not clean, and of birds, and of everything which goes on the earth,

⁹In twos, male and female, they went into the ark with Noah, as God had said.

¹⁰And after the seven days, the waters came over all the earth.

¹¹In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, all the fountains of the great deep came bursting through, and the windows of heaven were open;

¹²And rain came down on the earth for forty days and forty nights.

¹³On the same day Noah, with Shem, Ham, and Japheth, his sons, and his wife and his sons' wives, went into the ark;

¹⁴And with them, every sort of beast and cattle, and every sort of thing which goes on the earth, and every sort of bird.

¹⁵They went with Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh in which is the breath of life.

¹⁶Male and female of all flesh went in, as God had said, and the ark was shut by the Lord.

¹⁷And for forty days the waters were over all the earth; and the waters were increased so that the ark was lifted up high over the earth.

¹⁸And the waters overcame everything and were increased greatly on the earth, and the ark was resting on the face of the waters.

¹⁹And the waters overcame everything on the earth; and all the mountains under heaven were covered.

²⁰The waters went fifteen cubits higher, till all the mountains were covered.

²¹And destruction came on every living thing moving on the earth, birds and cattle and beasts and everything which went on the earth, and every man.

²²Everything on the dry land, in which was the breath of life, came to its end.

²³Every living thing on the face of all the earth, man and cattle and things moving on the face of the earth, and birds of the air, came to destruction: only Noah and those who were with him in the ark, were kept from death.

²⁴And the waters were over the earth a hundred and fifty days.

8And God kept Noah in mind, and all the living things and the cattle which were with him in the ark: and God sent a wind over the earth, and the waters went down.

²And the fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven were shut, and the rain from heaven was stopped.

³And the waters went slowly back from the earth, and at the end of a hundred and fifty days the waters were lower.

⁴And on the seventeenth day of the seventh month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.

⁵And still the waters went on falling, till on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains were seen.

⁶Then, after forty days, through the open window of the ark which he had made,

⁷Noah sent out a raven, which went this way and that till the waters were gone from the earth.

⁸And he sent out a dove, to see if the waters had gone from the face of the earth;

⁹But the dove saw no resting-place for her foot, and came back to the ark, for the waters were still over all the earth; and he put out his hand, and took her into the ark.

¹⁰And after waiting another seven days, he sent the dove out again;

¹¹And the dove came back at evening, and in her mouth was an olive-leaf broken off: so Noah was certain that the waters had gone down on the earth.

¹²And after seven days more, he sent the dove out again, but she did not come back to him.

¹³And in the six hundred and first year, on the first day of the first month, the waters were dry on the earth: and Noah took the cover off the ark and saw that the face of the earth was dry.

¹⁴And on the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth was dry.

¹⁵And God said to Noah,

¹⁶Go out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and your sons' wives.

¹⁷Take out with you every living thing which is with you, birds and cattle and everything which goes on the earth, so that they may have offspring and be fertile and be increased on the earth.

¹⁸And Noah went out with his sons and his wife and his sons' wives;

¹⁹And every beast and bird and every living thing of every sort which goes on the earth, went out of the ark.

²⁰And Noah made an altar to the Lord, and from every clean beast and bird he made burned offerings on the altar.

²¹And when the sweet smell came up to the Lord, he said in his heart, I will not again put a curse on the earth because of man, for the thoughts of man's heart are evil from his earliest days; never again will I send destruction on all living things as I have done.

²²While the earth goes on, seed time and the getting in of the grain, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, will not come to an end.

9And God gave his blessing to Noah and his sons, and said, Be fertile, and have increase, and make the earth full.

²And the fear of you will be strong in every beast of the earth and every bird of the air; everything which goes on the land, and all the fishes of the sea, are given into your hands.

³Every living and moving thing will be food for you; I give them all to you as before I gave you all green things.

⁴But flesh with the life-blood in it you may not take for food.

⁵And for your blood, which is your life, will I take payment; from every beast I will take it, and from every man will I take payment for the blood of his brother-man.

⁶Whoever takes a man's life, by man will his life be taken; because God made man in his image.

⁷And now, be fertile and have increase; have offspring on the earth and become great in number.

⁸And God said to Noah and to his sons,

⁹Truly, I will make my agreement with you and with your seed after you,

¹⁰And with every living thing with you, all birds and cattle and every beast of the earth which comes out of the ark with you.

¹¹And I will make my agreement with you; never again will all flesh be cut off by the waters; never again will the waters come over all the earth for its destruction.

¹²And God said, This is the sign of the agreement which I make between me and you and every living thing with you, for all future generations:

¹³I will put my bow in the cloud and it will be for a sign of the agreement between me and the earth.

¹⁴And whenever I make a cloud come over the earth, the bow will be seen in the cloud,

¹⁵And I will keep in mind the agreement between me and you and every living thing; and never again will there be a great flow of waters causing destruction to all flesh.

¹⁶And the bow will be in the cloud, and looking on it, I will keep in mind the eternal agreement between God and every living thing on the earth.

¹⁷And God said to Noah, This is the sign of the agreement which I have made between me and all flesh on the earth.

¹⁸And the sons of Noah who went out of the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth; and Ham is the father of Canaan.

¹⁹These three were the sons of Noah and from them all the earth was peopled.

²⁰In those days Noah became a farmer, and he made a vine-garden.

²¹And he took of the wine of it and was overcome by drink; and he was uncovered in his tent.

²²And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father unclothed, and gave news of it to his two brothers outside.

²³And Shem and Japheth took a robe, and putting it on their backs went in with their faces turned away, and put it over their father so that they might not see him unclothed.

²⁴And, awaking from his wine, Noah saw what his youngest son had done to him, and he said,

²⁵Cursed be Canaan; let him be a servant of servants to his brothers.

²⁶And he said, Praise to the Lord, the God of Shem; let Canaan be his servant.

²⁷May God make Japheth great, and let his living-place be in the tents of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant.

²⁸And Noah went on living three hundred and fifty years after the great flow of waters;

²⁹all the years of his life were nine hundred and fifty: and he came to his end.

10Now these are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth: these are the sons which they had after the great flow of waters

²The sons of Japheth: Gomer and Magog and Madai and Javan and Tubal and Meshech and Tiras.

³And the sons of Gomer: Ashkenaz and Riphath and Togarmah.

⁴And the sons of Javan: Elishah and Tarshish, the Kittim and the Dodanim.

⁵From these came the nations of the sea-lands, with their different families and languages.

⁶And the sons of Ham: Cush and Mizraim and Put and Canaan.

⁷And the sons of Cush: Seba and Havilah and Sabtah and Raamah and Sabteca; and the sons of Raamah: Sheba and Dedan.

⁸And Cush was the father of Nimrod, who was the first of the great men of the earth.

⁹He was a very great bowman, so that there is a saying, Like Nimrod, a very great bowman.

¹⁰And at the first, his kingdom was Babel and Erech and Accad and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.

¹¹From that land he went out into Assyria, building Nineveh with its wide streets and Calah,

¹²And Resen between Nineveh and Calah, which is a very great town.

¹³And Mizraim was the father of the Ludim and Anamim and Lehabim and Naphtuhim;

¹⁴And Pathrusim and Casluhim and Caphtorim, from whom came the Philistines.

¹⁵And Canaan was the father of Zidon, who was his oldest son, and Heth,

¹⁶And the Jebusite and the Amorite and the Girgashite,

¹⁷And the Hivite and the Arkite and the Sinite,

¹⁸And the Arvadite and the Zemarite and the Hamathite; after that the families of the Canaanites went far and wide in all directions;

¹⁹Their country stretching from Zidon to Gaza, in the direction of Gerar; and to Lasha, in the direction of Sodom and Gomorrah and Admah and Zeboiim.

²⁰All these, with their different families, languages, lands, and nations, are the offspring of Ham.

²¹And Shem, the older brother of Japheth, the father of the children of Eber, had other sons in addition.

²²These are the sons of Shem: Elam and Asshur and Arpachshad and Lud and Aram.

²³And the sons of Aram: Uz and Hul and Gether and Mash.

²⁴And Arpachshad became the father of Shelah; and Shelah became the father of Eber.

²⁵And Eber had two sons: the name of the one was Peleg, because in his time the peoples of the earth became separate; and his brother's name was Joktan.

²⁶And Joktan was the father of Almodad and Sheleph and Hazarmaveth and Jerah

²⁷And Hadoram and Uzal and Diklah

²⁸And Obal and Abimael and Sheba

²⁹And Ophir and Havilah and Jobab; all these were the sons of Joktan.

³⁰And their country was from Mesha, in the direction of Sephar, the mountain of the east.

³¹These, with their families and their languages and their lands and their nations, are the offspring of Shem.

³²These are the families of the sons of Noah, in the order of their generations and their nations: from these came all the nations of the earth after the great flow of waters.

11And all the earth had one language and one tongue.

²And it came about that in their wandering from the east, they came to a stretch of flat country in the land of Shinar, and there they made their living-place.

³And they said one to another, Come, let us make bricks, burning them well. And they had bricks for stone, putting them together with sticky earth.

⁴And they said, Come, let us make a town, and a tower whose top will go up as high as heaven; and let us make a great name for ourselves, so that we may not be wanderers over the face of the earth.

⁵And the Lord came down to see the town and the tower which the children of men were building.

⁶And the Lord said, See, they are all one people and have all one language; and this is only the start of what they may do: and now it will not be possible to keep them from any purpose of theirs.

⁷Come, let us go down and take away the sense of their language, so that they will not be able to make themselves clear to one another.

⁸So the Lord God sent them away into every part of the earth: and they gave up building their town.

⁹So it was named Babel, because there the Lord took away the sense of all languages and from there the Lord sent them away over all the face of the earth.

¹⁰These are the generations of Shem. Shem was a hundred years old when he became the father of Arpachshad, two years after the great flow of waters;

¹¹And after the birth of Arpachshad, Shem went on living for five hundred years, and had sons and daughters:

¹²And Arpachshad was thirty-five years old when he became the father of Shelah:

¹³And after the birth of Shelah, Arpachshad went on living for four hundred and three years, and had sons and daughters:

¹⁴And Shelah was thirty years old when he became the father of Eber:

¹⁵And after the birth of Eber, Shelah went on living for four hundred and three years, and had sons and daughters:

¹⁶And Eber was thirty-four years old when he became the father of Peleg:

¹⁷And after the birth of Peleg, Eber went on living for four hundred and thirty years, and had sons and daughters:

¹⁸And Peleg was thirty years old when he became the father of Reu:

¹⁹And after the birth of Reu, Peleg went on living for two hundred and nine years, and had sons and daughters:

²⁰And Reu was thirty-two years old when he became the father of Serug:

²¹And after the birth of Serug, Reu went on living for two hundred and seven years, and had sons and daughters:

²²And Serug was thirty years old when he became the father of Nahor:

²³And after the birth of Nahor, Serug went on living for two hundred years, and had sons and daughters:

²⁴And Nahor was twenty-nine years old when he became the father of Terah:

²⁵And after the birth of Terah, Nahor went on living for a hundred and nineteen years, and had sons and daughters:

²⁶And Terah was seventy years old when he became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

²⁷These are the generations of Terah: Terah was the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran was the father of Lot.

²⁸And death came to Haran when he was with his father Terah in the land of his birth, Ur of the Chaldees.

²⁹And Abram and Nahor took wives for themselves: the name of Abram's wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor's wife was Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah and Iscah.

³⁰And Sarai had no child.

³¹And Terah took Abram, his son, and Lot, the son of Haran, and Sarai, his daughter-in-law, the wife of his son Abram and they went out from Ur of the Chaldees, to go to the land of Canaan; and they came to Haran, and were there for some time.

³²And all the years of Terah's life were two hundred and five: and Terah came to his end in Haran.

12Now the Lord said to Abram, Go out from your country and from your family and from your father's house, into the land to which I will be your guide:

²And I will make of you a great nation, blessing you and making your name great; and you will be a blessing:

³To them who are good to you will I give blessing, and on him who does you wrong will I put my curse: and you will become a name of blessing to all the families of the earth.

⁴So Abram went as the Lord had said to him, and Lot went with him: Abram was seventy-five years old when he went away from Haran.

⁵And Abram took Sarai, his wife, and Lot, his brother's son, and all their goods and the servants which they had got in Haran, and they went out to go to the land of Canaan.

⁶And Abram went through the land till he came to Shechem, to the holy tree of Moreh. At that time, the Canaanites were still living in the land.

⁷And the Lord came to Abram, and said, I will give all this land to your seed; then Abram made an altar there to the Lord who had let himself be seen by him.

⁸And moving on from there to the mountain on the east of Beth-el, he put up his tent, having Beth-el on the west and Ai on the east: and there he made an altar and gave worship to the name of the Lord.

⁹And he went on, journeying still to the South.

¹⁰And because there was little food to be had in that land, he went down into Egypt.

¹¹Now when he came near to Egypt, he said to Sarai, his wife, Truly, you are a fair woman and beautiful to the eye;

¹²And I am certain that when the men of Egypt see you, they will say, This is his wife: and they will put me to death and keep you.

¹³Say, then, that you are my sister, and so it will be well with me because of you, and my life will be kept safe on your account.

¹⁴And so it was that when Abram came into Egypt, the men of Egypt, looking on the woman, saw that she was fair.

¹⁵And Pharaoh's great men, having seen her, said words in praise of her to Pharaoh, and she was taken into Pharaoh's house.

¹⁶And because of her, he was good to Abram, and he had sheep and oxen and asses, and men-servants and women-servants, and camels.

¹⁷And the Lord sent great troubles on Pharaoh's house because of Sarai, Abram's wife.

¹⁸Then Pharaoh sent for Abram, and said, What have you done to me? why did you not say that she was your wife?

¹⁹Why did you say that she was your sister? so that I took her for my wife: now, take your wife and go on your way.

²⁰And Pharaoh gave orders to his men, and they sent him on his way, with his wife and all he had.

13And Abram went up out of Egypt with his wife and all he had, and Lot with him, and they came in to the South.

²Now Abram had great wealth of cattle and silver and gold.

³And travelling on from the South, he came to Beth-el, to the place where his tent had been before, between Beth-el and Ai;

⁴To the place where he had made his first altar, and there Abram gave worship to the name of the Lord.

⁵And Lot, who went with him, had flocks and herds and tents;

⁶So that the land was not wide enough for the two of them: their property was so great that there was not room for them together.

⁷And there was an argument between the keepers of Abram's cattle and the keepers of Lot's cattle: at that time the Canaanites and Perizzites were still living in the land.

⁸Then Abram said to Lot, Let there be no argument between me and you, and between my herdmen and your herdmen, for we are brothers.

⁹Is not all the land before you? then let us go our separate ways: if you go to the left, I will go to the right; or if you take the right, I will go to the left.

¹⁰And Lot, lifting up his eyes and looking an the valley of Jordan, saw that it was well watered everywhere, before the Lord had sent destruction on Sodom and Gomorrah; it was like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, on the way to Zoar.

¹¹So Lot took for himself all the valley of Jordan, and went to the east, and they were parted from one another.

¹²Abram went on living in the land of Canaan, and Lot went to the lowland towns, moving his tent as far as Sodom.

¹³Now the men of Sodom were evil, and great sinners before the Lord.

¹⁴And the Lord had said to Abram, after Lot was parted from him, From this place where you are take a look to the north and to the south, to the east and to the west:

¹⁵For all the land which you see I will give to you and to your seed for ever.

¹⁶And I will make your children like the dust of the earth, so that if the dust of the earth may be numbered, then will your children be numbered.

¹⁷Come, go through all the land from one end to the other for I will give it to you.

¹⁸And Abram, moving his tent, came and made his living-place by the holy tree of Mamre, which is in Hebron, and made an altar there to the Lord.

14Now in the days of Amraphel, king of Shinar, Arioch, king of Ellasar, Chedorlaomer, king of Elam, and Tidal, king of Goiim,

²They made war with Bera, king of Sodom, and with Birsha, king of Gomorrah, Shinab, king of Admah, and Shemeber, king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela (which is Zoar).

³All these came together in the valley of Siddim (which is the Salt Sea).

⁴For twelve years they were under the rule of Chedorlaomer, but in the thirteenth year they put off his control.

⁵And in the fourteenth year, Chedorlaomer and the kings who were on his side, overcame the Rephaim in Ashteroth-karnaim, and the Zuzim in Ham, and the Emim in Shaveh-kiriathaim,

⁶And the Horites in their mountain Seir, driving them as far as El-paran, which is near the waste land.

⁷Then they came back to En-mishpat (which is Kadesh), making waste all the country of the Amalekites and of the Amorites living in Hazazon-tamar.

⁸And the king of Sodom with the king of Gomorrah and the king of Admah and the king of Zeboiim and the king of Bela (that is Zoar), went out, and put their forces in position in the valley of Siddim,

⁹Against Chedorlaomer, king of Elam, and Tidal, king of Goiim, and Amraphel, king of Shinar, and Arioch, king of Ellasar: four kings against the five.

¹⁰Now the valley of Siddim was full of holes of sticky earth; and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah were put to flight and came to their end there, but the rest got away to the mountain.

¹¹And the four kings took all the goods and food from Sodom and Gomorrah and went on their way.

¹²And in addition they took Lot, Abram's brother's son, who was living in Sodom, and all his goods.

¹³And one who had got away from the fight came and gave word of it to Abram the Hebrew, who was living by the holy tree of Mamre, the Amorite, the brother of Eshcol and Aner, who were friends of Abram.

¹⁴And Abram, hearing that his brother's son had been made a prisoner, took a band of his trained men, three hundred and eighteen of them, sons of his house, and went after them as far as Dan.

¹⁵And separating his forces by night, he overcame them, putting them to flight and going after them as far as Hobah, which is on the north side of Damascus.

¹⁶And he got back all the goods, and Lot, his brother's son, with his goods and the women and the people.

¹⁷And when he was coming back after putting to flight Chedorlaomer and the other kings, he had a meeting with the king of Sodom in the valley of Shaveh, that is, the King's Valley.

¹⁸And Melchizedek, king of Salem, the priest of the Most High God, took bread and wine,

¹⁹And blessing him, said, May the blessing of the Most High God, maker of heaven and earth, be on Abram:

²⁰And let the Most High God be praised, who has given into your hands those who were against you. Then Abram gave him a tenth of all the goods he had taken.

²¹And the king of Sodom said to Abram, Give me the prisoners and take the goods for yourself.

²²But Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have taken an oath to the Lord, the Most High God, maker of heaven and earth,

²³That I will not take so much as a thread or the cord of a shoe of yours; so that you may not say, I have given wealth to Abram:

²⁴Give me nothing but the food which the fighting-men who went with me have had; but let Aner and Eshcol and Mamre have their part of the goods.

15After these things, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, Have no fear, Abram: I will keep you safe, and great will be your reward.

²And Abram said, What will you give me? for I have no child and this Eliezer of Damascus will have all my wealth after me.

³And Abram said, You have given me no child, and a servant in my house will get the heritage.

⁴Then said the Lord, This man will not get the heritage, but a son of your body will have your property after you.

⁵And he took him out into the open air, and said to him, Let your eyes be lifted to heaven, and see if the stars may be numbered; even so will your seed be.

⁶And he had faith in the Lord, and it was put to his account as righteousness.

⁷And he said to him, I am the Lord, who took you from Ur of the Chaldees, to give you this land for your heritage.

⁸And he said, O Lord God, how may I be certain that it will be mine?

⁹And he said, Take a young cow of three years old, and a she-goat of three years old, and a sheep of three years old, and a dove and a young pigeon.

¹⁰All these he took, cutting them in two and putting one half opposite the other, but not cutting the birds in two.

¹¹And evil birds came down on the bodies, but Abram sent them away.

¹²Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep came on Abram, and a dark cloud of fear.

¹³And he said to Abram, Truly, your seed will be living in a land which is not theirs, as servants to a people who will be cruel to them for four hundred years;

¹⁴But I will be the judge of that nation whose servants they are, and they will come out from among them with great wealth.

¹⁵As for you, you will go to your fathers in peace; at the end of a long life you will be put in your last resting-place.

¹⁶And in the fourth generation they will come back here; for at present the sin of the Amorite is not full.

¹⁷Then when the sun went down and it was dark, he saw a smoking fire and a flaming light which went between the parts of the bodies.

¹⁸In that day the Lord made an agreement with Abram, and said, To your seed have I given this land from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates:

¹⁹The Kenite, the Kenizzite, and the Kadmonite,

²⁰And the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Rephaim,

²¹And the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Girgashite, and the Jebusite.

16Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had given him no children; and she had a servant, a woman of Egypt whose name was Hagar.

²And Sarai said to Abram, See, the Lord has not let me have children; go in to my servant, for I may get a family through her. And Abram did as Sarai said.

³So after Abram had been living for ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai took Hagar, her Egyptian servant, and gave her to Abram for his wife.

⁴And he went in to Hagar and she became with child, and when she saw that she was with child, she no longer had any respect for her master's wife.

⁵And Sarai said to Abram, May my wrong be on you: I gave you my servant for your wife and when she saw that she was with child, she no longer had any respect for me: may the Lord be judge between you and me.

⁶And Abram said, The woman is in your power; do with her whatever seems good to you. And Sarai was cruel to her, so that she went running away from her.

⁷And an angel of the Lord came to her by a fountain of water in the waste land, by the fountain on the way to Shur.

⁸And he said, Hagar, Sarai's servant, where have you come from and where are you going? And she said, I am running away from Sarai, my master's wife.

⁹And the angel said to her, Go back, and put yourself under her authority.

¹⁰And the angel of the Lord said, Your seed will be greatly increased so that it may not be numbered.

¹¹And the angel of the Lord said, See, you are with child and will give birth to a son, to whom you will give the name Ishmael, because the ears of the Lord were open to your sorrow.

¹²And he will be like a mountain ass among men; his hand will be against every man and every man's hand against him, and he will keep his place against all his brothers.

¹³And to the Lord who was talking with her she gave this name, You are a God who is seen; for she said, Have I not even here in the waste land had a vision of God and am still living?

¹⁴So that fountain was named, Fountain of Life and Vision: it is between Kadesh and Bered.

¹⁵And Hagar gave birth to a child, the son of Abram, to whom Abram gave the name of Ishmael.

¹⁶Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar gave birth to Ishmael.

17When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord came to him, and said, I am God, Ruler of all; go in my ways and be upright in all things,

²And I will make an agreement between you and me, and your offspring will be greatly increased.

³And Abram went down on his face on the earth, and the Lord God went on talking with him, and said,

⁴As for me, my agreement is made with you, and you will be the father of nations without end.

⁵No longer will your name be Abram, but Abraham, for I have made you the father of a number of nations.

⁶I will make you very fertile, so that nations will come from you and kings will be your offspring.

⁷And I will make between me and you and your seed after you through all generations, an eternal agreement to be a God to you and to your seed after you.

⁸And to you and to your seed after you, I will give the land in which you are living, all the land of Canaan for an eternal heritage; and I will be their God.

⁹And God said to Abraham, On your side, you are to keep the agreement, you and your seed after you through all generations.

¹⁰And this is the agreement which you are to keep with me, you and your seed after you: every male among you is to undergo circumcision.

¹¹In the flesh of your private parts you are to undergo it, as a mark of the agreement between me and you.

¹²Every male among you, from one generation to another, is to undergo circumcision when he is eight days old, with every servant whose birth takes place in your house, or for whom you gave money to someone of another country, and not of your seed.

¹³He who comes to birth in your house and he who is made yours for a price, all are to undergo circumcision; so that my agreement may be marked in your flesh, an agreement for all time.

¹⁴And any male who does not undergo circumcision will be cut off from his people: my agreement has been broken by him.

¹⁵And God said, As for Sarai, your wife, from now her name will be not Sarai, but Sarah.

¹⁶And I will give her a blessing so that you will have a son by her: truly my blessing will be on her, and she will be the mother of nations: kings of peoples will be her offspring.

¹⁷Then Abraham went down on his face, and laughing, said in his heart, May a man a hundred years old have a child? will Sarah, at ninety years old, give birth?

¹⁸And Abraham said to God, If only Ishmael's life might be your care!

¹⁹And God said, Not so; but Sarah, your wife, will have a son, and you will give him the name Isaac, and I will make my agreement with him for ever and with his seed after him.

²⁰As for Ishmael, I have given ear to your prayer: truly I have given him my blessing and I will make him fertile and give him great increase; he will be the father of twelve chiefs, and I will make him a great nation.

²¹But my agreement will be with Isaac, to whom Sarah will give birth a year from this time.

²²And having said these words, God went up from Abraham.

²³And Abraham took Ishmael, his son, and all whose birth had taken place in his house, and all his servants whom he had made his for a price, every male of his house, and on that very day he gave them circumcision in the flesh of their private parts as God had said to him.

²⁴Abraham was ninety-nine years old when he underwent circumcision.

²⁵And Ishmael, his son, was thirteen years old when he underwent circumcision.

²⁶Abraham and Ishmael, his son, underwent circumcision on that very day.

²⁷And all the men of his house, those whose birth had taken place in the house and those whom he had got for money from men of other lands, underwent circumcision with him.

18Now the Lord came to him by the holy tree of Mamre, when he was seated in the doorway of his tent in the middle of the day;

²And lifting up his eyes, he saw three men before him; and seeing them, he went quickly to them from the door of the tent, and went down on his face to the earth;

³And said, My Lord, if now I have grace in your eyes, do not go away from your servant:

⁴Let me get water for washing your feet, and take your rest under the tree:

⁵And let me get a bit of bread to keep up your strength, and after that you may go on your way: for this is why you have come to your servant. And they said, Let it be so.

⁶Then Abraham went quickly into the tent, and said to Sarah, Get three measures of meal straight away and make cakes.

⁷And running to the herd, he took a young ox, soft and fat, and gave it to the servant and he quickly made it ready;

⁸And he took butter and milk and the young ox which he had made ready and put it before them, waiting by them under the tree while they took food.

⁹And they said to him, Where is Sarah your wife? And he said, She is in the tent.

¹⁰And he said, I will certainly come back to you in the spring, and Sarah your wife will have a son. And his words came to the ears of Sarah who was at the back of the tent-door.

¹¹Now Abraham and Sarah were very old, and Sarah was past the time for giving birth.

¹²And Sarah, laughing to herself, said, Now that I am used up am I still to have pleasure, my husband himself being old?

¹³And the Lord said, Why was Sarah laughing and saying, Is it possible for me, being old, to give birth to a child?

¹⁴Is there any wonder which the Lord is not able to do? At the time I said, in the spring, I will come back to you, and Sarah will have a child.

¹⁵Then Sarah said, I was not laughing; for she was full of fear. And he said, No, but you were laughing.

¹⁶And the men went on from there in the direction of Sodom; and Abraham went with them on their way.

¹⁷And the Lord said, Am I to keep back from Abraham the knowledge of what I do;

¹⁸Seeing that Abraham will certainly become a great and strong nation, and his name will be used by all the nations of the earth as a blessing?

¹⁹For I have made him mine so that he may give orders to his children and those of his line after him, to keep the ways of the Lord, to do what is good and right: so that the Lord may do to Abraham as he has said.

²⁰And the Lord said, Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is very great, and their sin is very evil,

²¹I will go down now, and see if their acts are as bad as they seem from the outcry which has come to me; and if they are not, I will see.

²²And the men, turning from that place, went on to Sodom: but Abraham was still waiting before the Lord.

²³And Abraham came near, and said, Will you let destruction come on the upright with the sinners?

²⁴If by chance there are fifty upright men in the town, will you give the place to destruction and not have mercy on it because of the fifty upright men?

²⁵Let such a thing be far from you, to put the upright to death with the sinner: will not the judge of all the earth do right?

²⁶And the Lord said, If there are fifty upright men in the town, I will have mercy on it because of them.

²⁷And Abraham answering said, Truly, I who am only dust, have undertaken to put my thoughts before the Lord:

²⁸If by chance there are five less than fifty upright men, will you give up all the town to destruction because of these five? And he said, I will not give it to destruction if there are forty-five.

²⁹And again he said to him, By chance there may be forty there. And he said, I will not do it if there are forty.

³⁰And he said, Let not the Lord be angry with me if I say, What if there are thirty there? And he said, I will not do it if there are thirty.

³¹And he said, See now, I have undertaken to put my thoughts before the Lord: what if there are twenty there? And he said, I will have mercy because of the twenty.

³²And he said, O let not the Lord be angry and I will say only one word more: by chance there may be ten there. And he said, I will have mercy because of the ten.

³³And the Lord went on his way when his talk with Abraham was ended, and Abraham went back to his place.

19And at nightfall the two angels came to Sodom; and Lot was seated at the way into the town: and when he saw them he got up and came before them, falling down on his face to the earth.

²And he said, My masters, come now into your servant's house and take your rest there for the night, and let your feet be washed; and early in the morning you may go on your way. And they said, Not so, but we will take our night's rest in the street.

³But he made his request more strongly, so they went with him into his house; and he got food ready for them, and made unleavened bread, of which they took.

⁴But before they had gone to bed, the men of the town, all the men of Sodom, came round the house, young and old, from every part of the town;

⁵And crying out to Lot, they said, Where are the men who came to your house this night? Send them out to us, so that we may take our pleasure with them.

⁶And Lot went out to them in the doorway, shutting the door after him.

⁷And he said, My brothers, do not this evil.

⁸See now, I have two unmarried daughters; I will send them out to you so that you may do to them whatever seems good to you: only do nothing to these men, for this is why they have come under the shade of my roof.

⁹And they said, Give way there. This one man, they said, came here from a strange country, and will he now be our judge? now we will do worse to you than to them; and pushing violently against Lot, they came near to get the door broken in.

¹⁰But the men put out their hands and took Lot into the house to them, shutting the door again.

¹¹But the men who were outside the door they made blind, all of them, small and great, so that they were tired out with looking for the door.

¹²Then the men said to Lot, Are there any others of your family here? sons-in-law or sons or daughters, take them all out of this place;

¹³For we are about to send destruction on this place, because a great outcry against them has come to the ears of the Lord; and the Lord has sent us to put an end to the town.

¹⁴And Lot went out and said to his sons-in-law, who were married to his daughters, Come, let us go out of this place, for the Lord is about to send destruction on the town. But his sons-in-law did not take him seriously.

¹⁵And when morning came, the angels did all in their power to make Lot go, saying, Get up quickly and take your wife and your two daughters who are here, and go, for fear that you come to destruction in the punishment of the town.

¹⁶But while he was waiting, the men took him and his wife and his daughters by the hand, for the Lord had mercy on them, and put them outside the town.

¹⁷And when they had put them out, he said, Go for your life, without looking back or waiting in the lowland; go quickly to the mountain or you will come to destruction.

¹⁸And Lot said to them, Not so, O my Lord;

¹⁹See now, your servant has had grace in your eyes and great is your mercy in keeping my life from destruction, but I am not able to get as far as the mountain before evil overtakes me and death;

²⁰This town, now, is near, and it is a little one: O, let me go there (is it not a little one?) so that my life may be safe.

²¹And he said, See, I have given you your request in this one thing more: I will not send destruction on this town.

²²Go there quickly, for I am not able to do anything till you have come there. For this reason, the town was named Zoar.

²³The sun was up when Lot came to Zoar.

²⁴Then the Lord sent fire and flaming smoke raining down from heaven on Sodom and Gomorrah.

²⁵And he sent destruction on those towns, with all the lowland and all the people of those towns and every green thing in the land.

²⁶But Lot's wife, looking back, became a pillar of salt.

²⁷And Abraham got up early in the morning and went to the place where he had been talking with the Lord:

²⁸And looking in the direction of Sodom and Gomorrah and the lowland, he saw the smoke of the land going up like the smoke of an oven.

²⁹So it came about that when God sent destruction on the towns of the lowland, he kept his word to Abraham, and sent Lot safely away when he put an end to the towns where he was living.

³⁰Then Lot went up out of Zoar to the mountain, and was living there with his two daughters, for fear kept him from living in Zoar: and he and his daughters made their living-place in a hole in the rock.

³¹And the older daughter said to her sister, Our father is old, and there is no man to be a husband to us in the natural way:

³²Come, let us give our father much wine, and we will go into his bed, so that we may have offspring by our father,

³³And that night they made their father take much wine; and the older daughter went into his bed; and he had no knowledge of when she went in or when she went away.

³⁴And on the day after, the older daughter said to the younger, Last night I was with my father; let us make him take much wine this night again, and do you go to him, so that we may have offspring by our father.

³⁵And that night again they made their father take much wine; and the younger daughter went into his bed; and he had no knowledge of when she went in or when she went away.

³⁶And so the two daughters of Lot were with child by their father.

³⁷And the older daughter had a son, and she gave him the name Moab: he is the father of the Moabites to this day.

³⁸And the younger had a son and gave him the name Ben-ammi: from him come the children of Ammon to this day.

20And Abraham went on his way from there to the land of the South, and was living between Kadesh and Shur, in Gerar.

²And Abraham said of Sarah, his wife, She is my sister: and Abimelech, king of Gerar, sent and took Sarah.

³But God came to Abimelech in a dream in the night, and said to him, Truly you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken; for she is a man's wife.

⁴Now Abimelech had not come near her; and he said, Lord, will you put to death an upright nation?

⁵Did he not say to me himself, She is my sister? and she herself said, He is my brother: with an upright heart and clean hands have I done this.

⁶And God said to him in the dream, I see that you have done this with an upright heart, and I have kept you from sinning against me: for this reason I did not let you come near her.

⁷So now, give the man back his wife, for he is a prophet, and let him say a prayer for you, so your life may be safe: but if you do not give her back, be certain that death will come to you and all your house.

⁸So Abimelech got up early in the morning and sent for all his servants and gave them word of these things, and they were full of fear.

⁹Then Abimelech sent for Abraham, and said, What have you done to us? what wrong have I done you that you have put on me and on my kingdom so great a sin? You have done to me things which are not to be done.

¹⁰And Abimelech said to Abraham, Why did you do this thing?

¹¹And Abraham said, Because it seemed to me that there was no fear of God in this place, and that they might put me to death because of my wife.

¹²And, in fact, she is my sister, the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife:

¹³And when God sent me wandering from my father's house, I said to her, Let this be the sign of your love for me; wherever we go, say of me, He is my brother.

¹⁴Then Abimelech gave to Abraham sheep and oxen and men-servants and women-servants, and gave him back his wife Sarah.

¹⁵And Abimelech said, See, all my land is before you; take whatever place seems good to you.

¹⁶And he said to Sarah, See, I have given to your brother a thousand bits of silver so that your wrong may be put right; now your honour is clear in the eyes of all.

¹⁷Then Abraham made prayer to God, and God made Abimelech well again, and his wife and his women-servants, so that they had children.

¹⁸For the Lord had kept all the women of the house of Abimelech from having children, because of Sarah, Abraham's wife.

21And the Lord came to Sarah as he had said and did to her as he had undertaken.

²And Sarah became with child, and gave Abraham a son when he was old, at the time named by God.

³And Abraham gave to his son, to whom Sarah had given birth, the name Isaac.

⁴And when his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham made him undergo circumcision, as God had said to him.

⁵Now Abraham was a hundred years old when the birth of Isaac took place.

⁶And Sarah said, God has given me cause for laughing, and everyone who has news of it will be laughing with me.

⁷And she said, Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would have a child at her breast? for see, I have given him a son now when he is old.

⁸And when the child was old enough to be taken from the breast, Abraham made a great feast.

⁹And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian playing with Isaac.

¹⁰So she said to Abraham, Send away that woman and her son: for the son of that woman is not to have a part in the heritage with my son Isaac.

¹¹And this was a great grief to Abraham because of his son.

¹²But God said, Let it not be a grief to you because of the boy and Hagar his mother; give ear to whatever Sarah says to you, because it is from Isaac that your seed will take its name.

¹³And I will make a nation of the son of your servant-woman, because he is your seed.

¹⁴And early in the morning Abraham got up, and gave Hagar some bread and a water-skin, and put the boy on her back, and sent her away: and she went, wandering in the waste land of Beer-sheba.

¹⁵And when all the water in the skin was used up, she put the child down under a tree.

¹⁶And she went some distance away, about an arrow flight, and seating herself on the earth, she gave way to bitter weeping, saying, Let me not see the death of my child.

¹⁷And the boy's cry came to the ears of God; and the angel of God said to Hagar from heaven, Hagar, why are you weeping? have no fear, for the child's cry has come to the ears of God.

¹⁸Come, take your child in your arms, for I will make of him a great nation.

¹⁹Then God made her eyes open, and she saw a water-spring, and she got water in the skin and gave the boy a drink.

²⁰And God was with the boy, and he became tall and strong, and he became a bowman, living in the waste land.

²¹And while he was in the waste land of Paran, his mother got him a wife from the land of Egypt.

²²Now at that time, Abimelech and Phicol, the captain of his army, said to Abraham, I see that God is with you in all you do.

²³Now, then, give me your oath, in the name of God, that you will not be false to me or to my sons after me, but that as I have been good to you, so you will be to me and to this land where you have been living.

²⁴And Abraham said, I will give you my oath.

²⁵But Abraham made a protest to Abimelech because of a water-hole which Abimelech's servants had taken by force.

²⁶But Abimelech said, I have no idea who has done this thing; you never gave me word of it, and I had no knowledge of it till this day.

²⁷And Abraham took sheep and oxen and gave them to Abimelech, and the two of them made an agreement together.

²⁸And Abraham put seven young lambs of the flock on one side by themselves.

²⁹Then Abimelech said, What are these seven lambs which you have put on one side?

³⁰And he said, Take these seven lambs from me as a witness that I have made this water-hole.

³¹So he gave that place the name Beer-sheba, because there the two of them had given their oaths.

³²So they made an agreement at Beer-sheba, and Abimelech and Phicol, the captain of his army, went back to the land of the Philistines.

³³And Abraham, after planting a holy tree in Beer-sheba, gave worship to the name of the Lord, the Eternal God.

³⁴And Abraham went on living in the land of the Philistines as in a strange country.

22Now after these things, God put Abraham to the test, and said to him, Abraham; and he said, Here am I.

²And he said to him, Take your son, your dearly loved only son Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah and give him as a burned offering on one of the mountains of which I will give you knowledge.

³And Abraham got up early in the morning, and made ready his ass, and took with him two of his young men and Isaac, his son, and after the wood for the burned offering had been cut, he went on his way to the place of which God had given him word.

⁴And on the third day, Abraham, lifting up his eyes, saw the place a long way off.

⁵Then he said to his young men, Keep here with the ass; and I and the boy will go on and give worship and come back again to you.

⁶And Abraham put the wood for the burned offering on his son's back, and he himself took the fire and the knife in his hand, and the two of them went on together.

⁷Then Isaac said to Abraham, My father; and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, We have wood and fire here, but where is the lamb for the burned offering?

⁸And Abraham said, God himself will give the lamb for the burned offering: so they went on together.

⁹And they came to the place of which God had given him knowledge; and there Abraham made the altar and put the wood in place on it, and having made tight the bands round Isaac his son, he put him on the wood on the altar.

¹⁰And stretching out his hand, Abraham took the knife to put his son to death.

¹¹But the voice of the angel of the Lord came from heaven, saying, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I.

¹²And he said, Let not your hand be stretched out against the boy to do anything to him; for now I am certain that the fear of God is in your heart, because you have not kept back your son, your only son, from me.

¹³And lifting up his eyes, Abraham saw a sheep fixed by its horns in the brushwood: and Abraham took the sheep and made a burned offering of it in place of his son.

¹⁴And Abraham gave that place the name Yahweh-yireh: as it is said to this day, In the mountain the Lord is seen.

¹⁵And the voice of the angel of the Lord came to Abraham a second time from heaven,

¹⁶Saying, I have taken an oath by my name, says the Lord, because you have done this and have not kept back from me your dearly loved only son,

¹⁷That I will certainly give you my blessing, and your seed will be increased like the stars of heaven and the sand by the seaside; your seed will take the land of those who are against them;

¹⁸And your seed will be a blessing to all the nations of the earth, because you have done what I gave you orders to do.

¹⁹Then Abraham went back to his young men and they went together to Beer-sheba, the place where Abraham was living.

²⁰After these things, Abraham had news that Milcah, the wife of his brother Nahor, had given birth to children;

²¹Uz the oldest, and Buz his brother, and Kemuel, the father of Aram,

²²And Chesed and Hazo and Pildash and Jidlaph and Bethuel.

²³Bethuel was the father of Rebekah: these eight were the children of Milcah and Nahor, Abraham's brother.

²⁴And his servant Reumah gave birth to Tebah and Gaham and Tahash and Maacah.

23Now the years of Sarah's life were a hundred and twenty-seven.

²And Sarah's death took place in Kiriath-arba, that is, Hebron, in the land of Canaan: and Abraham went into his house, weeping and sorrowing for Sarah.

³And Abraham came from his dead and said to the children of Heth,

⁴I am living among you as one from a strange country: give me some land here as my property, so that I may put my dead to rest.

⁵And in answer the children of Heth said to Abraham,

⁶My lord, truly you are a great chief among us; take the best of our resting-places for your dead; not one of us will keep back from you a place where you may put your dead to rest.

⁷And Abraham got up and gave honour to the children of Heth, the people of that land.

⁸And he said to them, If you will let me put my dead to rest here, make a request for me to Ephron, the son of Zohar,

⁹That he will give me the hollow in the rock named Machpelah, which is his property at the end of his field; let him give it to me for its full price as a resting-place for my dead among you.

¹⁰Now Ephron was seated among the children of Heth: and Ephron the Hittite gave Abraham his answer in the hearing of the children of Heth, and of all those who came into his town, saying,

¹¹No, my lord, I will give you the field with the hollow in the rock; before all the children of my people will I give it to you for a resting-place for your dead.

¹²And Abraham went down on his face before the people of the land.

¹³And Abraham said to Ephron, in the hearing of the people of the land, If only you will give ear to me, I will give you the price of the field; take it, and let me put my dead to rest there.

¹⁴So Ephron said to Abraham,

¹⁵My lord, give ear to me: the value of the land is four hundred shekels; what is that between me and you? so put your dead to rest there.

¹⁶And Abraham took note of the price fixed by Ephron in the hearing of the children of Heth, and gave him four hundred shekels in current money.

¹⁷So Ephron's field at Machpelah near Mamre, with the hollow in the rock and all the trees in the field and round it,

¹⁸Became the property of Abraham before the eyes of the children of Heth and of all who came into the town.

¹⁹Then Abraham put Sarah his wife to rest in the hollow rock in the field of Machpelah near Mamre, that is, Hebron in the land of Canaan.

²⁰And the field and the hollow rock were handed over to Abraham as his property by the children of Heth.

24Now Abraham was old and far on in years: and the Lord had given him everything in full measure.

²And Abraham said to his chief servant, the manager of all his property, Come now, put your hand under my leg:

³And take an oath by the Lord, the God of heaven and the God of the earth, that you will not get a wife for my son Isaac from the daughters of the Canaanites among whom I am living;

⁴But that you will go into my country and to my relations and get a wife there for my son Isaac.

⁵And the servant said, If by chance the woman will not come with me into this land, am I to take your son back again to the land from which you came?

⁶And Abraham said, Take care that you do not let my son go back to that land.

⁷The Lord God of heaven, who took me from my father's house and from the land of my birth, and made an oath to me, saying, To your seed I will give this land: he will send his angel before you and give you a wife for my son in that land.

⁸And if the woman will not come with you, then you are free from this oath; only do not take my son back there.

⁹And the servant put his hand under Abraham's leg, and gave him his oath about this thing.

¹⁰And the servant took ten of his master's camels, and all sorts of good things of his master's, and went to Mesopotamia, to the town of Nahor.

¹¹And he made the camels take their rest outside the town by the water-spring in the evening, at the time when the women came to get water.

¹²And he said, O Lord, the God of my master Abraham, let me do well in what I have undertaken this day, and give your mercy to my master Abraham.

¹³See, I am waiting here by the water-spring; and the daughters of the town are coming out to get water:

¹⁴Now, may the girl to whom I say, Let down your vessel and give me a drink, and who says in answer, Here is a drink for you and let me give water to your camels: may she be the one marked out by you for your servant Isaac: so may I be certain that you have been good to my master Abraham.

¹⁵And even before his words were ended, Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel, the son of Milcah, who was the wife of Nahor, Abraham's brother, came out with her water-vessel on her arm.

¹⁶She was a very beautiful girl, a virgin, who had never been touched by a man: and she went down to the spring to get water in her vessel.

¹⁷And the servant came running to her and said, Give me a little water from your vessel.

¹⁸And she said, Take a drink, my lord: and quickly letting down her vessel onto her hand, she gave him a drink.

¹⁹And having done so, she said, I will get water for your camels till they have had enough.

²⁰And after putting the water from her vessel into the animals' drinking-place, she went quickly back to the spring and got water for all the camels.

²¹And the man, looking at her, said nothing, waiting to see if the Lord had given his journey a good outcome.

²²And when the camels had had enough, the man took a gold nose-ring, half a shekel in weight, and two ornaments for her arms of ten shekels weight of gold;

²³And said to her, Whose daughter are you? is there room in your father's house for us?

²⁴And she said to him, I am the daughter of Bethuel, the son of Milcah, Nahor's wife.

²⁵And she said, We have a great store of dry grass and cattle-food, and there is room for you.

²⁶And with bent head the man gave worship to the Lord;

²⁷And said, Praise be to the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who has given a sign that he is good and true to my master, by guiding me straight to the house of my master's family.

²⁸So the girl went running and took the news of these things to her mother's house

²⁹Now Rebekah had a brother named Laban, and he came out quickly to the man at the water-spring.

³⁰And when he saw the nose-ring and the ornaments on his sister's hands, and when she gave him word of what the man had said to her, then he went out to the man who was waiting with the camels by the water-spring.

³¹And he said to him, Come in, you on whom is the blessing of the Lord; why are you waiting outside? for I have made the house ready for you, and a place for the camels.

³²Then the man came into the house, and Laban took their cords off the camels and gave them dry grass and food, and he gave to him and the men who were with him water for washing their feet.

³³And meat was put before him, but he said, I will not take food till I have made my business clear to you. And they said, Do so.

³⁴And he said, I am Abraham's servant.

³⁵The Lord has given my master every blessing, and he has become great: he has given him flocks and herds and silver and gold, and men-servants and women-servants and camels and asses.

³⁶And when Sarah, my master's wife, was old, she gave birth to a son, to whom he has given all he has.

³⁷And my master made me take an oath, saying, Do not get a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites among whom I am living;

³⁸But go to my father's house and to my relations for a wife for my son.

³⁹And I said to my master, What if the woman will not come with me?

⁴⁰And he said, The Lord, whom I have ever kept before me, will send his angel with you, who will make it possible for you to get a wife for my son from my relations and my father's house;

⁴¹And you will be free from your oath to me when you come to my people; and if they will not give her to you, you will be free from your oath.

⁴²And I came today to the water-spring, and I said, O Lord, the God of my master Abraham, if it is your purpose to give a good outcome to my journey,

⁴³Let it come about that, while I am waiting here by the water-spring, if a girl comes to get water and I say to her, Give me a little water from your vessel, and she says,

⁴⁴Take a drink, and I will get water for your camels; let her be the woman marked out by the Lord for my master's son.

⁴⁵And even while I was saying this to myself, Rebekah came out with her vessel on her arm; and she went down to the spring to get water; and I said to her, Give me a drink.

⁴⁶And straight away she took down her vessel from her arm, and said, Take a drink, and I will get water for your camels.

⁴⁷And questioning her, I said, Whose daughter are you? And she said, The daughter of Bethuel, the son of Nahor, and Milcah his wife. Then I put the ring on her nose and the ornaments on her hands.

⁴⁸And with bent head I gave worship and praise to the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, by whom I had been guided in the right way, to get the daughter of my master's brother for his son.

⁴⁹And now, say if you will do what is good and right for my master or not, in order that it may be clear to me what I have to do.

⁵⁰Then Laban and Bethuel said in answer, This is the Lord's doing: it is not for us to say Yes or No to you.

⁵¹See, here is Rebekah: take her and go, and let her be your master's son's wife, as the Lord has said.

⁵²And at these words, Abraham's servant went down on his face and gave praise to the Lord.

⁵³Then he took jewels of silver and jewels of gold and fair robes and gave them to Rebekah: and he gave things of value to her mother and her brother.

⁵⁴Then he and the men who were with him had food and drink, and took their rest there that night; and in the morning he got up, and said, Let me now go back to my master.

⁵⁵But her brother and her mother said, Let the girl be with us a week or ten days, and then she may go.

⁵⁶And he said, Do not keep me; the Lord has given a good outcome to my journey; let me now go back to my master.

⁵⁷And they said, We will send for the girl, and let her make the decision.

⁵⁸And they sent for Rebekah and said to her, Are you ready to go with this man? And she said, I am ready.

⁵⁹So they sent their sister Rebekah and her servant with Abraham's servant and his men.

⁶⁰And they gave Rebekah their blessing, saying, O sister, may you be the mother of thousands and ten thousands; and may your seed overcome all those who make war against them.

⁶¹So Rebekah and her servant-women went with the man, seated on the camels; and so the servant took Rebekah and went on his way.

⁶²Now Isaac had come through the waste land to Beer-lahai-roi; for he was living in the South.

⁶³And when the evening was near, he went wandering out into the fields, and lifting up his eyes he saw camels coming.

⁶⁴And when Rebekah, looking up, saw Isaac, she got down from her camel,

⁶⁵And said to the servant, Who is that man coming to us through the field? And the servant said, It is my master: then she took her veil, covering her face with it.

⁶⁶Then the servant gave Isaac the story of all he had done.

⁶⁷And Isaac took Rebekah into his tent and she became his wife; and in his love for her, Isaac was comforted after his father's death.

25And Abraham took another wife named Keturah.

²She became the mother of Zimran and Jokshan and Medan and Midian and Ishbak and Shuah.

³And Jokshan became the father of Sheba and Dedan. And from Dedan came the Asshurim and Letushim and Leummim.

⁴And from Midian came Ephah and Epher and Hanoch and Abida and Eldaah. All these were the offspring of Keturah.

⁵Now Abraham gave all his property to Isaac;

⁶But to the sons of his other women he gave offerings, and sent them away, while he was still living, into the east country.

⁷Now the years of Abraham's life were a hundred and seventy-five.

⁸And Abraham came to his death, an old man, full of years; and he was put to rest with his people.

⁹And Isaac and Ishmael, his sons, put him to rest in the hollow rock of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron, the son of Zohar the Hittite, near Mamre;

¹⁰The same field which Abraham got from the children of Heth: there Abraham was put to rest with Sarah, his wife.

¹¹Now after the death of Abraham, the blessing of God was with Isaac, his son.

¹²Now these are the generations of Ishmael, the son of Abraham, whose mother was Hagar the Egyptian, the servant of Sarah:

¹³These are the names of the sons of Ishmael by their generations: Ishmael's first son was Nebaioth; then Kedar and Adbeel and Mibsam

¹⁴And Mishma and Dumah and Massa,

¹⁵Hadad and Tema, Jetur, Naphish, and Kedemah:

¹⁶These are the sons of Ishmael, and these are their names in their towns and their tent-circles; twelve chiefs with their peoples.

¹⁷And the years of Ishmael's life were a hundred and thirty-seven: and he came to his end, and was put to rest with his people.

¹⁸And their country was from Havilah to Shur which is east of Egypt: they took their place to the east of all their brothers.

¹⁹Now these are the generations of Abraham's son Isaac:

²⁰Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel the Aramaean of Paddan-aram, and the sister of Laban the Aramaean, to be his wife.

²¹Isaac made prayer to the Lord for his wife because she had no children; and the Lord gave ear to his prayer, and Rebekah became with child.

²²And the children were fighting together inside her, and she said, If it is to be so, why am I like this? So she went to put her question to the Lord.

²³And the Lord said to her, Two nations are in your body, and two peoples will come to birth from you: the one will be stronger than the other, and the older will be the servant of the younger.

²⁴And when the time came for her to give birth, there were two children in her body.

²⁵And the first came out red from head to foot like a robe of hair, and they gave him the name of Esau.

²⁶And after him, his brother came out, gripping Esau's foot; and he was named Jacob: Isaac was sixty years old when she gave birth to them.

²⁷And the boys came to full growth; and Esau became a man of the open country, an expert bowman; but Jacob was a quiet man, living in tents.

²⁸Now Isaac's love was for Esau, because Esau's meat was greatly to his taste: but Rebekah had more love for Jacob.

²⁹And one day Jacob was cooking some soup when Esau came in from the fields in great need of food;

³⁰And Esau said to Jacob, Give me a full meal of that red soup, for I am overcome with need for food: for this reason he was named Edom.

³¹And Jacob said, First of all give me your birthright.

³²And Esau said, Truly, I am at the point of death: what profit is the birthright to me?

³³And Jacob said, First of all give me your oath; and he gave him his oath, handing over his birthright to Jacob.

³⁴Then Jacob gave him bread and soup; and he took food and drink and went away, caring little for his birthright.

26Then came a time of great need in the land, like that which had been before in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went to Abimelech, king of the Philistines, at Gerar.

²And the Lord came to him in a vision and said, Do not go down to Egypt; keep in the land of which I will give you knowledge:

³Keep in this land, and I will be with you and give you my blessing; for to you and to your seed will I give all these lands, giving effect to the oath which I made to your father Abraham;

⁴I will make your seed like the stars of heaven in number, and will give them all these lands, and your seed will be a blessing to all the nations of the earth;

⁵Because Abraham gave ear to my voice and kept my words, my rules, my orders, and my laws.

⁶So Isaac went on living in Gerar;

⁷And when he was questioned by the men of the place about his wife, he said, She is my sister; fearing to say, She is my wife; for, he said, the men of the place may put me to death on account of Rebekah; because she is very beautiful.

⁸And when he had been there for some time, Abimelech, king of the Philistines, looking through a window, saw Isaac playing with Rebekah his wife.

⁹And he said to Isaac, It is clear that she is your wife: why then did you say, She is my sister? And Isaac said, For fear that I might be put to death because of her.

¹⁰Then Abimelech said, What have you done to us? one of the people might well have had connection with your wife, and the sin would have been ours.

¹¹And Abimelech gave orders to his people that anyone touching Isaac or his wife was to be put to death.

¹²Now Isaac, planting seed in that land, got in the same year fruit a hundred times as much, for the blessing of the Lord was on him.

¹³And his wealth became very great, increasing more and more;

¹⁴For he had great wealth of flocks and herds and great numbers of servants; so that the Philistines were full of envy.

¹⁵Now all the water-holes, which his father's servants had made in the days of Abraham, had been stopped up with earth by the Philistines.

¹⁶And Abimelech said to Isaac, Go away from us, for you are stronger than we are.

¹⁷So Isaac went away from there, and put up his tents in the valley of Gerar, making his living-place there.

¹⁸And he made again the water-holes which had been made in the days of Abraham his father, and which had been stopped up by the Philistines; and he gave them the names which his father had given them.

¹⁹Now Isaac's servants made holes in the valley, and came to a spring of flowing water.

²⁰But the herdmen of Gerar had a fight with Isaac's herdmen, for they said, The spring is ours: so he gave the spring the name of Esek, because there was a fight about it.

²¹Then they made another water-hole, and there was a fight about that, so he gave it the name of Sitnah.

²²Then he went away from there, and made another water-hole, about which there was no fighting: so he gave it the name of Rehoboth, for he said, Now the Lord has made room for us, and we will have fruit in this land.

²³And from there he went on to Beer-sheba.

²⁴That night the Lord came to him in a vision, and said, I am the God of your father Abraham: have no fear for I am with you, blessing you, and your seed will be increased because of my servant Abraham.

²⁵Then he made an altar there, and gave worship to the name of the Lord, and he put up his tents there, and there his servants made a water-hole.

²⁶And Abimelech had come to him from Gerar, with Ahuzzath his friend and Phicol, the captain of his army.

²⁷And Isaac said to them, Why have you come to me, seeing that in your hate for me you sent me away from you?

²⁸And they said, We saw clearly that the Lord was with you: so we said, Let there be an oath between us and you, and let us make an agreement with you;

²⁹That you will do us no damage, even as we put no hand on you, and did you nothing but good, and sent you away in peace: and now the blessing of the Lord is on you.

³⁰Then he made a feast for them, and they all had food and drink.

³¹And early in the morning they took an oath one to the other: then Isaac sent them away and they went on their way in peace.

³²And that day Isaac's servants came to him and gave him word of the water-hole which they had made, and said to him, We have come to water.

³³And he gave it the name of Shibah: so the name of that town is Beer-sheba to this day.

³⁴And when Esau was forty years old, he took as his wives Judith, the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath, the daughter of Elon the Hittite:

³⁵And Isaac and Rebekah had grief of mind because of them.

27Now when Isaac was old and his eyes had become clouded so that he was not able to see, he sent for Esau, his first son, and said to him, My son: and he said, Here am I.

²And he said, See now, I am old, and my death may take place at any time:

³So take your arrows and your bow and go out to the field and get meat for me;

⁴And make me food, good to the taste, such as is pleasing to me, and put it before me, so that I may have a meal and give you my blessing before death comes to me.

⁵Now Isaac's words to his son were said in Rebekah's hearing. Then Esau went out to get the meat.

⁶And Rebekah said to Jacob, her son, Your father said to your brother Esau in my hearing,

⁷Go and get some roe's meat and make me a good meal, so that I may be full, and give you my blessing before the Lord before my death.

⁸Now, my son, do what I say.

⁹Go to the flock and get me two fat young goats; and I will make of them a meal to your father's taste:

¹⁰And you will take it to him, so that he may have a good meal and give you his blessing before his death.

¹¹And Jacob said to Rebekah, his mother, But Esau my brother is covered with hair, while I am smooth:

¹²If by chance my father puts his hand on me, it will seem to him that I am tricking him, and he will put a curse on me in place of a blessing.

¹³And his mother said, Let the curse be on me, my son: only do as I say, and go and get them for me.

¹⁴So he went and got them and took them to his mother: and she made a meal to his father's taste.

¹⁵And Rebekah took the fair robes of her oldest son, which were with her in the house, and put them on Jacob, her younger son:

¹⁶And she put the skins of the young goats on his hands and on the smooth part of his neck:

¹⁷And she gave into the hand of Jacob, her son, the meat and the bread which she had made ready.

¹⁸And he came to his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I: who are you, my son?

¹⁹And Jacob said, I am Esau, your oldest son; I have done as you said: come now, be seated and take of my meat, so that you may give me a blessing.

²⁰And Isaac said, How is it that you have got it so quickly, my son? And he said, Because the Lord your God made it come my way.

²¹And Isaac said, Come near so that I may put my hand on you, my son, and see if you are truly my son Esau or not.

²²And Jacob went near his father Isaac: and he put his hands on him; and he said, The voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau.

²³And he did not make out who he was, because his hands were covered with hair like his brother Esau's hands: so he gave him a blessing.

²⁴And he said, Are you truly my son Esau? And he said, I am.

²⁵And he said, Put it before me and I will take of my son's meat, so that I may give you a blessing. And he put it before him and he took it; and he gave him wine, and he had a drink.

²⁶And his father Isaac said to him, Come near now, my son, and give me a kiss.

²⁷And he came near and gave him a kiss; and smelling the smell of his clothing, he gave him a blessing, and said, See, the smell of my son is like the smell of a field on which the blessing of the Lord has come:

²⁸May God give you the dew of heaven, and the good things of the earth, and grain and wine in full measure:

²⁹Let peoples be your servants, and nations go down before you: be lord over your brothers, and let your mother's sons go down before you: a curse be on everyone by whom you are cursed, and a blessing on those who give you a blessing.

³⁰And when Isaac had come to the end of blessing Jacob, and Jacob had not long gone away from Isaac his father, Esau came in from the field.

³¹And he made ready a meal, good to the taste, and took it to his father, and said to him, Let my father get up and take of his son's meat, so that you may give me a blessing.

³²And Isaac his father said to him, Who are you? And he said, I am your oldest son, Esau.

³³And in great fear Isaac said, Who then is he who got meat and put it before me, and I took it all before you came, and gave him a blessing, and his it will be?

³⁴And hearing the words of his father, Esau gave a great and bitter cry, and said to his father, Give a blessing to me, even to me, O my father!

³⁵And he said, Your brother came with deceit, and took away your blessing.

³⁶And he said, Is it because he is named Jacob that he has twice taken my place? for he took away my birthright, and now he has taken away my blessing. And he said, Have you not kept a blessing for me?

³⁷And Isaac answering said, But I have made him your master, and have given him all his brothers for servants; I have made him strong with grain and wine: what then am I to do for you, my son?

³⁸And Esau said to his father, Is that the only blessing you have, my father? give a blessing to me, even me! And Esau was overcome with weeping.

³⁹Then Isaac his father made answer and said to him, Far from the fertile places of the earth, and far from the dew of heaven on high will your living-place be:

⁴⁰By your sword will you get your living and you will be your brother's servant; but when your power is increased his yoke will be broken from off your neck.

⁴¹So Esau was full of hate for Jacob because of his father's blessing; and he said in his heart, The days of weeping for my father are near; then I will put my brother Jacob to death.

⁴²Then Rebekah, hearing what Esau had said, sent for Jacob, her younger son, and said to him, It seems that your brother Esau is purposing to put you to death.

⁴³So now, my son, do what I say: go quickly to Haran, to my brother Laban;

⁴⁴And be there with him for a little time, till your brother's wrath is turned away;

⁴⁵Till the memory of what you have done to him is past and he is no longer angry: then I will send word for you to come back; are the two of you to be taken from me in one day?

⁴⁶Then Rebekah said to Isaac, My life is a weariness to me because of the daughters of Heth: if Jacob takes a wife from among the daughters of Heth, such as these, the women of this land, of what use will my life be to me?

28Then Isaac sent for Jacob, and blessing him, said, Do not take a wife from among the women of Canaan;

²But go to Paddan-aram, to the house of Bethuel, your mother's father, and there get yourself a wife from the daughters of Laban, your mother's brother.

³And may God, the Ruler of all, give you his blessing, giving you fruit and increase, so that you may become an army of peoples.

⁴And may God give you the blessing of Abraham, to you and to your seed, so that the land of your wanderings, which God gave to Abraham, may be your heritage.

⁵So Isaac sent Jacob away: and he went to Paddan-aram, to Laban, son of Bethuel the Aramaean, the brother of Rebekah, the mother of Jacob and Esau.

⁶So when Esau saw that Isaac had given Jacob his blessing, and sent him away to Paddan-aram to get a wife for himself there, blessing him and saying to him, Do not take a wife from among the women of Canaan;

⁷And that Jacob had done as his father and mother said and had gone to Paddan-aram;

⁸It was clear to Esau that his father had no love for the women of Canaan,

⁹So Esau went to Ishmael and took Mahalath, the daughter of Abraham's son Ishmael, the sister of Nebaioth, to be his wife in addition to the wives he had.

¹⁰So Jacob went out from Beer-sheba to go to Haran.

¹¹And coming to a certain place, he made it his resting-place for the night, for the sun had gone down; and he took one of the stones which were there, and putting it under his head he went to sleep in that place.

¹²And he had a dream, and in his dream he saw steps stretching from earth to heaven, and the angels of God were going up and down on them.

¹³And he saw the Lord by his side, saying, I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father, and the God of Isaac: I will give to you and to your seed this land on which you are sleeping.

¹⁴Your seed will be like the dust of the earth, covering all the land to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south: you and your seed will be a name of blessing to all the families of the earth.

¹⁵And truly, I will be with you, and will keep you wherever you go, guiding you back again to this land; and I will not give you up till I have done what I have said to you.

¹⁶And Jacob, awaking from his sleep, said, Truly, the Lord is in this place and I was not conscious of it.

¹⁷And fear came on him, and he said, This is a holy place; this is nothing less than the house of God and the doorway of heaven.

¹⁸And early in the morning Jacob took the stone which had been under his head, and put it up as a pillar and put oil on it.

¹⁹And he gave that place the name of Beth-el, but before that time the town was named Luz.

²⁰Then Jacob took an oath, and said, If God will be with me, and keep me safe on my journey, and give me food and clothing to put on,

²¹So that I come again to my father's house in peace, then I will take the Lord to be my God,

²²And this stone which I have put up for a pillar will be God's house: and of all you give me, I will give a tenth part to you.

29Then Jacob went on his journey till he came to the land of the children of the East.

²And there he saw a water-hole in a field, and by the side of it three flocks of sheep, for there they got water for the sheep: and on the mouth of the water-hole there was a great stone.

³And all the flocks would come together there, and when the stone had been rolled away, they would give the sheep water, and put the stone back again in its place on the mouth of the water-hole.

⁴Then Jacob said to the herdmen, My brothers, where do you come from? And they said, From Haran.

⁵And he said to them, Have you any knowledge of Laban, the son of Nahor? And they said, We have.

⁶And he said to them, Is he well? And they said, He is well, and here is Rachel his daughter coming with the sheep.

⁷Then Jacob said, The sun is still high and it is not time to get the cattle together: get water for the sheep and go and give them their food.

⁸And they said, We are not able to do so till all the flocks have come together and the stone has been rolled away from the mouth of the water-hole; then we will get water for the sheep.

⁹While he was still talking with them, Rachel came with her father's sheep, for she took care of them.

¹⁰Then when Jacob saw Rachel, the daughter of Laban, his mother's brother, coming with Laban's sheep, he came near, and rolling the stone away from the mouth of the hole, he got water for Laban's flock.

¹¹And weeping for joy, Jacob gave Rachel a kiss.

¹²And Rachel, hearing from Jacob that he was her father's relation and that he was the son of Rebekah, went running to give her father news of it.

¹³And Laban, hearing news of Jacob, his sister's son, came running, and took Jacob in his arms, and kissing him, made him come into his house. And Jacob gave him news of everything.

¹⁴And Laban said to him, Truly, you are my bone and my flesh. And he kept Jacob with him for the space of a month.

¹⁵Then Laban said to Jacob, Because you are my brother are you to be my servant for nothing? say now, what is your payment to be?

¹⁶Now Laban had two daughters: the name of the older was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel.

¹⁷And Leah's eyes were clouded, but Rachel was fair in face and form.

¹⁸And Jacob was in love with Rachel; and he said, I will be your servant seven years for Rachel, your younger daughter.

¹⁹And Laban said, It is better for you to have her than another man: go on living here with me.

²⁰And Jacob did seven years' work for Rachel; and because of his love for her it seemed to him only a very little time.

²¹Then Jacob said to Laban, Give me my wife so that I may have her, for the days are ended.

²²And Laban got together all the men of the place and gave a feast.

²³And in the evening he took Leah, his daughter, and gave her to him, and he went in to her.

²⁴And Laban gave Zilpah, his servant-girl, to Leah, to be her waiting-woman.

²⁵And in the morning Jacob saw that it was Leah: and he said to Laban, What have you done to me? was I not working for you so that I might have Rachel? why have you been false to me?

²⁶And Laban said, In our country we do not let the younger daughter be married before the older.

²⁷Let the week of the bride-feast come to its end and then we will give you the other in addition, if you will be my servant for another seven years.

²⁸And Jacob did so; and when the week was ended, Laban gave him his daughter Rachel for his wife.

²⁹And Laban gave Rachel his servant-girl Bilhah to be her waiting-woman.

³⁰Then Jacob took Rachel as his wife, and his love for her was greater than his love for Leah; and he went on working for Laban for another seven years.

³¹Now the Lord, seeing that Leah was not loved, gave her a child; while Rachel had no children.

³²And Leah was with child, and gave birth to a son to whom she gave the name Reuben: for she said, The Lord has seen my sorrow; now my husband will have love for me.

³³Then she became with child again, and gave birth to a son; and said, Because it has come to the Lord's ears that I am not loved, he has given me this son in addition: and she gave him the name Simeon.

³⁴And she was with child again, and gave birth to a son; and said, Now at last my husband will be united to me, because I have given him three sons: so he was named Levi.

³⁵And she was with child again, and gave birth to a son: and she said, This time I will give praise to the Lord: so he was named Judah; after this she had no more children for a time.

30Now Rachel, because she had no children, was full of envy of her sister; and she said to Jacob, If you do not give me children I will not go on living.

²But Jacob was angry with Rachel, and said, Am I in the place of God, who has kept your body from having fruit?

³Then she said, Here is my servant Bilhah, go in to her, so that she may have a child on my knees, and I may have a family by her.

⁴So she gave him her servant Bilhah as a wife, and Jacob went in to her.

⁵And Bilhah became with child, and gave birth to a son.

⁶Then Rachel said, God has been my judge, and has given ear to my voice, and has given me a son; so he was named Dan.

⁷And again Bilhah, Rachel's servant, was with child, and gave birth to a second son.

⁸And Rachel said, I have had a great fight with my sister, and I have overcome her: and she gave the child the name Naphtali.

⁹When it was clear to Leah that she would have no more children for a time, she gave Zilpah, her servant, to Jacob as a wife.

¹⁰And Zilpah, Leah's servant, gave birth to a son.

¹¹And Leah said, It has gone well for me: and she gave him the name Gad.

¹²And Zilpah, Leah's servant, gave birth to a second son.

¹³And Leah said, Happy am I! and all women will give witness to my joy: and she gave him the name Asher.

¹⁴Now at the time of the grain-cutting, Reuben saw some love-fruits in the field, and took them to his mother Leah. And Rachel said to her, Let me have some of your son's love-fruits.

¹⁵But Leah said to her, Is it a small thing that you have taken my husband from me? and now would you take my son's love-fruits? Then Rachel said, You may have him tonight in exchange for your son's love-fruits.

¹⁶In the evening, when Jacob came in from the field, Leah went out to him and said, Tonight you are to come to me, for I have given my son's love-fruits as a price for you. And he went in to her that night.

¹⁷And God gave ear to her and she became with child, and gave Jacob a fifth son.

¹⁸Then Leah said, God has made payment to me for giving my servant-girl to my husband: so she gave her son the name Issachar.

¹⁹And again Leah became with child, and she gave Jacob a sixth son.

²⁰And she said, God has given me a good bride-price; now at last will I have my husband living with me, for I have given him six sons: and she gave him the name Zebulun.

²¹After that she had a daughter, to whom she gave the name Dinah.

²²Then God gave thought to Rachel, and hearing her prayer he made her fertile.

²³And she was with child, and gave birth to a son: and she said, God has taken away my shame.

²⁴And she gave him the name Joseph, saying, May the Lord give me another son.

²⁵Now after the birth of Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, Let me go away to my place and my country.

²⁶Give me my wives and my children, for whom I have been your servant, and let me go: for you have knowledge of all the work I have done for you.

²⁷And Laban said, If you will let me say so, do not go away; for I have seen by the signs that the Lord has been good to me because of you.

²⁸Say then what your payment is to be and I will give it.

²⁹Then Jacob said, You have seen what I have done for you, and how your cattle have done well under my care.

³⁰For before I came you had little, and it has been greatly increased; and the Lord has given you a blessing in everything I have done; but when am I to do something for my family?

³¹And Laban said, What am I to give you? And Jacob said, Do not give me anything; but I will again take up the care of your flock if you will only do this for me:

³²Let me go through all your flock today, taking out from among them all the sheep which are marked or coloured or black, and all the marked or coloured goats: these will be my payment.

³³And so you will be able to put my honour to the test in time to come; if you see among my flocks any goats which are not marked or coloured, or any sheep which is not black, you may take me for a thief.

³⁴And Laban said, Let it be as you say.

³⁵So that day he took all the he-goats which were banded or coloured, and all the she-goats which were marked or coloured or had white marks, and all the black sheep, and gave them into the care of his sons;

³⁶And sent them three days' journey away: and Jacob took care of the rest of Laban's flock.

³⁷Then Jacob took young branches of trees, cutting off the skin so that the white wood was seen in bands.

³⁸And he put the banded sticks in the drinking-places where the flock came to get water; and they became with young when they came to the water.

³⁹And because of this, the flock gave birth to young which were marked with bands of colour.

⁴⁰These lambs Jacob kept separate; and he put his flock in a place by themselves and not with Laban's flock.

⁴¹And whenever the stronger ones of the flock became with young, Jacob put the sticks in front of them in the drinking-places, so that they might become with young when they saw the sticks.

⁴²But when the flocks were feeble, he did not put the sticks before them; so that the feebler flocks were Laban's and the stronger were Jacob's.

⁴³So Jacob's wealth was greatly increased; he had great flocks and women-servants and men-servants and camels and asses.

31Now it came to the ears of Jacob that Laban's sons were saying, Jacob has taken away all our father's property, and in this way he has got all this wealth.

²And Jacob saw that Laban's feeling for him was no longer what it had been before.

³Then the Lord said to Jacob, Go back to the land of your fathers, and to your relations, and I will be with you.

⁴And Jacob sent for Rachel and Leah to come to him in the field among his flock.

⁵And he said to them, It is clear to me that your father's feeling is no longer what it was to me; but the God of my father has been with me

⁶And you have seen how I have done all in my power for your father,

⁷But your father has not kept faith with me, and ten times he has made changes in my payment; but God has kept him from doing me damage.

⁸If he said, All those in the flock which have marks are to be yours, then all the flock gave birth to marked young; and if he said, All the banded ones are to be yours, then all the flock had banded young.

⁹So God has taken away your father's cattle and has given them to me.

¹⁰And at the time when the flock were with young, I saw in a dream that all the he-goats which were joined with the she-goats were banded and marked and coloured.

¹¹And in my dream the angel of the Lord said to me, Jacob: and I said, Here am I.

¹²And he said, See how all the he-goats are banded and marked and coloured: for I have seen what Laban has done to you.

¹³I am the God of Beth-el, where you put oil on the pillar and took an oath to me: now then, come out of this land and go back to the country of your birth.

¹⁴Then Rachel and Leah said to him in answer, What part or heritage is there for us in our father's house?

¹⁵Are we not as people from a strange country to him? for he took a price for us and now it is all used up.

¹⁶For the wealth which God has taken from him is ours and our children's; so now, whatever God has said to you, do.

¹⁷Then Jacob put his wives and his sons on camels;

¹⁸And sending on before him all his cattle and his property which he had got together in Paddan-aram, he made ready to go to Isaac his father in the land of Canaan.

¹⁹Now Laban had gone to see to the cutting of the wool of his sheep; so Rachel secretly took the images of the gods of her father's house.

²⁰And Jacob went away secretly, without giving news of his flight to Laban the Aramaean.

²¹So he went away with all he had, and went across the River in the direction of the hill-country of Gilead.

²²And on the third day Laban had news of Jacob's flight.

²³And taking the men of his family with him, he went after him for seven days and overtook him in the hill-country of Gilead.

²⁴Then God came to Laban in a dream by night, and said to him, Take care that you say nothing good or bad to Jacob.

²⁵Now when Laban overtook him, Jacob had put up his tent in the hill-country; and Laban and his brothers put up their tents in the hill-country of Gilead.

²⁶And Laban said to Jacob, Why did you go away secretly, taking my daughters away like prisoners of war?

²⁷Why did you make a secret of your flight, not giving me word of it, so that I might have sent you away with joy and songs, with melody and music?

²⁸You did not even let me give a kiss to my sons and my daughters. This was a foolish thing to do.

²⁹It is in my power to do you damage: but the God of your father came to me this night, saying, Take care that you say nothing good or bad to Jacob.

³⁰And now, it seems, you are going because your heart's desire is for your father's house; but why have you taken my gods?

³¹And Jacob, in answer, said to Laban, My fear was that you might take your daughters from me by force.

³²As for your gods, if anyone of us has them, let him be put to death: make search before us all for what is yours, and take it. For Jacob had no knowledge that Rachel had taken them.

³³So Laban went into Jacob's tent and into Leah's tent, and into the tents of the two servant-women, but they were not there; and he came out of Leah's tent and went into Rachel's.

³⁴Now Rachel had taken the images, and had put them in the camels' basket, and was seated on them. And Laban, searching through all the tent, did not come across them.

³⁵And she said to her father, Let not my lord be angry because I do not get up before you, for I am in the common condition of women. And with all his searching, he did not come across the images.

³⁶Then Jacob was angry with Laban, and said, What crime or sin have I done that you have come after me with such passion?

³⁷Now that you have made search through all my goods, what have you seen which is yours? Make it clear now before my people and your people, so that they may be judges between us.

³⁸These twenty years I have been with you; your sheep and your goats have had young without loss, not one of your he-goats have I taken for food.

³⁹Anything which was wounded by beasts I did not take to you, but myself made up for the loss of it; you made me responsible for whatever was taken by thieves, by day or by night.

⁴⁰This was my condition, wasted by heat in the day and by the bitter cold at night; and sleep went from my eyes.

⁴¹These twenty years I have been in your house; I was your servant for fourteen years because of your daughters, and for six years I kept your flock, and ten times was my payment changed.

⁴²If the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac, had not been with me, you would have sent me away with nothing in my hands. But God has seen my troubles and the work of my hands, and this night he kept you back.

⁴³Then Laban, answering, said, These women are my daughters and these children my children, the flocks and all you see are mine: what now may I do for my daughters and for their children?

⁴⁴Come, let us make an agreement, you and I; and let it be for a witness between us.

⁴⁵Then Jacob took a stone and put it up as a pillar.

⁴⁶And Jacob said to his people, Get stones together; and they did so; and they had a meal there by the stones.

⁴⁷And the name Laban gave it was Jegar-sahadutha: but Jacob gave it the name of Galeed.

⁴⁸And Laban said, These stones are a witness between you and me today. For this reason its name was Galeed,

⁴⁹And Mizpah, for he said, May the Lord keep watch on us when we are unable to see one another's doings.

⁵⁰If you are cruel to my daughters, or if you take other wives in addition to my daughters, then though no man is there to see, God will be the witness between us.

⁵¹And Laban said, See these stones and this pillar which I have put between you and me;

⁵²They will be witness that I will not go over these stones to you, and you will not go over these stones or this pillar to me, for any evil purpose.

⁵³May the God of Abraham and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, be our judge. Then Jacob took an oath by the Fear of his father Isaac.

⁵⁴And Jacob made an offering on the mountain, and gave orders to his people to take food: so they had a meal and took their rest that night on the mountain.

⁵⁵And early in the morning Laban, after kissing and blessing his daughters, went on his way back to his country.

32And on his way Jacob came face to face with the angels of God.

²And when he saw them he said, This is the army of God: so he gave that place the name of Mahanaim.

³Now Jacob sent servants before him to Esau, his brother, in the land of Seir, the country of Edom;

⁴And he gave them orders to say these words to Esau: Your servant Jacob says, Till now I have been living with Laban:

⁵And I have oxen and asses and flocks and men-servants and women-servants: and I have sent to give my lord news of these things so that I may have grace in his eyes.

⁶When the servants came back they said, We have seen your brother Esau and he is coming out to you, and four hundred men with him.

⁷Then Jacob was in great fear and trouble of mind: and he put all the people and the flocks and the herds and the camels into two groups;

⁸And said, If Esau, meeting one group, makes an attack on them, the others will get away safely.

⁹Then Jacob said, O God of my father Abraham, the God of my father Isaac, the Lord who said to me, Go back to your country and your family and I will be good to you:

¹⁰I am less than nothing in comparison with all your mercies and your faith to me your servant; for with only my stick in my hand I went across Jordan, and now I have become two armies.

¹¹Be my saviour from the hand of Esau, my brother: for my fear is that he will make an attack on me, putting to death mother and child.

¹²And you said, Truly, I will be good to you, and make your seed like the sand of the sea which may not be numbered.

¹³Then he put up his tent there for the night; and from among his goods he took, as an offering for his brother Esau,

¹⁴Two hundred she-goats and twenty he-goats, two hundred females and twenty males from the sheep,

¹⁵Thirty camels with their young ones, forty cows, ten oxen, twenty asses, and ten young asses.

¹⁶These he gave to his servants, every herd by itself, and he said to his servants, Go on before me, and let there be a space between one herd and another.

¹⁷And he gave orders to the first, saying, When my brother Esau comes to you and says, Whose servant are you, and where are you going, and whose are these herds?

¹⁸Then say to him, These are your servant Jacob's; they are an offering for my lord, for Esau; and he himself is coming after us.

¹⁹And he gave the same orders to the second and the third and to all those who were with the herds, saying, This is what you are to say to Esau when you see him;

²⁰And you are to say further, Jacob, your servant, is coming after us. For he said to himself, I will take away his wrath by the offering which I have sent on, and then I will come before him: it may be that I will have grace in his eyes.

²¹So the servants with the offerings went on in front, and he himself took his rest that night in the tents with his people.

²²And in the night he got up, and taking with him his two wives and the two servant-women and his eleven children, he went over the river Jabbok.

²³He took them and sent them over the stream with all he had.

²⁴Then Jacob was by himself; and a man was fighting with him till dawn.

²⁵But when the man saw that he was not able to overcome Jacob, he gave him a blow in the hollow part of his leg, so that his leg was damaged.

²⁶And he said to him, Let me go now, for the dawn is near. But Jacob said, I will not let you go till you have given me your blessing.

²⁷Then he said, What is your name? And he said, Jacob.

²⁸And he said, Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel: for in your fight with God and with men you have overcome.

²⁹Then Jacob said, What is your name? And he said, What is my name to you? Then he gave him a blessing.

³⁰And Jacob gave that place the name of Peniel, saying, I have seen God face to face, and still I am living.

³¹And while he was going past Peniel, the sun came up. And he went with unequal steps because of his damaged leg.

³²For this reason the children of Israel, even today, never take that muscle in the hollow of the leg as food, because the hollow of Jacob's leg was touched.

33Then Jacob, lifting up his eyes, saw Esau coming with his four hundred men. So he made a division of the children between Leah and Rachel and the two women-servants.

²He put the servants and their children in front, Leah and her children after them, and Rachel and Joseph at the back.

³And he himself, going before them, went down on his face to the earth seven times till he came near his brother.

⁴Then Esau came running up to him, and folding him in his arms, gave him a kiss: and the two of them were overcome with weeping.

⁵Then Esau, lifting up his eyes, saw the women and the children, and said, Who are these with you? And he said, The children whom God in his mercy has given to your servant.

⁶Then the servants and their children came near, and went down on their faces.

⁷And Leah came near with her children, and then Joseph and Rachel, and they did the same.

⁸And he said, What were all those herds which I saw on the way? And Jacob said, They were an offering so that I might have grace in my lord's eyes.

⁹But Esau said, I have enough; keep what is yours, my brother, for yourself.

¹⁰And Jacob said, Not so; but if I have grace in your eyes, take them as a sign of my love, for I have seen your face as one may see the face of God, and you have been pleased with me.

¹¹Take my offering then, with my blessing; for God has been very good to me and I have enough: so at his strong request, he took it.

¹²And he said, Let us go on our journey together, and I will go in front.

¹³But Jacob said, My lord may see that the children are only small, and there are young ones in my flocks and herds: one day's over-driving will be the destruction of all the flock.

¹⁴Do you, my lord, go on before your servant; I will come on slowly, at the rate at which the cattle and the children are able to go, till I come to my lord at Seir.

¹⁵And Esau said, Then keep some of my men with you. And he said, What need is there for that, if my lord is pleased with me?

¹⁶So Esau, turning back that day, went on his way to Seir.

¹⁷And Jacob went on to Succoth, where he made a house for himself and put up tents for his cattle: for this reason the place was named Succoth.

¹⁸So Jacob came safely from Paddan-aram to the town of Shechem in the land of Canaan, and put up his tents near the town.

¹⁹And for a hundred bits of money he got from the children of Hamor, the builder of Shechem, the field in which he had put up his tents.

²⁰And there he put up an altar, naming it El, the God of Israel.

34Now Dinah, the daughter whom Leah had by Jacob, went out to see the women of that country.

²And when Shechem, the son of Hamor the Hivite who was the chief of that land, saw her, he took her by force and had connection with her.

³Then his heart went out in love to Dinah, the daughter of Jacob, and he said comforting words to her.

⁴And Shechem said to Hamor, his father, Get me this girl for my wife.

⁵Now Jacob had word of what Shechem had done to his daughter; but his sons were in the fields with the cattle, and Jacob said nothing till they came.

⁶Then Hamor, the father of Shechem, came out to have a talk with Jacob.

⁷Now the sons of Jacob came in from the fields when they had news of it, and they were wounded and very angry because of the shame he had done in Israel by having connection with Jacob's daughter; and they said, Such a thing is not to be done.

⁸But Hamor said to them, Shechem, my son, is full of desire for your daughter: will you then give her to him for a wife?

⁹And let our two peoples be joined together; give your daughters to us, and take our daughters for yourselves.

¹⁰Go on living with us, and the country will be open to you; do trade and get property there.

¹¹And Shechem said to her father and her brothers, If you will give ear to my request, whatever you say I will give to you.

¹²However great you make the bride-price and payment, I will give it; only let me have the girl for my wife.

¹³But the sons of Jacob gave a false answer to Shechem and Hamor his father, because of what had been done to Dinah their sister.

¹⁴And they said, It is not possible for us to give our sister to one who is without circumcision, for that would be a cause of shame to us:

¹⁵But on this condition only will we come to an agreement with you: if every male among you becomes like us and undergoes circumcision;

¹⁶Then we will give our daughters to you and take your daughters to us and go on living with you as one people.

¹⁷But if you will not undergo circumcision as we say, then we will take our daughter and go.

¹⁸And their words were pleasing to Hamor and his son Shechem.

¹⁹And without loss of time the young man did as they said, because he had delight in Jacob's daughter, and he was the noblest of his father's house.

²⁰Then Hamor and Shechem, his son, went to the meeting-place of their town, and said to the men of the town,

²¹It is the desire of these men to be at peace with us; let them then go on living in this country and doing trade here, for the country is wide open before them; let us take their daughters as wives and let us give them our daughters.

²²But these men will make an agreement with us to go on living with us and to become one people, only on the condition that every male among us undergoes circumcision as they have done.

²³Then will not their cattle and their goods and all their beasts be ours? so let us come to an agreement with them so that they may go on living with us.

²⁴Then all the men of the town gave ear to the words of Hamor and Shechem his son; and every male in the town underwent circumcision.

²⁵But on the third day after, before the wounds were well, two of the sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, Dinah's brothers, took their swords and came into the town by surprise and put all the males to death.

²⁶And Hamor and his son they put to death with the sword, and they took Dinah from Shechem's house and went away.

²⁷And the sons of Jacob came on them when they were wounded and made waste the town because of what had been done to their sister;

²⁸They took their flocks and their herds and their asses and everything in their town and in their fields,

²⁹And all their wealth and all their little ones and their wives; everything in their houses they took and made them waste.

³⁰And Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, You have made trouble for me and given me a bad name among the people of this country, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites: and because we are small in number they will come together against me and make war on me; and it will be the end of me and all my people.

³¹But they said, Were we to let him make use of our sister as a loose woman?

35And God said to Jacob, Go up now to Beth-el and make your living-place there: and put up an altar there to the God who came to you when you were in flight from your brother Esau.

²Then Jacob said to all his people, Put away the strange gods which are among you, and make yourselves clean, and put on a change of clothing:

³And let us go up to Beth-el: and there I will make an altar to God, who gave me an answer in the day of my trouble, and was with me wherever I went.

⁴Then they gave to Jacob all the strange gods which they had, and the rings which were in their ears; and Jacob put them away under the holy tree at Shechem.

⁵So they went on their journey: and the fear of God was on the towns round about, so that they made no attack on the sons of Jacob.

⁶And Jacob came to Luz in the land of Canaan (which is the same as Beth-el), he and all his people.

⁷And there he made an altar, naming the place El-beth-el: because it was there he had the vision of God when he was in flight from his brother.

⁸And Deborah, the servant who had taken care of Rebekah from her birth, came to her end, and was put to rest near Beth-el, under the holy tree: and they gave it the name of Allon-bacuth.

⁹Now when Jacob was on his way from Paddan-aram, God came to him again and, blessing him, said,

¹⁰Jacob is your name, but it will be so no longer; from now your name will be Israel; so he was named Israel.

¹¹And God said to him, I am God, the Ruler of all: be fertile, and have increase; a nation, truly a group of nations, will come from you, and kings will be your offspring;

¹²And the land which I gave to Abraham and Isaac, I will give to you; and to your seed after you I will give the land.

¹³Then God went up from him in the place where he had been talking with him.

¹⁴And Jacob put up a pillar in the place where he had been talking with God, and put a drink offering on it, and oil.

¹⁵And he gave to the place where God had been talking with him, the name of Beth-el.

¹⁶So they went on from Beth-el; and while they were still some distance from Ephrath, the pains of birth came on Rachel and she had a hard time.

¹⁷And when her pain was very great, the woman who was helping her said, Have no fear; for now you will have another son.

¹⁸And in the hour when her life went from her (for death came to her), she gave the child the name Ben-oni: but his father gave him the name of Benjamin.

¹⁹So Rachel came to her end and was put to rest on the road to Ephrath (which is Beth-lehem).

²⁰And Jacob put up a pillar on her resting-place; which is named, The Pillar of the resting-place of Rachel, to this day.

²¹And Israel went journeying on and put up his tents on the other side of the tower of the flock.

²²Now while they were living in that country, Reuben had connection with Bilhah, his father's servant-woman: and Israel had news of it.

²³Now Jacob had twelve sons: the sons of Leah: Reuben, Jacob's first son, and Simeon and Levi and Judah and Issachar and Zebulun;

²⁴The sons of Rachel: Joseph and Benjamin;

²⁵The sons of Bilhah, Rachel's servant: Dan and Naphtali;

²⁶The sons of Zilpah, Leah's servant: Gad and Asher; these are the sons whom Jacob had in Paddan-aram.

²⁷And Jacob came to his father Isaac at Mamre, at Kiriath-arba, that is, Hebron, where Abraham and Isaac had been living.

²⁸And Isaac was a hundred and eighty years old.

²⁹Then Isaac came to his end and was put to rest with his father's people, an old man after a long life: and Jacob and Esau, his sons, put him in his last resting-place.

36Now these are the generations of Esau, that is to say, Edom.

²Esau's wives were women of Canaan: Adah, the daughter of Elon the Hittite, and Oholibamah, the daughter of Anah, the daughter of Zibeon the Hivite,

³And Basemath, Ishmael's daughter, the sister of Nebaioth.

⁴Adah had a son Eliphaz; and Basemath was the mother of Reuel;

⁵Oholibamah was the mother of Jeush, Jalam, and Korah; these are the sons of Esau, whose birth took place in the land of Canaan.

⁶Esau took his wives and his sons and his daughters, and all the people of his house, and his beasts and his cattle and all his goods which he had got together in the land of Canaan, and went into the land of Seir, away from his brother Jacob.

⁷For their wealth was so great that the land was not wide enough for the two of them and all their cattle.

⁸So Esau made his living-place in the hill-country of Seir (Esau is Edom).

⁹And these are the generations of Esau, the father of the Edomites in the hill-country of Seir:

¹⁰These are the names of Esau's sons: Eliphaz, the son of Esau's wife Adah, and Reuel, the son of Esau's wife Basemath.

¹¹The sons of Eliphaz were Teman, Omar, Zepho, Gatam, and Kenaz.

¹²And Eliphaz, the son of Esau, had connection with a woman named Timna, who gave birth to Amalek: all these were the children of Esau's wife Adah.

¹³And these are the sons of Reuel: Nahath, Zerah, Shammah, and Mizzah: they were the children of Esau's wife Basemath.

¹⁴And these are the sons of Esau's wife Oholibamah, the daughter of Anah, the daughter of Zibeon: she was the mother of Jeush, Jalam, and Korah.

¹⁵These were the chiefs among the sons of Esau: the sons of Eliphaz, Esau's first son: Teman, Omar, Zepho, Kenaz,

¹⁶Korah, Gatam, Amalek: all these were chiefs in the land of Edom, the offspring of Eliphaz, the seed of Adah.

¹⁷And these are the sons of Esau's son Reuel: Nahath, Zerah, Shammah, Mizzah: these were the chiefs of Reuel in the land of Edom, the children of Esau's wife Basemath.

¹⁸And these are the sons of Esau's wife Oholibamah: Jeush, Jalam, and Korah: these were the chiefs who came from Esau's wife Oholibamah, daughter of Anah.

¹⁹These were the sons of Esau (that is, Edom), and these were their chiefs.

²⁰These are the sons of Seir the Horite who were living in that country; Lotan, Shobal, Zibeon, Anah,

²¹Dishon, Ezer, and Dishan: these are the chiefs of the Horites, offspring of Seir in the land of Edom.

²²The children of Lotan were Hori and Hemam; Lotan's sister was Timna.

²³And these are the children of Shobal: Alvan, Manahath, Ebal, Shepho, and Onam.

²⁴And these are the children of Zibeon: Aiah and Anah; that same Anah who made the discovery of the water-springs in the waste land, when he was looking after the asses of his father Zibeon.

²⁵And these are the children of Anah: Dishon and Oholibamah his daughter.

²⁶These are the children of Dishon: Hemdan, Eshban, Ithran, and Keran.

²⁷These are the children of Ezer: Bilhan, Zaavan, and Akan.

²⁸These are the children of Dishan: Uz and Aran.

²⁹These were the Horite chiefs: Lotan, Shobal, Zibeon, Anah,

³⁰Dishon, Ezer, and Dishan. Such were the Horite chiefs in their order in the land of Seir.

³¹And these are the kings who were ruling in the land of Edom before there was any king over the children of Israel.

³²Bela, son of Beor, was king in Edom, and the name of his chief town was Dinhabah.

³³At his death, Jobab, son of Zerah of Bozrah, became king in his place.

³⁴And at the death of Jobab, Husham, from the country of the Temanites, became king in his place.

³⁵And at the death of Husham, Hadad, son of Bedad, who overcame the Midianites in the field of Moab, became king; his chief town was named Avith.

³⁶And at the death of Hadad, Samlah of Masrekah became king.

³⁷And at the death of Samlah, Shaul of Rehoboth by the River became king in his place.

³⁸And at the death of Shaul, Baal-hanan, son of Achbor, became king.

³⁹And at the death of Baal-hanan, Hadar became king in his place; his chief town was named Pau, and his wife's name was Mehetabel; she was the daughter of Matred, the daughter of Me-zahab.

⁴⁰These are the names of the chiefs of Esau in the order of their families and their places: Timna, Alvah, Jetheth,

⁴¹Oholibamah, Elah, Pinon,

⁴²Kenaz, Teman, Mibzar,

⁴³Magdiel, Iram; these are the Edomite chiefs, in their places in their heritage; this is Esau, the father of the Edomites.

37Now Jacob was living in the land where his father had made a place for himself, in the land of Canaan.

²These are the generations of Jacob: Joseph, a boy seventeen years old, was looking after the flock, together with his brothers, the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father's wives; and Joseph gave their father a bad account of them.

³Now the love which Israel had for Joseph was greater than his love for all his other children, because he got him when he was an old man: and he had a long coat made for him.

⁴And because his brothers saw that Joseph was dearer to his father than all the others, they were full of hate for him, and would not say a kind word to him.

⁵Now Joseph had a dream, and he gave his brothers an account of it, which made their hate greater than ever.

⁶And he said to them, Let me give you the story of my dream.

⁷We were in the field, getting the grain stems together, and my grain kept upright, and yours came round and went down on the earth before mine.

⁸And his brothers said to him, Are you to be our king? will you have authority over us? And because of his dream and his words, their hate for him became greater than ever.

⁹Then he had another dream, and gave his brothers an account of it, saying, I have had another dream: the sun and the moon and eleven stars gave honour to me.

¹⁰And he gave word of it to his father and his brothers; but his father protesting said, What sort of a dream is this? am I and your mother and your brothers to go down on our faces to the earth before you?

¹¹And his brothers were full of envy; but his father kept his words in mind.

¹²Now his brothers went to keep watch over their father's flock in Shechem.

¹³And Israel said to Joseph, Are not your brothers with the flock in Shechem? come, I will send you to them. And he said to him, Here am I.

¹⁴And he said to him, Go now, and see if your brothers are well and how the flock is; then come back and give me word. So he sent him out of the valley of Hebron, and he came to Shechem.

¹⁵And a man saw him wandering in the country, and said to him, What are you looking for?

¹⁶And he said, I am looking for my brothers; please give me word of where they are keeping their flock.

¹⁷And the man said, They have gone away from here, for they said in my hearing, Let us go to Dothan. So Joseph went after them and came up with them at Dothan.

¹⁸But they saw him when he was a long way off, and before he came near them they made a secret design against him to put him to death;

¹⁹Saying to one another, See, here comes this dreamer.

²⁰Let us now put him to death and put his body into one of these holes, and we will say, An evil beast has put him to death: then we will see what becomes of his dreams.

²¹But Reuben, hearing these words, got him out of their hands, saying, Let us not take his life.

²²Do not put him to a violent death, but let him be placed in one of the holes; this he said to keep him safe from their hands, with the purpose of taking him back to his father again.

²³So when Joseph came to his brothers, they took off his long coat which he had on;

²⁴And they took him and put him in the hole: now the hole had no water in it.

²⁵Then seating themselves, they took their meal: and looking up, they saw a travelling band of Ishmaelites, coming from Gilead on their way to Egypt, with spices and perfumes on their camels.

²⁶And Judah said to his brothers, What profit is there in putting our brother to death and covering up his blood?

²⁷Let us give him to these Ishmaelites for a price, and let us not put violent hands on him, for he is our brother, our flesh. And his brothers gave ear to him.

²⁸And some traders from Midian went by; so pulling Joseph up out of the hole, they gave him to the Ishmaelites for twenty bits of silver, and they took him to Egypt.

²⁹Now when Reuben came back to the hole, Joseph was not there; and giving signs of grief,

³⁰He went back to his brothers, and said, The child is gone; what am I to do?

³¹Then they took Joseph's coat, and put on it some of the blood from a young goat which they had put to death,

³²And they took the coat to their father, and said, We came across this; is it your son's coat or not?

³³And he saw that it was, and said, It is my son's coat; an evil beast has put him to death; without doubt Joseph has come to a cruel end.

³⁴Then Jacob, giving signs of grief, put on haircloth, and went on weeping for his son day after day.

³⁵And all his sons and all his daughters came to give him comfort, but he would not be comforted, saying with weeping, I will go down to the underworld to my son. So great was his father's sorrow for him.

³⁶And in Egypt the men of Midian gave him for a price to Potiphar, a captain of high position in Pharaoh's house.

38Now at that time, Judah went away from his brothers and became the friend of a man of Adullam named Hirah.

²And there he saw the daughter of a certain man of Canaan named Shua, and took her as his wife.

³And she gave birth to a son, and he gave him the name Er.

⁴And again she gave birth to a son, and he gave him the name Onan.

⁵Then she had another son, to whom she gave the name Shelah; she was at Chezib when the birth took place.

⁶And Judah took a wife for his first son Er, and her name was Tamar.

⁷Now Er, Judah's first son, did evil in the eyes of the Lord, so that he put him to death.

⁸Then Judah said to Onan, Go in to your brother's wife and do what it is right for a husband's brother to do; make her your wife and get offspring for your brother.

⁹But Onan, seeing that the offspring would not be his, went in to his brother's wife, but let his seed go on to the earth, so that he might not get offspring for his brother.

¹⁰And what he did was evil in the eyes of the Lord, so that he put him to death, like his brother.

¹¹Then Judah said to Tamar, his daughter-in-law, Go back to your father's house and keep yourself as a widow till my son Shelah becomes a man: for he had in his mind the thought that death might come to him as it had come to his brothers. So Tamar went back to her father's house.

¹²And after a time, Bath-shua, Judah's wife, came to her end; and after Judah was comforted for her loss, he went to Timnah, where they were cutting the wool of his sheep, and his friend Hirah of Adullam went with him.

¹³And when Tamar had news that her father-in-law was going up to Timnah to the wool-cutting,

¹⁴She took off her widow's clothing, and covering herself with her veil, she took her seat near Enaim on the road to Timnah; for she saw that Shelah was now a man, but she had not been made his wife.

¹⁵When Judah saw her he took her to be a loose woman of the town, because her face was covered.

¹⁶And turning to her by the roadside, he said to her, Let me come in to you; for he had no idea that she was his daughter-in-law. And she said, What will you give me as my price?

¹⁷And he said, I will give you a young goat from the flock. And she said, What will you give me as a sign till you send it?

¹⁸And he said, What would you have? And she said, Your ring and its cord and the stick in your hand. So he gave them to her and went in to her, and she became with child by him.

¹⁹Then she got up and went away and took off her veil and put on her widow's clothing.

²⁰Then Judah sent his friend Hirah with the young goat, to get back the things which he had given as a sign to the woman: but she was not there.

²¹And he put questions to the men of the place, saying, Where is the loose woman who was in Enaim by the wayside? And they said, There was no such woman there.

²²So he went back to Judah, and said, I have not seen her, and the men of the place say that there is no such woman there.

²³And Judah said, Let her keep the things, so that we may not be shamed; I sent the young goat, but you did not see the woman.

²⁴Now about three months after this, word came to Judah that Tamar, his daughter-in-law, had been acting like a loose woman and was with child. And Judah said, Take her out and let her be burned.

²⁵And while she was being taken out, she sent word to her father-in-law, saying, The man whose property these things are, is the father of my child: say then, whose are this ring and this cord and this stick?

²⁶Then Judah said openly that they were his, and said, She is more upright than I am, for I did not give her to Shelah my son. And he had no more connection with her.

²⁷And when the time came for her to give birth, it was clear that there were two children in her body.

²⁸And while she was in the act of giving birth, one of them put out his hand; and the woman who was with her put a red thread round his hand, saying, This one came out first.

²⁹But then he took his hand back again, and his brother came first to birth: and the woman said, What an opening you have made for yourself! So he was named Perez.

³⁰And then his brother came out, with the red thread round his hand, and he was named Zerah.

39Now Joseph was taken down to Egypt; and Potiphar the Egyptian, a captain of high position in Pharaoh's house, got him for a price from the Ishmaelites who had taken him there.

²And the Lord was with Joseph, and he did well; and he was living in the house of his master the Egyptian.

³And his master saw that the Lord was with him, making everything he did go well.

⁴And having a high opinion of Joseph as his servant, he made him the overseer of his house and gave him control over all he had.

⁵And from the time when he made him overseer and gave him control of all his property, the blessing of the Lord was with the Egyptian, because of Joseph; the blessing of the Lord was on all he had, in the house and in the field.

⁶And he gave Joseph control of all his property, keeping no account of anything, but only the food which was put before him. Now Joseph was very beautiful in form and face.

⁷And after a time, his master's wife, looking on Joseph with desire, said to him, Be my lover.

⁸But he would not, and said to her, You see that my master keeps no account of what I do in his house, and has put all his property in my control;

⁹So that no one has more authority in this house than I have; he has kept nothing back from me but you, because you are his wife; how then may I do this great wrong, sinning against God?

¹⁰And day after day she went on requesting Joseph to come to her and be her lover, but he would not give ear to her.

¹¹Now one day he went into the house to do his work; and not one of the men of the house was inside.

¹²And pulling at his coat, she said, Come to my bed; but slipping out of his coat, he went running away.

¹³And when she saw that he had got away, letting her keep his coat,

¹⁴She sent for the men of her house and said to them, See, he has let a Hebrew come here and make sport of us; he came to my bed, and I gave a loud cry;

¹⁵And hearing it he went running out without his coat.

¹⁶And she kept his coat by her, till his master came back.

¹⁷Then she gave him the same story, saying, The Hebrew servant whom you have taken into our house came in to make sport of me;

¹⁸And when I gave a loud cry he went running out without his coat.

¹⁹And hearing his wife's account of what his servant had done, he became very angry.

²⁰And Joseph's master took him and put him in prison, in the place where the king's prisoners were kept in chains, and he was there in the prison-house.

²¹But the Lord was with Joseph, and was good to him, and made the keeper of the prison his friend.

²²And the keeper of the prison put all the prisoners under Joseph's control, and he was responsible for whatever was done there.

²³And the keeper of the prison gave no attention to anything which was under his care, because the Lord was with him; and the Lord made everything he did go well.

40Now after these things the chief servant who had the care of the wine, and the chief bread-maker in Pharaoh's house, did something against Pharaoh's orders;

²And Pharaoh was angry with his two servants, with the chief wine-servant and the chief bread-maker;

³And he put them in prison under the care of the captain of the army, in the same prison where Joseph himself was shut up.

⁴And the captain put them in Joseph's care, and he did what was needed for them; and they were kept in prison for some time.

⁵And these two had a dream on the same night; the chief wine-servant and the chief bread-maker of the king of Egypt, who were in prison, the two of them had dreams with a special sense.

⁶And in the morning when Joseph came to them he saw that they were looking sad.

⁷And he said to the servants of Pharaoh who were in prison with him, Why are you looking so sad?

⁸Then they said to him, We have had a dream, and no one is able to give us the sense. And Joseph said, Does not the sense of dreams come from God? what was your dream?

⁹Then the chief wine-servant gave Joseph an account of his dream, and said, In my dream I saw a vine before me;

¹⁰And on the vine were three branches; and it seemed as if it put out buds and flowers, and from them came grapes ready for cutting.

¹¹And Pharaoh's cup was in my hand, and I took the grapes and crushing them into Pharaoh's cup, gave the cup into Pharaoh's hand.

¹²Then Joseph said, This is the sense of your dream: the three branches are three days;

¹³After three days Pharaoh will give you honour, and put you back into your place, and you will give him his cup as you did before, when you were his wine-servant.

¹⁴But keep me in mind when things go well for you, and be good to me and say a good word for me to Pharaoh and get me out of this prison:

¹⁵For truly I was taken by force from the land of the Hebrews; and I have done nothing for which I might be put in prison.

¹⁶Now when the chief bread-maker saw that the first dream had a good sense, he said to Joseph, I had a dream; and in my dream there were three baskets of white bread on my head;

¹⁷And in the top basket were all sorts of cooked meats for Pharaoh; and the birds were taking them out of the baskets on my head.

¹⁸Then Joseph said, This is the sense of your dream: the three baskets are three days;

¹⁹After three days Pharaoh will take you out of prison, hanging you on a tree, so that your flesh will be food for birds.

²⁰Now the third day was Pharaoh's birthday, and he gave a feast for all his servants; and he gave honour to the chief wine-servant and the chief bread-maker among the others.

²¹And he put the chief wine-servant back in his old place; and he gave the cup into Pharaoh's hand.

²²But the chief bread-maker was put to death by hanging, as Joseph had said.

²³But the wine-servant did not keep Joseph in mind or give a thought to him.

41Now after two years had gone by, Pharaoh had a dream; and in his dream he was by the side of the Nile;

²And out of the Nile came seven cows, good-looking and fat, and their food was the river-grass.

³And after them seven other cows came out of the Nile, poor-looking and thin; and they were by the side of the other cows.

⁴And the seven thin cows made a meal of the seven fat cows. Then Pharaoh came out of his sleep.

⁵But he went to sleep again and had a second dream, in which he saw seven heads of grain, full and good, all on one stem.

⁶And after them came up seven other heads, thin and wasted by the east wind.

⁷And the seven thin heads made a meal of the good heads. And when Pharaoh was awake he saw it was a dream.

⁸And in the morning his spirit was troubled; and he sent for all the wise men of Egypt and all the holy men, and put his dream before them, but no one was able to give him the sense of it.

⁹Then the chief wine-servant said to Pharaoh, The memory of my sin comes back to me now;

¹⁰Pharaoh had been angry with his servants, and had put me in prison in the house of the captain of the army, together with the chief bread-maker;

¹¹And we had a dream on the same night, the two of us, and the dreams had a special sense.

¹²And there was with us a young Hebrew, the captain's servant, and when we put our dreams before him, he gave us the sense of them.

¹³And it came about as he said: I was put back in my place, and the bread-maker was put to death by hanging.

¹⁴Then Pharaoh sent for Joseph, and they took him quickly out of prison; and when his hair had been cut and his dress changed, he came before Pharaoh.

¹⁵And Pharaoh said to Joseph, I have had a dream, and no one is able to give me the sense of it; now it has come to my ears that you are able to give the sense of a dream when it is put before you.

¹⁶Then Joseph said, Without God there will be no answer of peace for Pharaoh.

¹⁷Then Pharaoh said, In my dream I was by the side of the Nile:

¹⁸And out of the Nile came seven cows, fat and good-looking, and their food was the river-grass;

¹⁹Then after them came seven other cows, very thin and poor-looking, worse than any I ever saw in the land of Egypt;

²⁰And the thin cows made a meal of the seven fat cows who came up first;

²¹And even with the fat cows inside them they seemed as bad as before. And so I came out of my sleep.

²²And again in a dream I saw seven heads of grain, full and good, coming up on one stem:

²³And then I saw seven other heads, dry, thin, and wasted by the east wind, coming up after them:

²⁴And the seven thin heads made a meal of the seven good heads; and I put this dream before the wise men, but not one of them was able to give me the sense of it.

²⁵Then Joseph said, These two dreams have the same sense: God has made clear to Pharaoh what he is about to do.

²⁶The seven fat cows are seven years, and the seven good heads of grain are seven years: the two have the same sense.

²⁷The seven thin and poor-looking cows who came up after them are seven years; and the seven heads of grain, dry and wasted by the east wind, are seven years when there will be no food.

²⁸As I said to Pharaoh before, God has made clear to him what he is about to do.

²⁹Seven years are coming in which there will be great wealth of grain in Egypt;

³⁰And after that will come seven years when there will not be enough food; and the memory of the good years will go from men's minds; and the land will be made waste by the bad years;

³¹And men will have no memory of the good time because of the need which will come after, for it will be very bitter.

³²And this dream came to Pharaoh twice, because this thing is certain, and God will quickly make it come about.

³³And now let Pharaoh make search for a man of wisdom and good sense, and put him in authority over the land of Egypt.

³⁴Let Pharaoh do this, and let him put overseers over the land of Egypt to put in store a fifth part of the produce of the land in the good years.

³⁵And let them get together all the food in those good years and make a store of grain under Pharaoh's control for the use of the towns, and let them keep it.

³⁶And let that food be kept in store for the land till the seven bad years which are to come in Egypt; so that the land may not come to destruction through need of food.

³⁷And this seemed good to Pharaoh and to all his servants.

³⁸Then Pharaoh said to his servants, Where may we get such a man as this, a man in whom is the spirit of God?

³⁹And Pharaoh said to Joseph, Seeing that God has made all this clear to you, there is no other man of such wisdom and good sense as you:

⁴⁰You, then, are to be over my house, and all my people will be ruled by your word: only as king will I be greater than you.

⁴¹And Pharaoh said to Joseph, See, I have put you over all the land of Egypt.

⁴²Then Pharaoh took off his ring from his hand and put it on Joseph's hand, and he had him clothed with the best linen, and put a chain of gold round his neck;

⁴³And he made him take his seat in the second of his carriages; and they went before him crying, Make way! So he made him ruler over all the land of Egypt.

⁴⁴Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, I am Pharaoh; and without your order no man may do anything in all the land of Egypt.

⁴⁵And Pharaoh gave Joseph the name of Zaphnath-paaneah; and he gave him Asenath, the daughter of Poti-phera, the priest of On, to be his wife. So Joseph went through all the land of Egypt.

⁴⁶Now Joseph was thirty years old when he came before Pharaoh, king of Egypt. And Joseph went out from before the face of Pharaoh and went through all the land of Egypt.

⁴⁷Now in the seven good years the earth gave fruit in masses.

⁴⁸And Joseph got together all the food of those seven years, and made a store of food in the towns: the produce of the fields round every town was stored up in the town.

⁴⁹So he got together a store of grain like the sand of the sea; so great a store that after a time he gave up measuring it, for it might not be measured.

⁵⁰And before the time of need, Joseph had two sons, to whom Asenath, the daughter of Poti-phera, priest of On, gave birth.

⁵¹And to the first he gave the name Manasseh, for he said, God has taken away from me all memory of my hard life and of my father's house.

⁵²And to the second he gave the name Ephraim, for he said, God has given me fruit in the land of my sorrow.

⁵³And so the seven good years in Egypt came to an end.

⁵⁴Then came the first of the seven years of need as Joseph had said: and in every other land they were short of food; but in the land of Egypt there was bread.

⁵⁵And when all the land of Egypt was in need of food, the people came crying to Pharaoh for bread; and Pharaoh said to the people, Go to Joseph, and whatever he says to you, do it.

⁵⁶And everywhere on the earth they were short of food; then Joseph, opening all his store-houses, gave the people of Egypt grain for money; so great was the need of food in the land of Egypt.

⁵⁷And all lands sent to Egypt, to Joseph, to get grain, for the need was great over all the earth.

42Now Jacob, hearing that there was grain in Egypt, said to his sons, Why are you looking at one another?

²And he said, I have had news that there is grain in Egypt: go down there and get grain for us, so that life and not death may be ours.

³So Joseph's ten brothers went down to get grain from Egypt.

⁴But Jacob did not send Benjamin, Joseph's brother, with them, for fear, as he said, that some evil might come to him.

⁵And the sons of Israel came with all the others to get grain: for they were very short of food in the land of Canaan.

⁶Now Joseph was ruler over all the land, and it was he who gave out the grain to all the people of the land; and Joseph's brothers came before him and went down on their faces to the earth.

⁷And when Joseph saw his brothers, it was clear to him who they were, but he made himself strange to them, and talking roughly to them, said, Where do you come from? And they said, From the land of Canaan, to get food.

⁸Now though Joseph saw that these were his brothers, they had no idea who he was.

⁹Then the memory of his dreams about them came back to Joseph, and he said to them, You have come secretly to see how poor the land is.

¹⁰And they said to him, Not so, my lord: your servants have come with money to get food.

¹¹We are all one man's sons, we are true men; we have not come with any secret purpose.

¹²And he said to them, No, but you have come to see how poor the land is.

¹³Then they said, We your servants are twelve brothers, sons of one man in the land of Canaan; the youngest of us is now with our father, and one is dead.

¹⁴And Joseph said, It is as I said; you have come with some secret purpose;

¹⁵But in this way will you be put to the test: by the life of Pharaoh, you will not go away from this place till your youngest brother comes here.

¹⁶Send one of your number to get your brother, and the rest of you will be kept in prison, so that your words may be tested to see if you are true; if not, by the life of Pharaoh, your purpose is certainly secret.

¹⁷So he put them in prison for three days.

¹⁸And on the third day Joseph said to them, Do this, if you would keep your lives: for I am a god-fearing man:

¹⁹If you are true men, let one of you be kept in prison, while you go and take grain for the needs of your families;

²⁰And come back to me with your youngest brother, so that your words may be seen to be true, and you will not be put to death. This is what you are to do.

²¹And they said to one another, Truly, we did wrong to our brother, for we saw his grief of mind, and we did not give ear to his prayers; that is why this trouble has come on us.

²²And Reuben said to them, Did I not say to you, Do the child no wrong? but you gave no attention; so now, punishment has come on us for his blood.

²³They were not conscious that the sense of their words was clear to Joseph, for he had been talking to them through one who had knowledge of their language.

²⁴And turning away from them, he was overcome with weeping; then he went on talking to them again and took Simeon and put chains on him before their eyes.

²⁵Then Joseph gave orders for their bags to be made full of grain, and for every man's money to be put back into his bag, and for food to be given them for the journey: which was done.

²⁶Then they put the bags of grain on their asses and went away.

²⁷Now at their night's resting-place one of them, opening his bag to give his ass some food, saw his money in the mouth of the bag.

²⁸And he said to his brothers, My money has been given back: it is in my bag; then their hearts became full of fear, and turning to one another they said, What is this which God has done to us?

²⁹So when they came to Jacob their father, in the land of Canaan, they gave him an account of all their experiences, saying,

³⁰The man who is the ruler of the country was rough with us and put us in prison, saying that we had come with a secret evil purpose.

³¹And we said to him, We are true men, we have no evil designs;

³²We are twelve brothers, sons of our father; one is dead, and the youngest is now with our father in the land of Canaan.

³³And the ruler of the land said, In this way I may be certain that you are true men; let one of you be kept here with me, while you go and take grain for the needs of your families;

³⁴And come back to me with your youngest brother: then I will be certain that you are true men, and I will give your brother back to you and let you do trade in the land.

³⁵And when they took the grain out of their bags, it was seen that every man's parcel of money was in his bag; and when they and their father saw the money, they were full of fear.

³⁶And Jacob their father said to them, You have taken my children from me: Joseph is gone and Simeon is gone, and now you would take Benjamin away; all these things have come on me.

³⁷And Reuben said, Put my two sons to death if I do not come back to you with him; let him be in my care and I will give him safely back to you.

³⁸And he said, I will not let my son go down with you; for his brother is dead and he is all I have: if evil overtakes him on the journey, then through you will my grey head go down to the underworld in sorrow.

43Now the land was in bitter need of food.

²And when the grain which they had got in Egypt was all used up, their father said to them, Go again and get us a little food.

³And Judah said to him, The man said to us with an oath, You are not to come before me again without your brother.

⁴If you will let our brother go with us, we will go down and get food:

⁵But if you will not send him, we will not go down: for the man said to us, You are not to come before me if your brother is not with you.

⁶And Israel said, Why were you so cruel to me as to say to him that you had a brother?

⁷And they said, The man put a number of questions to us about ourselves and our family, saying, Is your father still living? have you another brother? And we had to give him answers; how were we to have any idea that he would say, Come back with your brother?

⁸Then Judah said to Israel, his father, Send the boy with me, and let us be up and going, so that we and you and our little ones may not come to destruction.

⁹Put him into my care and make me responsible for him: if I do not give him safely back to you, let mine be the sin for ever.

¹⁰Truly, if we had not let the time go by, we might have come back again by now.

¹¹Then their father Israel said to them, If it has to be so, then do this: take of the best fruits of the land in your vessels to give the man, perfumes and honey and spices and nuts:

¹²And take twice as much money with you; that is to say, take back the money which was put in your bags, for it may have been an error;

¹³And take your brother and go back to the man:

¹⁴And may God, the Ruler of all, give you mercy before the man, so that he may give you back your other brother and Benjamin. If my children are to be taken from me; there is no help for it.

¹⁵So they took what their father said for the man, and twice as much money in their hands, and Benjamin, and went on their journey to Egypt, and came before Joseph.

¹⁶And when Joseph saw Benjamin, he said to his chief servant, Take these men into my house, and make ready a meal, for they will take food with me in the middle of the day.

¹⁷And the servant did as Joseph said, and took the men into Joseph's house.

¹⁸Now the men were full of fear because they had been taken into Joseph's house and they said, It is because of the money which was put back in our bags the first time; he is looking for something against us, so that he may come down on us and take us and our asses for his use.

¹⁹So they went up to Joseph's chief servant at the door of the house,

²⁰And said, O my lord, we only came down the first time to get food;

²¹And when we came to our night's resting-place, on opening our bags we saw that every man's money was in the mouth of his bag, all our money in full weight: and we have it with us to give it back;

²²As well as more money, with which to get food: we have no idea who put our money in our bags.

²³Then the servant said, Peace be with you: have no fear: your God, even the God of your father, has put wealth in your bags for you: I had your money. Then he let Simeon come out to them.

²⁴And the servant took them into Joseph's house, and gave them water for washing their feet; and he gave their asses food.

²⁵And they got ready the things for Joseph before he came in the middle of the day: for word was given to them that they were to have a meal there.

²⁶And when Joseph came in, they gave him the things which they had for him, and went down to the earth before him.

²⁷And he said, How are you? is your father well, the old man of whom you were talking to me? is he still living?

²⁸And they said, Your servant, our father, is well, he is still living. And they went down on their faces before him.

²⁹Then, lifting up his eyes, he saw Benjamin, his brother, his mother's son, and he said, Is this your youngest brother of whom you gave me word? And he said, God be good to you, my son.

³⁰Then Joseph's heart went out to his brother, and he went quickly into his room, for he was overcome with weeping.

³¹Then, after washing his face, he came out, and controlling his feelings said, Put food before us.

³²And they put a meal ready for him by himself, and for them by themselves, and for the Egyptians who were with him by themselves; because the Egyptians may not take food with the Hebrews, for that would make them unclean.

³³And they were all given their seats before him in order of birth, from the oldest to the youngest: so that they were looking at one another in wonder.

³⁴And Joseph sent food to them from his table, but he sent five times as much to Benjamin as to any of the others. And they took wine freely with him.

44Then he gave orders to the servant who was over his house, saying, Put as much food into the men's bags as will go into them, and put every man's money in the mouth of his bag;

²And put my cup, my silver cup, in the youngest one's bag, with his money. So he did as Joseph said.

³And at dawn the men, with their asses, were sent away.

⁴And when they had gone only a little way out of the town, Joseph said to the servant who was over his house, Go after them; and when you overtake them, say to them, Why have you done evil in reward for good?

⁵Is not this the cup from which my lord takes wine and by which he gets knowledge of the future? Truly, you have done evil.

⁶So he overtook them and said these words to them.

⁷And they said to him, Why does my lord say such words as these? far be it from your servants to do such a thing:

⁸See, the money which was in the mouth of our bags we gave back to you when we came again from Canaan: how then might we take silver or gold from your lord's house?

⁹If it comes to light that any of your servants has done this, let him be put to death, and we will be your lord's servants.

¹⁰And he said, Let it be as you say: he in whose bag it is seen will become my servant; and you will not be responsible.

¹¹Then every man quickly got his bag down and undid it.

¹²And he made a search, starting with the oldest and ending with the youngest; and the cup was in Benjamin's bag.

¹³Then in bitter grief they put the bags on the asses again and went back to the town.

¹⁴So Judah and his brothers came to Joseph's house; and he was still there: and they went down on their faces before him.

¹⁵And Joseph said, What is this thing which you have done? had you no thought that such a man as I would have power to see what is secret?

¹⁶And Judah said, What are we to say to my lord? how may we put ourselves right in his eyes? God has made clear the sin of your servants: now we are in your hands, we and the man in whose bag your cup was seen.

¹⁷Then he said, Far be it from me to do so: but the man who had my cup will be my servant; and you may go back to your father in peace.

¹⁸Then Judah came near him, and said, Let your servant say a word in my lord's ears, and let not your wrath be burning against your servant: for you are in the place of Pharaoh to us.

¹⁹My lord said to his servants, Have you a father or a brother?

²⁰And we said to my lord, We have an old father and a young child, whom he had when he was old; his brother is dead and he is the only son of his mother, and is very dear to his father.

²¹And you said to your servants, Let him come down to me with you, so that I may see him.

²²And we said to my lord, His father will not let him go; for if he went away his father would come to his death.

²³But you said to your servants, If your youngest brother does not come with you, you will not see my face again.

²⁴And when we went back to your servant, our father, we gave him an account of my lord's words.

²⁵And our father said, Go again and get us a little food.

²⁶And we said, Only if our youngest brother goes with us will we go down; for we may not see the man's face again if our youngest brother is not with us.

²⁷And our father said to us, You have knowledge that my wife gave me two sons;

²⁸The one went away from me, and I said, Truly he has come to a violent death; and from that time I have not seen him,

²⁹If now you take this one from me, and some evil comes to him, you will make my grey head go down in sorrow to the underworld.

³⁰If then I go back to your servant, my father, without the boy, because his life and the boy's life are one,

³¹When he sees that the boy is not with us, he will come to his death, and our father's grey head will go down in sorrow to the underworld.

³²For I made myself responsible for the boy to my father, saying, If I do not give him safely back to you, let mine be the sin for ever.

³³So now let me be my lord's servant here in place of the boy, and let him go back with his brothers.

³⁴For how may I go back to my father without the boy, and see the evil which will come on my father?

45Then Joseph, unable to keep back his feelings before those who were with him, gave orders for everyone to be sent away, and no one was present when he made clear to his brothers who he was.

²And so loud was his weeping, that it came to the ears of the Egyptians and all Pharaoh's house.

³And Joseph said to his brothers, I am Joseph: is my father still living? But his brothers were not able to give him an answer for they were troubled before him.

⁴Then Joseph said to his brothers, Come near to me. And they came near, And he said, I am Joseph your brother, whom you sent into Egypt.

⁵Now do not be troubled or angry with yourselves for sending me away, because God sent me before you to be the saviour of your lives.

⁶For these two years have been years of need, and there are still five more years to come in which there will be no ploughing or cutting of grain.

⁷God sent me before you to keep you and yours living on earth so that you might become a great nation.

⁸So now it was not you who sent me here, but God: and he has made me as a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and ruler over all the land of Egypt.

⁹Now go quickly to my father, and say to him, Your son Joseph says, God has made me ruler over all the land of Egypt: come down to me straight away:

¹⁰The land of Goshen will be your living-place, and you will be near me; you and your children and your children's children, and your flocks and herds and all you have:

¹¹And there I will take care of you, so that you and your family may not be in need, for there are still five bad years to come.

¹²Now truly, your eyes see, and the eyes of my brother Benjamin see, that it is my mouth which says these things to you.

¹³Give my father word of all my glory in Egypt and of all you have seen; and come back quickly with my father.

¹⁴Then, weeping, he took Benjamin in his arms, and Benjamin himself was weeping on Joseph's neck.

¹⁵Then he gave a kiss to all his brothers, weeping over them; and after that his brothers had no fear of talking to him.

¹⁶And news of these things went through Pharaoh's house, and it was said that Joseph's brothers were come; and it seemed good to Pharaoh and his servants.

¹⁷And Pharaoh said to Joseph, Say to your brothers, Put your goods on your beasts and go back to the land of Canaan;

¹⁸And get your father and your families and come back to me: and I will give you all the good things of Egypt, and the fat of the land will be your food.

¹⁹And say to them, This you are to do: take carts from the land of Egypt for your little ones and for your wives, and get your father and come back.

²⁰And take no thought for your goods, for the best of all the land of Egypt is yours.

²¹And the children of Israel did as he said; and Joseph gave them carts as had been ordered by Pharaoh, and food for their journey.

²²To every one of them he gave three changes of clothing; but to Benjamin he gave three hundred bits of silver and five changes of clothing.

²³And to his father he sent ten asses with good things from Egypt on their backs, and ten she-asses with grain and bread and food for his father on the journey.

²⁴And he sent his brothers on their way, and said to them, See that you have no argument on the road.

²⁵So they went up from Egypt and came to the land of Canaan, to their father Jacob.

²⁶And they said to him, Joseph is living, and is ruler over all the land of Egypt. And at this word Jacob was quite overcome, for he had no faith in it.

²⁷And they gave him an account of everything Joseph had said to them; and when he saw the carts which Joseph had sent for them, his spirit came back to him:

²⁸And Israel said, It is enough: Joseph my son is still living; I will go and see him before my death.

46And Israel went on his journey with all he had, and came to Beer-sheba, where he made offerings to the God of his father Isaac.

²And God said to Israel in a night-vision, Jacob, Jacob. And he said, Here am I.

³And he said, I am God, the God of your father: go down to Egypt without fear, for I will make a great nation of you there:

⁴I will go down with you to Egypt, and I will see that you come back again, and at your death Joseph will put his hands on your eyes.

⁵Then Jacob went on from Beer-sheba; and the sons of Jacob took their father and their little ones and their wives in the carts which Pharaoh had sent for them.

⁶And they took their cattle and all the goods which they had got in the land of Canaan, and came to Egypt, even Jacob and all his seed:

⁷His sons and his sons' sons, his daughters and his daughters' sons and all his family he took with him into Egypt.

⁸And these are the names of the children of Israel who came into Egypt, even Jacob and all his sons: Reuben, Jacob's oldest son;

⁹And the sons of Reuben: Hanoch and Pallu and Hezron and Carmi;

¹⁰And the sons of Simeon: Jemuel and Jamin and Ohad and Jachin and Zohar and Shaul, the son of a woman of Canaan;

¹¹And the sons of Levi: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari;

¹²And the sons of Judah: Er and Onan and Shelah and Perez and Zerah: but Er and Onan had come to their death in the land of Canaan; and the sons of Perez were Hezron and Hamul.

¹³And the sons of Issachar: Tola and Puah and Job and Shimron;

¹⁴And the sons of Zebulun: Sered and Elon and Jahleel;

¹⁵All these, together with his daughter Dinah, were the children of Leah, whom Jacob had by her in Paddan-aram; they were thirty-three in number.

¹⁶And the sons of Gad: Ziphion and Haggi, Shuni and Ezbon, Eri and Arodi and Areli;

¹⁷And the sons of Asher: Jimnah and Ishvah and Ishvi and Beriah, and Sarah, their sister; and the sons of Beriah: Heber and Malchiel.

¹⁸These are the children of Zilpah, whom Laban gave to his daughter Leah, and Jacob had these sixteen children by her.

¹⁹The sons of Jacob's wife Rachel: Joseph and Benjamin.

²⁰And Joseph had Manasseh and Ephraim in the land of Egypt, by Asenath, the daughter of Poti-phera, priest of On.

²¹And the sons of Benjamin were Belah and Becher and Ashbel, Gera and Naaman, Ehi and Rosh, Muppim and Huppim and Ard.

²²All these were the children of Rachel whom Jacob had by her, fourteen persons.

²³And the son of Dan was Hushim.

²⁴And the sons of Naphtali: Jahzeel and Guni and Jezer and Shillem.

²⁵These were the children of Bilhah, whom Laban gave to his daughter Rachel, seven persons.

²⁶All the persons who came with Jacob into Egypt, the offspring of his body, were sixty-six, without taking into account the wives of Jacob's sons.

²⁷And the sons of Joseph whom he had in Egypt were two. Seventy persons of the family of Jacob came into Egypt.

²⁸Now he had sent Judah before him to Goshen, to get word from Joseph; and so they came to the land of Goshen.

²⁹And Joseph got his carriage ready and went to Goshen for the meeting with his father; and when he came before him, he put his arms round his neck, weeping.

³⁰And Israel said to Joseph, Now that I have seen you living again, I am ready for death.

³¹And Joseph said to his brothers and to his father's people, I will go and give the news to Pharaoh, and say to him, My brothers and my father's people, from the land of Canaan, have come to me;

³²And these men are keepers of sheep and owners of cattle, and have with them their flocks and their herds and all they have.

³³Now when Pharaoh sends for you and says, What is your business?

³⁴You are to say, Your servants have been keepers of cattle from our early days up to now, like our fathers; in this way you will be able to have the land of Goshen for yourselves; because keepers of sheep are unclean in the eyes of the Egyptians.

47Then Joseph went to Pharaoh, and said, My father and my brothers with their flocks and their herds and all they have, are come from Canaan, and are now in the land of Goshen.

²And he took five of his brothers to Pharaoh.

³And Pharaoh said to them, What is your business? And they said, Your servants are keepers of sheep, as our fathers were before us.

⁴And they said to Pharaoh, We have come to make a living in this land, because we have no grass for our flocks in the land of Canaan; so now let your servants make a place for themselves in the land of Goshen.

⁵And Pharaoh said to Joseph, Let them have the land of Goshen; and if there are any able men among them, put them over my cattle.

⁶And Jacob and his sons came to Joseph in Egypt, and when word of it came to the ears of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, he said to Joseph, Your father and brothers have come to you; all the land of Egypt is before you; let your father and your brothers have the best of the land for their resting-place.

⁷Then Joseph made his father Jacob come before Pharaoh, and Jacob gave him his blessing.

⁸And Pharaoh said to him, How old are you?

⁹And Jacob said, The years of my wanderings have been a hundred and thirty; small in number and full of sorrow have been the years of my life, and less than the years of the wanderings of my fathers.

¹⁰And Jacob gave Pharaoh his blessing, and went out from before him.

¹¹And Joseph made a place for his father and his brothers, and gave them a heritage in the land of Egypt, in the best of the land, the land of Rameses, as Pharaoh had given orders.

¹²And Joseph took care of his father and his brothers and all his father's people, giving them food for the needs of their families.

¹³Now there was no food to be had in all the land, so that all Egypt and Canaan were wasted from need of food.

¹⁴And all the money in Egypt and in the land of Canaan which had been given for grain, came into the hands of Joseph: and he put it in Pharaoh's house.

¹⁵And when all the money in Egypt and Canaan was gone, the Egyptians came to Joseph, and said, Give us bread; would you have us come to destruction before your eyes? for we have no more money.

¹⁶And Joseph said, Give me your cattle; I will give you grain in exchange for your cattle if your money is all gone.

¹⁷So they took their cattle to Joseph and he gave them bread in exchange for their horses and flocks and herds and asses, so all that year he gave them food in exchange for their cattle.

¹⁸And when that year was ended, they came to him in the second year, and said, We may not keep it from our lord's knowledge that all our money is gone, and all the herds of cattle are my lord's; there is nothing more to give my lord but our bodies and our land;

¹⁹Are we to come to destruction before your eyes, we and our land? take us and our land and give us bread; and we and our land will be servants to Pharaoh; and give us seed so that we may have life and the land may not become waste.

²⁰So Joseph got all the land in Egypt for Pharaoh; for every Egyptian gave up his land in exchange for food, because of their great need; so all the land became Pharaoh's.

²¹And as for the people, he made servants of them, town by town, from one end of Egypt to the other.

²²Only he did not take the land of the priests, for the priests had their food given them by Pharaoh, and having what Pharaoh gave them, they had no need to give up their land.

²³Then Joseph said to the people, I have made you and your land this day the property of Pharaoh; here is seed for you to put in your fields.

²⁴And when the grain is cut, you are to give a fifth part to Pharaoh, and four parts will be yours for seed and food, and for your families and your little ones.

²⁵And they said to him, Truly you have kept us from death; may we have grace in your eyes, and we will be Pharaoh's servants.

²⁶Then Joseph made a law which is in force to this day, that Pharaoh was to have the fifth part; only the land of the priests did not become his.

²⁷And so Israel was living among the Egyptians in the land of Goshen; and they got property there, and became very great in numbers and in wealth.

²⁸And Jacob was living in the land of Goshen for seventeen years; so the years of his life were a hundred and forty-seven.

²⁹And the time of his death came near, and he sent for his son Joseph and said to him, If now I am dear to you, put your hand under my leg and take an oath that you will not put me to rest in Egypt;

³⁰But when I go to my fathers, you are to take me out of Egypt and put me to rest in their last resting-place. And he said, I will do so.

³¹And he said, Take an oath to me; and he took an oath to him: and Israel gave worship on the bed's head.

48Now after these things, word came to Joseph that his father was ill: and he took with him his sons Manasseh and Ephraim.

²And when they said to Jacob, Your son Joseph is coming to see you: then Israel, getting all his strength together, had himself lifted up in his bed.

³And Jacob said to Joseph, God, the Ruler of all, came to me in a vision at Luz in the land of Canaan, and gave me his blessing,

⁴And said to me, Truly, I will make you fertile and give you increase and will make of you a great family of nations: and I will give this land to your seed after you to be their heritage for ever.

⁵And now your two sons who came to birth in Egypt before I came to you here, are mine; Ephraim and Manasseh will be mine, in the same way as Reuben and Simeon are.

⁶And any other offspring which you have after them, will be yours, and will be named after their brothers in their heritage.

⁷And as for me, when I came from Paddan, death overtook Rachel on the way, when we were still some distance from Ephrath; and I put her to rest there on the road to Ephrath, which is Beth-lehem.

⁸Then Israel, looking at Joseph's sons, said, Who are these?

⁹And Joseph said to his father, They are my sons, whom God has given me in this land. And he said, Let them come near me, and I will give them a blessing.

¹⁰Now because Israel was old, his eyes were no longer clear, and he was not able to see. So he made them come near to him, and he gave them a kiss, folding them in his arms.

¹¹And Israel said to Joseph, I had no hope of seeing your face again, but God in his mercy has let me see you and your children.

¹²Then Joseph took them from between his knees, and went down on his face to the earth.

¹³Then taking Ephraim with his right hand, Joseph put him at Israel's left side, and with his left hand he put Manasseh at Israel's right side, placing them near him.

¹⁴And Israel, stretching out his right hand, put it on the head of Ephraim, the younger, and his left hand on the head of Manasseh, crossing his hands on purpose, for Manasseh was the older.

¹⁵And he gave Joseph a blessing, saying, May the God to whom my fathers, Abraham and Isaac, gave worship, the God who has taken care of me all my life till this day,

¹⁶The angel who has been my saviour from all evil, send his blessing on these children: and let my name and the name of my fathers, Abraham and Isaac, be given to them; and let them become a great nation in the earth.

¹⁷Now when Joseph saw that his father had put his right hand on the head of Ephraim, it did not seem right to him; and lifting his father's hand he would have put it on the head of Manasseh.

¹⁸And Joseph said to his father, Not so, my father, for this is the older; put your right hand on his head.

¹⁹But his father would not, saying, I am doing it on purpose, my son; he will certainly become a nation and a great one; but his younger brother will be greater than he, and his seed will become a great family of nations.

²⁰So he gave them his blessing that day, saying, You will be the sign of blessing in Israel, for they will say, May God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh; and he put Ephraim before Manasseh.

²¹Then Israel said to Joseph, Now my death is near; but God will be with you, guiding you back to the land of your fathers.

²²And I have given you more than your brothers, even Shechem as your heritage, which I took from the Amorites with my sword and my bow.

49And Jacob sent for his sons, and said, Come together, all of you, so that I may give you news of your fate in future times.

²Come near, O sons of Jacob, and give ear to the words of Israel your father.

³Reuben, you are my oldest son, the first-fruit of my strength, first in pride and first in power:

⁴But because you were uncontrolled, the first place will not be yours; for you went up to your father's bed, even his bride-bed, and made it unclean.

⁵Simeon and Levi are brothers; deceit and force are their secret designs.

⁶Take no part in their secrets, O my soul; keep far away, O my heart, from their meetings; for in their wrath they put men to death, and for their pleasure even oxen were wounded.

⁷A curse on their passion for it was bitter; and on their wrath for it was cruel. I will let their heritage in Jacob be broken up, driving them from their places in Israel.

⁸To you, Judah, will your brothers give praise: your hand will be on the neck of your haters; your father's sons will go down to the earth before you.

⁹Judah is a young lion; like a lion full of meat you have become great, my son; now he takes his rest like a lion stretched out and like an old lion; by whom will his sleep be broken?

¹⁰The rod of authority will not be taken from Judah, and he will not be without a law-giver, till he comes who has the right to it, and the peoples will put themselves under his rule.

¹¹Knotting his ass's cord to the vine, and his young ass to the best vine; washing his robe in wine, and his clothing in the blood of grapes:

¹²His eyes will be dark with wine, and his teeth white with milk.

¹³The resting-place of Zebulun will be by the sea, and he will be a harbour for ships; the edge of his land will be by Zidon.

¹⁴Issachar is a strong ass stretched out among the flocks:

¹⁵And he saw that rest was good and the land was pleasing; so he let them put weights on his back and became a servant.

¹⁶Dan will be the judge of his people, as one of the tribes of Israel.

¹⁷May Dan be a snake in the way, a horned snake by the road, biting the horse's foot so that the horseman has a fall.

¹⁸I have been waiting for your salvation, O Lord.

¹⁹Gad, an army will come against him, but he will come down on them in their flight.

²⁰Asher's bread is fat; he gives delicate food for kings.

²¹Naphtali is a roe let loose, giving fair young ones.

²²Joseph is a young ox, whose steps are turned to the fountain;

²³He was troubled by the archers; they sent out their arrows against him, cruelly wounding him:

²⁴But their bows were broken by a strong one, and the cords of their arms were cut by the Strength of Jacob, by the name of the Stone of Israel:

²⁵Even by the God of your father, who will be your help, and by the Ruler of all, who will make you full with blessings from heaven on high, blessings of the deep stretched out under the earth, blessings of the breasts and of the fertile body:

²⁶Blessings of sons, old and young, to the father: blessings of the oldest mountains and the fruit of the eternal hills: let them come on the head of Joseph, on the crown of him who was separate from his brothers.

²⁷Benjamin is a wolf, searching for meat: in the morning he takes his food, and in the evening he makes division of what he has taken.

²⁸These are the twelve tribes of Israel: and these are the words their father said to them, blessing them; to every one he gave his blessing.

²⁹And he gave orders to them, saying, Put me to rest with my people and with my fathers, in the hollow of the rock in the field of Ephron the Hittite,

³⁰In the rock in the field of Machpelah, near Mamre in the land of Canaan, which Abraham got from Ephron the Hittite, to be his resting-place.

³¹There Abraham and Sarah his wife were put to rest, and there they put Isaac and Rebekah his wife, and there I put Leah to rest.

³²In the rock in the field which was got for a price from the people of Heth.

³³And when Jacob had come to the end of these words to his sons, stretching himself on his bed, he gave up his spirit, and went the way of his people.

50And Joseph put his head down on his father's face, weeping and kissing him.

²And Joseph gave orders to his servants who had the necessary knowledge, to make his father's body ready, folding it in linen with spices, and they did so.

³And the forty days needed for making the body ready went by: and there was weeping for him among the Egyptians for seventy days.

⁴And when the days of weeping for him were past, Joseph said to the servants of Pharaoh, If now you have love for me, say these words to Pharaoh:

⁵My father made me take an oath, saying, When I am dead, put me to rest in the place I have made ready for myself in the land of Canaan. So now let me go and put my father in his last resting-place, and I will come back again.

⁶And Pharaoh said, Go up and put your father to rest, as you gave your oath to him.

⁷So Joseph went up to put his father in his last resting-place; and with him went all the servants of Pharaoh, and the chief men of his house and all the chiefs of the land of Egypt,

⁸And all the family of Joseph, and his brothers and his father's people: only their little ones and their flocks and herds they did not take with them from the land of Goshen.

⁹And carriages went up with him and horsemen, a great army.

¹⁰And they came to the grain-floor of Atad on the other side of Jordan, and there they gave the last honours to Jacob, with great and bitter sorrow, weeping for their father for seven days.

¹¹And when the people of the land, the people of Canaan, at the grain-floor of Atad, saw their grief, they said, Great is the grief of the Egyptians: so the place was named Abel-mizraim, on the other side of Jordan.

¹²So his sons did as he had given them orders to do:

¹³For they took him into the land of Canaan and put him to rest in the hollow rock in the field of Machpelah, which Abraham got with the field, for a resting-place, from Ephron the Hittite at Mamre.

¹⁴And when his father had been put to rest, Joseph and his brothers and all who had gone with him, went back to Egypt.

¹⁵Now after the death of their father, Joseph's brothers said to themselves, It may be that Joseph's heart will be turned against us, and he will give us punishment for all the evil which we did to him.

¹⁶So they sent word to Joseph, saying, Your father, before his death, gave us orders, saying,

¹⁷You are to say to Joseph, Let the wrongdoing of your brothers be overlooked, and the evil they did to you: now, if it is your pleasure, let the sin of the servants of your father's God have forgiveness. And at these words, Joseph was overcome with weeping.

¹⁸Then his brothers went, and falling at his feet, said, Truly, we are your servants.

¹⁹And Joseph said, Have no fear: am I in the place of God?

²⁰As for you, it was in your mind to do me evil, but God has given a happy outcome, the salvation of numbers of people, as you see today.

²¹So now, have no fear: for I will take care of you and your little ones. So he gave them comfort with kind words.

²²Now Joseph and all his father's family went on living in Egypt: and the years of Joseph's life were a hundred and ten.

²³And Joseph saw Ephraim's children of the third generation: and the children of Machir, the son of Manasseh, came to birth on Joseph's knees.

²⁴Then Joseph said to his brothers, The time of my death has come; but God will keep you in mind and take you out of this land into the land which he gave by his oath to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.

²⁵Then Joseph made the children of Israel take an oath, saying, God will certainly give effect to his word, and you are to take my bones away from here.

²⁶So Joseph came to his death, being a hundred and ten years old: and they made his body ready, and he was put in a chest in Egypt.

1Now these are the names of the sons of Israel who came into Egypt; every man and his family came with Jacob.

²Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah;

³Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin;

⁴Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher.

⁵All the offspring of Jacob were seventy persons: and Joseph had come to Egypt before them.

⁶Then Joseph came to his end, and all his brothers, and all that generation.

⁷And the children of Israel were fertile, increasing very greatly in numbers and in power; and the land was full of them.

⁸Now a new king came to power in Egypt, who had no knowledge of Joseph.

⁹And he said to his people, See, the people of Israel are greater in number and in power than we are:

¹⁰Let us take care for fear that their numbers may become even greater, and if there is a war, they may be joined with those who are against us, and make an attack on us, and go up out of the land.

¹¹So they put overseers of forced work over them, in order to make their strength less by the weight of their work. And they made store-towns for Pharaoh, Pithom and Raamses.

¹²But the more cruel they were to them, the more their number increased, till all the land was full of them. And the children of Israel were hated by the Egyptians.

¹³And they gave the children of Israel even harder work to do:

¹⁴And made their lives bitter with hard work, making building-material and bricks, and doing all sorts of work in the fields under the hardest conditions.

¹⁵And the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew women who gave help at the time of childbirth (the name of the one was Shiphrah and the name of the other Puah),

¹⁶When you are looking after the Hebrew women in childbirth, if it is a son you are to put him to death; but if it is a daughter, she may go on living.

¹⁷But the women had the fear of God, and did not do as the king of Egypt said, but let the male children go on living.

¹⁸And the king of Egypt sent for the women, and said to them, Why have you done this, and let the male children go on living?

¹⁹And they said to Pharaoh, Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are strong, and the birth takes place before we come to them.

²⁰And the blessing of God was on these women: and the people were increased in number and became very strong.

²¹And because the women who took care of the Hebrew mothers had the fear of God, he gave them families.

²²And Pharaoh gave orders to all his people, saying, Every son who comes to birth is to be put into the river, but every daughter may go on living.

2Now a man of the house of Levi took as his wife a daughter of Levi.

²And she became with child and gave birth to a Son; and when she saw that he was a beautiful child, she kept him secretly for three months.

³And when she was no longer able to keep him secret, she made him a basket out of the stems of water-plants, pasting sticky earth over it to keep the water out; and placing the baby in it she put it among the plants by the edge of the Nile.

⁴And his sister took her place at a distance to see what would become of him.

⁵Now Pharaoh's daughter came down to the Nile to take a bath, while her women were walking by the riverside; and she saw the basket among the river-plants, and sent her servant-girl to get it.

⁶And opening it, she saw the child, and he was crying. And she had pity on him, and said, This is one of the Hebrews' children.

⁷Then his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, May I go and get you one of the Hebrew women to give him the breast?

⁸And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, Go. And the girl went and got the child's mother.

⁹And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, Take the child away and give it milk for me, and I will give you payment. And the woman took the child and gave it milk at her breast.

¹⁰And when the child was older, she took him to Pharaoh's daughter and he became her son, and she gave him the name Moses, Because, she said, I took him out of the water.

¹¹Now when Moses had become a man, one day he went out to his people and saw how hard their work was; and he saw an Egyptian giving blows to a Hebrew, one of his people.

¹²And turning this way and that, and seeing no one, he put the Egyptian to death, covering his body with sand.

¹³And he went out the day after and saw two of the Hebrews fighting: and he said to him who was in the wrong, Why are you fighting your brother?

¹⁴And he said, Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? are you going to put me to death as you did the Egyptian? And Moses was in fear, and said, It is clear that the thing has come to light.

¹⁵Now when Pharaoh had news of this, he would have put Moses to death. But Moses went in flight from Pharaoh into the land of Midian: and he took his seat by a water-spring.

¹⁶Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters: and they came to get water for their father's flock.

¹⁷And the keepers of the sheep came up and were driving them away; but Moses got up and came to their help, watering their flock for them.

¹⁸And when they came to Reuel their father, he said, How is it that you have come back so quickly today?

¹⁹And they said, An Egyptian came to our help against the keepers of sheep and got water for us and gave it to the flock.

²⁰And he said to his daughters, Where is he? why have you let the man go? make him come in and give him a meal.

²¹And Moses was happy to go on living with the man; and he gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses.

²²And she gave birth to a son, to whom he gave the name Gershom: for he said, I have been living in a strange land.

²³Now after a long time the king of Egypt came to his end: and the children of Israel were crying in their grief under the weight of their work, and their cry for help came to the ears of God.

²⁴And at the sound of their weeping the agreement which God had made with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob came to his mind.

²⁵And God's eyes were turned to the children of Israel and he gave them the knowledge of himself.

3Now Moses was looking after the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian: and he took the flock to the back of the waste land and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.

²And the angel of the Lord was seen by him in a flame of fire coming out of a thorn-tree: and he saw that the tree was on fire, but it was not burned up.

³And Moses said, I will go and see this strange thing, why the tree is not burned up,

⁴And when the Lord saw him turning to one side to see, God said his name out of the tree, crying, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I.

⁵And he said, Do not come near: take off your shoes from your feet, for the place where you are is holy.

⁶And he said, I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses kept his face covered for fear of looking on God.

⁷And God said, Truly, I have seen the grief of my people in Egypt, and their cry because of their cruel masters has come to my ears; for I have knowledge of their sorrows;

⁸And I have come down to take them out of the hands of the Egyptians, guiding them out of that land into a good land and wide, into a land flowing with milk and honey; into the place of the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite.

⁹For now, truly, the cry of the children of Israel has come to me, and I have seen the cruel behaviour of the Egyptians to them.

¹⁰Come, then, and I will send you to Pharaoh, so that you may take my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.

¹¹And Moses said to God, Who am I to go to Pharaoh and take the children of Israel out of Egypt?

¹²And he said, Truly I will be with you; and this will be the sign to you that I have sent you: when you have taken the children of Israel out of Egypt, you will give worship to God on this mountain.

¹³And Moses said to God, When I come to the children of Israel and say to them, The God of your fathers has sent me to you: and they say to me, What is his name? what am I to say to them?

¹⁴And God said to him, I AM WHAT I AM: and he said, Say to the children of Israel, I AM has sent me to you.

¹⁵And God went on to say to Moses, Say to the children of Israel, The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has sent me to you: this is my name for ever, and this is my sign to all generations.

¹⁶Go and get together the chiefs of the children of Israel, and say to them, The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has been seen by me, and has said, Truly I have taken up your cause, because of what is done to you in Egypt;

¹⁷And I have said, I will take you up out of the sorrows of Egypt into the land of the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite, into a land flowing with milk and honey.

¹⁸And they will give ear to your voice: and you, with the chiefs of Israel, will go to Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, and say to him, The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has come to us: let us then go three days' journey into the waste land to make an offering to the Lord our God.

¹⁹And I am certain that the king of Egypt will not let you go without being forced.

²⁰But I will put out my hand and overcome Egypt with all the wonders which I will do among them: and after that he will let you go.

²¹And I will give this people grace in the eyes of the Egyptians, so that when you go out you will go out with your hands full.

²²For every woman will get from her neighbour and from the woman living in her house, ornaments of silver and gold, and clothing; and you will put them on your sons and your daughters; you will take the best of their goods from the Egyptians.

4And Moses, answering, said, It is certain that they will not have faith in me or give ear to my voice; for they will say, You have not seen the Lord.

²And the Lord said to him, What is that in your hand? And he said, A rod.

³And he said, Put it down on the earth. And he put it down on the earth and it became a snake; and Moses went running from it.

⁴And the Lord said to Moses, Put out your hand and take it by the tail: (and he put out his hand and took a grip of it and it became a rod in his hand:)

⁵So that they may be certain that the Lord, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has been seen by you.

⁶Then the Lord said to him again, Put your hand inside your clothing. And he put his hand inside his robe: and when he took it out it was like the hand of a leper, as white as snow.

⁷And he said, Put your hand inside your robe again. (And he put his hand into his robe again, and when he took it out he saw that it had become like his other flesh.)

⁸And if they do not have faith in you or give ear to the voice of the first sign, they will have faith in the second sign.

⁹And if they have no faith even in these two signs and will not give ear to your voice, then you are to take the water of the Nile and put it on the dry land: and the water you take out of the river will become blood on the dry land.

¹⁰And Moses said to the Lord, O Lord, I am not a man of words; I have never been so, and am not now, even after what you have said to your servant: for talking is hard for me, and I am slow of tongue.

¹¹And the Lord said to him, Who has made man's mouth? who takes away a man's voice or hearing, or makes him seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord?

¹²So go now, and I will be with your mouth, teaching you what to say.

¹³And he said, O Lord, send, if you will, by the hand of anyone whom it seems good to you to send.

¹⁴And the Lord was angry with Moses, and said, Is there not Aaron, your brother, the Levite? To my knowledge he is good at talking. And now he is coming out to you: and when he sees you he will be glad in his heart.

¹⁵Let him give ear to your voice, and you will put my words in his mouth; and I will be with your mouth and with his, teaching you what you have to do.

¹⁶And he will do the talking for you to the people: he will be to you as a mouth and you will be to him as God.

¹⁷And take in your hand this rod with which you will do the signs.

¹⁸And Moses went back to Jethro, his father-in-law, and said to him, Let me go back now to my relations in Egypt and see if they are still living. And Jethro said to Moses, Go in peace.

¹⁹And the Lord said to Moses in Midian, Go back to Egypt, for all the men are dead who were attempting to take your life.

²⁰And Moses took his wife and his sons and put them on an ass and went back to the land of Egypt: and he took the rod of God in his hand.

²¹And the Lord said to Moses, When you go back to Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh all the wonders which I have given you power to do: but I will make his heart hard and he will not let the people go.

²²And you are to say to Pharaoh, The Lord says, Israel is the first of my sons:

²³And I said to you, Let my son go, so that he may give me worship; and you did not let him go: so now I will put the first of your sons to death.

²⁴Now on the journey, at the night's resting-place, the Lord came in his way and would have put him to death.

²⁵Then Zipporah took a sharp stone, and cutting off the skin of her son's private parts, and touching his feet with it, she said, Truly you are a husband of blood to me.

²⁶So he let him go. Then she said, You are a husband of blood because of the circumcision.

²⁷And the Lord said to Aaron, Go into the waste land and you will see Moses. So he went and came across Moses at the mountain of God, and gave him a kiss.

²⁸And Moses gave Aaron an account of all the words of the Lord which he had sent him to say, and of all the signs which he had given him orders to do.

²⁹Then Moses and Aaron went and got together all the chiefs of the children of Israel:

³⁰And Aaron said to them all the words the Lord had said to Moses, and did the signs before all the people.

³¹And the people had faith in them; and hearing that the Lord had taken up the cause of the children of Israel and had seen their troubles, with bent heads they gave him worship.

5And after that, Moses and Aaron came to Pharaoh, and said, The Lord, the God of Israel, says, Let my people go so that they may keep a feast to me in the waste land.

²And Pharaoh said, Who is the Lord, to whose voice I am to give ear and let Israel go? I have no knowledge of the Lord and I will not let Israel go.

³And they said, The God of the Hebrews has come to us: let us then go three days' journey into the waste land to make an offering to the Lord our God, so that he may not send death on us by disease or the sword.

⁴And the king of Egypt said to them, Why do you, Moses and Aaron, take the people away from their work? get back to your work.

⁵And Pharaoh said, Truly, the people of the land are increasing in number, and you are keeping them back from their work.

⁶The same day Pharaoh gave orders to the overseers and those who were responsible for the work, saying,

⁷Give these men no more dry stems for their brick-making as you have been doing; let them go and get the material for themselves.

⁸But see that they make the same number of bricks as before, and no less: for they have no love for work; and so they are crying out and saying, Let us go and make an offering to our God.

⁹Give the men harder work, and see that they do it; let them not give attention to false words.

¹⁰And the overseers of the people and their responsible men went out and said to the people, Pharaoh says, I will give you no more dry stems.

¹¹Go yourselves and get dry stems wherever you are able; for your work is not to be any less.

¹²So the people were sent in all directions through the land of Egypt to get dry grass for stems.

¹³And the overseers went on driving them and saying, Do your full day's work as before when there were dry stems for you.

¹⁴And the responsible men of the children of Israel, whom Pharaoh's overseers had put over them, were given blows, and they said to them, Why have you not done your regular work, in making bricks as before?

¹⁵Then the responsible men of the children of Israel came to Pharaoh, protesting and saying, Why are you acting in this way to your servants?

¹⁶They give us no dry stems and they say to us, Make bricks: and they give your servants blows; but it is your people who are in the wrong.

¹⁷But he said, You have no love for work: that is why you say, Let us go and make an offering to the Lord.

¹⁸Go now, get back to your work; no dry stems will be given to you, but you are to make the full number of bricks.

¹⁹Then the responsible men of the children of Israel saw that they were purposing evil when they said, The number of bricks which you have to make every day will be no less than before.

²⁰And they came face to face with Moses and Aaron, who were in their way when they came out from Pharaoh:

²¹And they said to them, May the Lord take note of you and be your judge; for you have given Pharaoh and his servants a bad opinion of us, putting a sword in their hands for our destruction.

²²And Moses went back to the Lord and said, Lord, why have you done evil to this people? why have you sent me?

²³For from the time when I came to Pharaoh to put your words before him, he has done evil to this people, and you have given them no help.

6And the Lord said to Moses, Now you will see what I am about to do to Pharaoh; for by a strong hand he will be forced to let them go, driving them out of his land because of my outstretched arm.

²And God said to Moses, I am Yahweh:

³I let myself be seen by Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as God, the Ruler of all; but they had no knowledge of my name Yahweh.

⁴And I made an agreement with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their wanderings.

⁵And truly my ears are open to the cry of the children of Israel whom the Egyptians keep under their yoke; and I have kept in mind my agreement.

⁶Say then to the children of Israel, I am Yahweh, and I will take you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians, and make you safe from their power, and will make you free by the strength of my arm after great punishments.

⁷And I will take you to be my people and I will be your God; and you will be certain that I am the Lord your God, who takes you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians.

⁸And I will be your guide into the land which I made an oath to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob; and I will give it to you for your heritage: I am Yahweh.

⁹And Moses said these words to the children of Israel, but they gave no attention to him, because of the grief of their spirit and the cruel weight of their work.

¹⁰And the Lord said to Moses,

¹¹Go in and say to Pharaoh, king of Egypt, that he is to let the children of Israel go out of his land.

¹²And Moses, answering the Lord, said, See, the children of Israel will not give ear to me; how then will Pharaoh give ear to me, whose lips are unclean?

¹³And the word of the Lord came to Moses and Aaron, with orders for the children of Israel and for Pharaoh, king of Egypt, to take the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt.

¹⁴These are the heads of their fathers' families: the sons of Reuben the oldest son of Israel: Hanoch and Pallu, Hezron and Carmi: these are the families of Reuben.

¹⁵And the sons of Simeon: Jemuel and Jamin and Ohad and Jachin and Zohar and Shaul, the son of a woman of Canaan: these are the families of Simeon.

¹⁶And these are the names of the sons of Levi in the order of their generations: Gershon and Kohath and Merari: and the years of Levi's life were a hundred and thirty-seven.

¹⁷The sons of Gershon: Libni and Shimei, in the order of their families.

¹⁸And the sons of Kohath: Amram and Izhar and Hebron and Uzziel: and the years of Kohath's life were a hundred and thirty-three.

¹⁹And the sons of Merari: Mahli and Mushi: these are the families of the Levites, in the order of their generations.

²⁰And Amram took Jochebed, his father's sister, as wife; and she gave birth to Aaron and Moses: and the years of Amram's life were a hundred and thirty-seven.

²¹And the sons of Izhar: Korah and Nepheg and Zichri.

²²And the sons of Uzziel: Mishael and Elzaphan and Sithri.

²³And Aaron took as his wife Elisheba, the daughter of Amminadab, the sister of Nahshon; and she gave birth to Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar.

²⁴And the sons of Korah: Assir and Elkanah and Abiasaph: these are the families of the Korahites.

²⁵And Eleazar, Aaron's son, took as his wife one of the daughters of Putiel; and she gave birth to Phinehas. These are the heads of the families of the Levites, in the order of their families.

²⁶These are the same Aaron and Moses to whom the Lord said, Take the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt in their armies.

²⁷These are the men who gave orders to Pharaoh to let the children of Israel go out of Egypt: these are the same Moses and Aaron.

²⁸And on the day when the word of the Lord came to Moses in the land of Egypt,

²⁹The Lord said to Moses, I am the Lord: say to Pharaoh, king of Egypt, everything I am saying to you.

³⁰And Moses said to the Lord, My lips are unclean; how is it possible that Pharaoh will give me a hearing?

7And the Lord said to Moses, See I have made you a god to Pharaoh, and Aaron your brother will be your prophet.

²Say whatever I give you orders to say: and Aaron your brother will give word to Pharaoh to let the children of Israel go out of his land.

³And I will make Pharaoh's heart hard, and my signs and wonders will be increased in the land of Egypt.

⁴But Pharaoh will not give ear to you, and I will put my hand on Egypt, and take my armies, my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt, after great punishments.

⁵And the Egyptians will see that I am the Lord, when my hand is stretched out over Egypt, and I take the children of Israel out from among them.

⁶And Moses and Aaron did so: as the Lord gave them orders, so they did.

⁷And Moses was eighty years old, and Aaron eighty-three years old, when they gave the Lord's word to Pharaoh.

⁸And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron,

⁹If Pharaoh says to you, Let me see a wonder: then say to Aaron, Take your rod and put it down on the earth before Pharaoh so that it may become a snake.

¹⁰Then Moses and Aaron went in to Pharaoh and they did as the Lord had said: and Aaron put his rod down on the earth before Pharaoh and his servants, and it became a snake.

¹¹Then Pharaoh sent for the wise men and the wonder-workers, and they, the wonder-workers of Egypt, did the same with their secret arts.

¹²For every one of them put down his rod on the earth, and they became snakes: but Aaron's rod made a meal of their rods.

¹³But Pharaoh's heart was made hard, and he did not give ear to them, as the Lord had said.

¹⁴And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, Pharaoh's heart is unchanged; he will not let the people go.

¹⁵Go to Pharaoh in the morning; when he goes out to the water, you will be waiting for him by the edge of the Nile, with the rod which was turned into a snake in your hand;

¹⁶And say to him, The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has sent me to you, saying, Let my people go so that they may give me worship in the waste land; but up to now you have not given ear to his words.

¹⁷So the Lord says, By this you may be certain that I am the Lord; see, by the touch of this rod in my hand the waters of the Nile will be turned to blood;

¹⁸And the fish in the Nile will come to destruction, and the river will send up a bad smell, and the Egyptians will not be able, for disgust, to make use of the water of the Nile for drinking.

¹⁹And the Lord said, Say to Aaron, Let the rod in your hand be stretched out over the waters of Egypt, and over the rivers and the streams and the pools, and over every stretch of water, so that they may be turned to blood; and there will be blood through all the land of Egypt, in vessels of wood and in vessels of stone.

²⁰And Moses and Aaron did as the Lord had said; and when his rod had been lifted up and stretched out over the waters of the Nile before the eyes of Pharaoh and his servants, all the water in the Nile was turned to blood;

²¹And the fish in the Nile came to destruction, and a bad smell went up from the river, and the Egyptians were not able to make use of the water of the Nile for drinking; and there was blood through all the land of Egypt.

²²And the wonder-workers of Egypt did the same with their secret arts: but Pharaoh's heart was made hard, and he would not give ear to them, as the Lord had said.

²³Then Pharaoh went into his house, and did not take even this to heart.

²⁴And all the Egyptians made holes round about the Nile to get drinking-water, for they were not able to make use of the Nile water.

²⁵And seven days went past, after the Lord had put his hand on the Nile.

8And this is what the Lord said to Moses: Go to Pharaoh and say to him, The Lord says, Let my people go so that they may give me worship.

²And if you will not let them go, see, I will send frogs into every part of your land:

³The Nile will be full of frogs, and they will come up into your house and into your bedrooms and on your bed, and into the houses of your servants and your people, and into your ovens and into your bread-basins.

⁴The frogs will come up over you and your people and all your servants.

⁵And the Lord said to Moses, Say to Aaron, Let the rod in your hand be stretched out over the streams and the waterways and the pools, causing frogs to come up on the land of Egypt.

⁶And when Aaron put out his hand over the waters of Egypt, the frogs came up and all the land of Egypt was covered with them.

⁷And the wonder-workers did the same with their secret arts, making frogs come up over the land of Egypt.

⁸Then Pharaoh sent for Moses and Aaron and said, Make prayer to the Lord that he will take away these frogs from me and my people; and I will let the people go and make their offering to the Lord.

⁹And Moses said, I will let you have the honour of saying when I am to make prayer for you and your servants and your people, that the frogs may be sent away from you and your houses, and be only in the Nile.

¹⁰And he said, By tomorrow. And he said, Let it be as you say: so that you may see that there is no other like the Lord our God.

¹¹And the frogs will be gone from you and from your houses and from your servants and from your people and will be only in the Nile.

¹²Then Moses and Aaron went out from Pharaoh; and Moses made prayer to the Lord about the frogs which he had sent on Pharaoh.

¹³And the Lord did as Moses said; and there was an end of all the frogs in the houses and in the open spaces and in the fields.

¹⁴And they put them together in masses, and a bad smell went up from the land.

¹⁵But when Pharaoh saw that there was peace for a time, he made his heart hard and did not give ear to them, as the Lord had said.

¹⁶And the Lord said to Moses, Say to Aaron, Let your rod be stretched out over the dust of the earth so that it may become insects through all the land of Egypt.

¹⁷And they did so; and Aaron, stretching out the rod in his hand, gave a touch to the dust of the earth, and insects came on man and on beast; all the dust of the earth was changed into insects through all the land of Egypt.

¹⁸And the wonder-workers with their secret arts, attempting to make insects, were unable to do so: and there were insects on man and on beast.

¹⁹Then the wonder-workers said to Pharaoh, This is the finger of God: but Pharaoh's heart was hard, and he did not give ear to them, as the Lord had said.

²⁰And the Lord said to Moses, Get up early in the morning and take your place before Pharaoh when he comes out to the water; and say to him, This is what the Lord says: Let my people go to give me worship.

²¹For if you do not let my people go, see, I will send clouds of flies on you and on your servants and on your people and into their houses; and the houses of the Egyptians and the land where they are will be full of flies.

²²And at that time I will make a division between your land and the land of Goshen where my people are, and no flies will be there; so that you may see that I am the Lord over all the earth.

²³And I will put a division between my people and your people; tomorrow this sign will be seen.

²⁴And the Lord did so; and great clouds of flies came into the house of Pharaoh and into his servants' houses, and all the land of Egypt was made waste because of the flies.

²⁵And Pharaoh sent for Moses and Aaron and said, Go and make your offering to your God here in the land.

²⁶And Moses said, It is not right to do so; for we make our offerings of that to which the Egyptians give worship; and if we do so before their eyes, certainly we will be stoned.

²⁷But we will go three days' journey into the waste land and make an offering to the Lord our God as he may give us orders.

²⁸Then Pharaoh said, I will let you go to make an offering to the Lord your God in the waste land; but do not go very far away, and make prayer for me.

²⁹And Moses said, When I go out from you I will make prayer to the Lord that the cloud of flies may go away from Pharaoh and from his people and from his servants tomorrow: only let Pharaoh no longer by deceit keep back the people from making their offering to the Lord.

³⁰Then Moses went out from Pharaoh and made prayer to the Lord.

³¹And the Lord did as Moses said, and took away the cloud of flies from Pharaoh and from his servants and from his people; not one was to be seen.

³²But again Pharaoh made his heart hard and did not let the people go.

9Then the Lord said to Moses, Go in 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 give me worship.

²For if you will not let them go, but still keep them in your power,

³Then the hand of the Lord will put on your cattle in the field, on the horses and the asses and the camels, on the herds and the flocks, a very evil disease.

⁴And the Lord will make a division between the cattle of Israel and the cattle of Egypt; there will be no loss of any of the cattle of Israel.

⁵And the time was fixed by the Lord, and he said, Tomorrow the Lord will do this thing in the land.

⁶And on the day after, the Lord did as he had said, causing the death of all the cattle of Egypt, but there was no loss of any of the cattle of Israel.

⁷And Pharaoh sent and got word that there was no loss of any of the cattle of Israel. But the heart of Pharaoh was hard and he did not let the people go.

⁸And the Lord said to Moses and to Aaron, Take in your hand a little dust from the fire and let Moses send it in a shower up to heaven before the eyes of Pharaoh.

⁹And it will become small dust over all the land of Egypt, and will be a skin-disease bursting out in wounds on man and beast through all the land of Egypt.

¹⁰So they took some dust from the fire, and placing themselves before Pharaoh, Moses sent it out in a shower up to heaven; and it became a skin-disease bursting out on man and on beast.

¹¹And the wonder-workers were not able to take their places before Moses, because of the disease; for the disease was on the wonder-workers and on all the Egyptians.

¹²And the Lord made Pharaoh's heart hard, and he would not give ear to them, as the Lord had said.

¹³And the Lord said to Moses, Get up early in the morning and take your place before Pharaoh, and say to him, This is what the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, says: Let my people go so that they may give me worship.

¹⁴For this time I will send all my punishments on yourself and on your servants and on your people; so that you may see that there is no other like me in all the earth.

¹⁵For if I had put the full weight of my hand on you and your people, you would have been cut off from the earth:

¹⁶But, for this very reason, I have kept you from destruction, to make clear to you my power, and so that my name may be honoured through all the earth.

¹⁷Are you still uplifted in pride against my people so that you will not let them go?

¹⁸Truly, tomorrow about this time I will send down an ice-storm, such as never was in Egypt from its earliest days till now.

¹⁹Then send quickly and get in your cattle and all you have from the fields; for if any man or beast in the field has not been put under cover, the ice-storm will come down on them with destruction.

²⁰Then everyone among the servants of Pharaoh who had the fear of the Lord, made his servants and his cattle come quickly into the house:

²¹And he who gave no attention to the word of the Lord, kept his servants and his cattle in the field.

²²And the Lord said to Moses, Now let your hand be stretched out to heaven so that there may be an ice-storm on all the land of Egypt, on man and on beast and on every plant of the field through all the land of Egypt.

²³And Moses put out his rod to heaven: and the Lord sent thunder, and an ice-storm, and fire running down on the earth; the Lord sent an ice-storm on the land of Egypt.

²⁴So there was an ice-storm with fire running through it, coming down with great force, such as never was in all the land of Egypt from the time when it became a nation.

²⁵And through all the land of Egypt the ice-storm came down on everything which was in the fields, on man and on beast; and every green plant was crushed and every tree of the field broken.

²⁶Only in the land of Goshen, where the children of Israel were, there was no ice-storm.

²⁷Then Pharaoh sent for Moses and Aaron, and said to them, I have done evil this time: the Lord is upright, and I and my people are sinners.

²⁸Make prayer to the Lord; for there has been enough of these thunderings of God and this ice-storm; and I will let you go and will keep you no longer.

²⁹And Moses said, When I am gone outside the town, my hands will be stretched out to the Lord; the thunders and the ice-storm will come to an end, so that you may see that the earth is the Lord's.

³⁰But as for you and your servants, I am certain that even now the fear of the Lord God will not be in your hearts.

³¹And the flax and the barley were damaged, for the barley was almost ready to be cut and the flax was in flower.

³²But the rest of the grain-plants were undamaged, for they had not come up.

³³So Moses went out of the town, and stretching out his hands made prayer to God: and the thunders and the ice-storm came to an end; and the fall of rain was stopped.

³⁴But when Pharaoh saw that the rain and the ice-storm and the thunders were ended, he went on sinning, and made his heart hard, he and his servants.

³⁵And the heart of Pharaoh was hard, and he did not let the people go, as the Lord had said by the mouth of Moses.

10And the Lord said to Moses, Go in to Pharaoh: for I have made his heart and the hearts of his servants hard, so that I may let my signs be seen among them:

²And so that you may be able to give to your son and to your son's son the story of my wonders in Egypt, and the signs which I have done among them; so that you may see that I am the Lord.

³Then Moses and Aaron went in to Pharaoh, and said to him, This is what the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, says: How long will you be lifted up in your pride before me? let my people go so that they may give me worship.

⁴For if you will not let my people go, tomorrow I will send locusts into your land:

⁵And the face of the earth will be covered with them, so that you will not be able to see the earth: and they will be the destruction of everything which up to now has not been damaged, everything which was not crushed by the ice-storm, and every tree still living in your fields.

⁶And your houses will be full of them, and the houses of your servants and of all the Egyptians; it will be worse than anything your fathers have seen or their fathers, from the day when they were living on the earth till this day. And so he went out from Pharaoh.

⁷And Pharaoh's servants said to him, How long is this man to be the cause of evil to us? let the men go so that they may give worship to the Lord their God: are you not awake to Egypt's danger?

⁸Then Moses and Aaron came in again before Pharaoh: and he said to them, Go and give worship to the Lord your God: but which of you are going?

⁹And Moses said, We will go with our young and our old, with our sons and our daughters, with our flocks and our herds; for we are to keep a feast to the Lord.

¹⁰And he said to them, May the Lord be with you, if I will let you and your little ones go! take care, for your purpose clearly is evil.

¹¹Not so; but let your males go and give worship to the Lord, as your desire is. This he said, driving them out from before him.

¹²And the Lord said to Moses, Let your hand be stretched out over the land of Egypt so that the locusts may come up on the land for the destruction of every green plant in the land, even everything untouched by the ice-storm.

¹³And Moses' rod was stretched out over the land of Egypt, and the Lord sent an east wind over the land all that day and all the night; and in the morning the locusts came up with the east wind.

¹⁴And the locusts went up over all the land of Egypt, resting on every part of the land, in very great numbers; such an army of locusts had never been seen before, and never will be again.

¹⁵For all the face of the earth was covered with them, so that the land was black; and every green plant and all the fruit of the trees which was untouched by the ice-storm they took for food: not one green thing, no plant or tree, was to be seen in all the land of Egypt.

¹⁶Then Pharaoh quickly sent for Moses and Aaron, and said, I have done evil against the Lord your God and against you.

¹⁷Let me now have forgiveness for my sin this time only, and make prayer to the Lord your God that he will take away from me this death only.

¹⁸So he went out from Pharaoh and made prayer to the Lord.

¹⁹And the Lord sent a very strong west wind, which took up the locusts, driving them into the Red Sea; not one locust was to be seen in any part of Egypt.

²⁰But the Lord made Pharaoh's heart hard, and he did not let the children of Israel go.

²¹And the Lord said to Moses, Let your hand be stretched out to heaven, and all the land of Egypt will be dark, so that men will be feeling their way about in the dark.

²²And when Moses' hand was stretched out, dark night came over all the land of Egypt for three days;

²³They were not able to see one another, and no one got up from his place for three days: but where the children of Israel were living it was light.

²⁴Then Pharaoh sent for Moses, and said, Go and give worship to the Lord; only let your flocks and your herds be kept here: your little ones may go with you.

²⁵But Moses said, You will have to let us take burned offerings to put before the Lord our God.

²⁶So our cattle will have to go with us, not one may be kept back; for they are needed for the worship of the Lord our God; we have no knowledge what offering we have to give till we come to the place.

²⁷But the Lord made Pharaoh's heart hard, and he would not let them go.

²⁸And Pharaoh said to him, Go away from me, take care that you come not again before me; for the day when you see my face again will be your last.

²⁹And Moses said, You say truly; I will not see your face again.

11And the Lord said to Moses, I will send one more punishment on Pharaoh and on Egypt; after that he will let you go; and when he does let you go, he will not keep one of you back, but will send you out by force.

²So go now and give orders to the people that every man and every woman is to get from his or her neighbour ornaments of silver and of gold.

³And the Lord gave the people grace in the eyes of the Egyptians. For the man Moses was highly honoured in the land of Egypt, by Pharaoh's servants and the people.

⁴And Moses said, This is what the Lord says: About the middle of the night I will go out through Egypt:

⁵And death will come to every mother's first male child in all the land of Egypt, from the child of Pharaoh on his seat of power, to the child of the servant-girl crushing the grain; and the first births of all the cattle.

⁶And there will be a great cry through all the land of Egypt, such as never has been or will be again.

⁷But against the children of Israel, man or beast, not so much as the tongue of a dog will be moved: so that you may see how the Lord makes a division between Israel and the Egyptians.

⁸And all these your servants will come to me, going down on their faces before me and saying, Go out, and all your people with you: and after that I will go out. And he went away from Pharaoh burning with wrath.

⁹And the Lord said to Moses, Pharaoh will not give ear to you, so that my wonders may be increased in the land of Egypt.

¹⁰All these wonders Moses and Aaron did before Pharaoh: but the Lord made Pharaoh's heart hard, and he did not let the children of Israel go out of his land.

12And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt,

²Let this month be to you the first of months, the first month of the year.

³Say to all the children of Israel when they are come together, In the tenth day of this month every man is to take a lamb, by the number of their fathers' families, a lamb for every family:

⁴And if the lamb is more than enough for the family, let that family and its nearest neighbour have a lamb between them, taking into account the number of persons and how much food is needed for every man.

⁵Let your lamb be without a mark, a male in its first year: you may take it from among the sheep or the goats:

⁶Keep it till the fourteenth day of the same month, when everyone who is of the children of Israel is to put it to death between sundown and dark.

⁷Then take some of the blood and put it on the two sides of the door and over the door of the house where the meal is to be taken.

⁸And let your food that night be the flesh of the lamb, cooked with fire in the oven, together with unleavened bread and bitter-tasting plants.

⁹Do not take it uncooked or cooked with boiling water, but let it be cooked in the oven; its head with its legs and its inside parts.

¹⁰Do not keep any of it till the morning; anything which is not used is to be burned with fire.

¹¹And take your meal dressed as if for a journey, with your shoes on your feet and your sticks in your hands: take it quickly: it is the Lord's Passover.

¹²For on that night I will go through the land of Egypt, sending death on every first male child, of man and of beast, and judging all the gods of Egypt: I am the Lord.

¹³And the blood will be a sign on the houses where you are: when I see the blood I will go over you, and no evil will come on you for your destruction, when my hand is on the land of Egypt.

¹⁴And this day is to be kept in your memories: you are to keep it as a feast to the Lord through all your generations, as an order for ever.

¹⁵For seven days let your food be unleavened bread; from the first day no leaven is to be seen in your houses: whoever takes bread with leaven in it, from the first till the seventh day, will be cut off from Israel.

¹⁶And on the first day there is to be a holy meeting and on the seventh day a holy meeting; no sort of work may be done on those days but only to make ready what is necessary for everyone's food.

¹⁷So keep the feast of unleavened bread; for on this very day I have taken your armies out of the land of Egypt: this day, then, is to be kept through all your generations by an order for ever.

¹⁸In the first month, from the evening of the fourteenth day, let your food be unleavened bread till the evening of the twenty-first day of the month.

¹⁹For seven days no leaven is to be seen in your houses: for whoever takes bread which is leavened will be cut off from the people of Israel, if he is from another country or if he is an Israelite by birth.

²⁰Take nothing which has leaven in it; wherever you are living let your food be unleavened cakes.

²¹Then Moses sent for the chiefs of Israel, and said to them, See that lambs are marked out for yourselves and your families, and let the Passover lamb be put to death.

²²And take some hyssop and put it in the blood in the basin, touching the two sides and the top of the doorway with the blood from the basin; and let not one of you go out of his house till the morning.

²³For the Lord will go through the land, sending death on the Egyptians; and when he sees the blood on the two sides and the top of the door, the Lord will go over your door and will not let death come in for your destruction.

²⁴And you are to keep this as an order to you and to your sons for ever.

²⁵And when you come into the land which the Lord will make yours, as he gave his word, you are to keep this act of worship.

²⁶And when your children say to you, What is the reason of this act of worship?

²⁷Then you will say, This is the offering of the Lord's Passover; for he went over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when he sent death on the Egyptians, and kept our families safe. And the people gave worship with bent heads.

²⁸And the children of Israel went and did so; as the Lord had given orders to Moses and Aaron, so they did.

²⁹And in the middle of the night the Lord sent death on every first male child in the land of Egypt, from the child of Pharaoh on his seat of power to the child of the prisoner in the prison; and the first births of all the cattle.

³⁰Then Pharaoh got up in the night, he and all his servants and all the Egyptians; and a great cry went up from Egypt; for there was not a house where someone was not dead.

³¹And he sent for Moses and Aaron by night, and said, Get up and go out from among my people, you and the children of Israel; go and give worship to the Lord as you have said.

³²And take your flocks and your herds as you have said, and be gone; and give me your blessing.

³³And the Egyptians were forcing the people on, to get them out of the land quickly; for they said, We are all dead men.

³⁴And the people took their bread-paste before it was leavened, putting their basins in their clothing on their backs.

³⁵And the children of Israel had done as Moses had said; and they got from the Egyptians ornaments of silver and of gold, and clothing:

³⁶And the Lord had given the people grace in the eyes of the Egyptians so that they gave them whatever was requested. So they took away all their goods from the Egyptians.

³⁷And the children of Israel made the journey from Rameses to Succoth; there were about six hundred thousand men on foot, as well as children.

³⁸And a mixed band of people went with them; and flocks and herds in great numbers.

³⁹And they made unleavened cakes from the paste which they had taken out of Egypt; it was not leavened, for they had been sent out of Egypt so quickly, that they had no time to make any food ready.

⁴⁰Now the children of Israel had been living in Egypt for four hundred and thirty years.

⁴¹And at the end of four hundred and thirty years, to the very day, all the armies of the Lord went out of the land of Egypt.

⁴²It is a watch-night before the Lord who took them out of the land of Egypt: this same night is a watch-night to the Lord for all the children of Israel, through all their generations.

⁴³And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, This is the law of the Passover: no man who is not an Israelite is to take of it:

⁴⁴But every man's servant, whom he has got for money, may take of it, when he has had circumcision.

⁴⁵A man from a strange country living among you, and a servant working for payment, may not take part in it.

⁴⁶It is to be taken in one house; not a bit of the flesh is to be taken out of the house, and no bone of it may be broken.

⁴⁷All Israel is to keep the feast.

⁴⁸And if a man from another country is living with you, and has a desire to keep the Passover to the Lord, let all the males of his family undergo circumcision, and then let him come near and keep it; for he will then be as one of your people; but no one without circumcision may keep it.

⁴⁹The law is the same for him who is an Israelite by birth and for the man from a strange country who is living with you.

⁵⁰So the children of Israel did as the Lord gave orders to Moses and Aaron.

⁵¹And on that very day the Lord took the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt by their armies.

13And the Lord said to Moses,

²Let the first male child of every mother among the children of Israel be kept holy for me, even the first male birth among man or beast; for it is mine.

³And Moses said to the people, Let this day, on which you came out of Egypt, out of your prison-house, be kept for ever in memory; for by the strength of his hand the Lord has taken you out from this place; let no leavened bread be used.

⁴On this day, in the month Abib, you are going out.

⁵And it will be that, when the Lord takes you into the land of the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Amorite and the Hivite and the Jebusite, the land which he made an oath to your fathers that he would give you, a land flowing with milk and honey, you will do this act of worship in this month.

⁶For seven days let your food be unleavened cakes; and on the seventh day there is to be a feast to the Lord.

⁷Unleavened cakes are to be your food through all the seven days; let no leavened bread be seen among you, or any leaven, in any part of your land.

⁸And you will say to your son in that day, It is because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.

⁹And this will be for a sign to you on your hand and for a mark on your brow, so that the law of the Lord may be in your mouth: for with a strong hand the Lord took you out of Egypt.

¹⁰So let this order be kept, at the right time, from year to year.

¹¹And when the Lord takes you into the land of Canaan, as he made his oath to you and to your fathers, and gives it to you,

¹²You are to put on one side for the Lord every mother's first male child, the first-fruit of her body, and the first young one of every beast; every male is holy to the Lord.

¹³And for the young of an ass you may give a lamb in payment, or if you will not make payment for it, its neck is to be broken; but for all the first sons among your children, let payment be made.

¹⁴And when your son says to you in time to come, What is the reason for this? say to him, By the strength of his hand the Lord took us out of Egypt, out of the prison-house:

¹⁵And when Pharaoh made his heart hard and would not let us go, the Lord sent death on all the first sons in Egypt, of man and of beast: and so every first male who comes to birth is offered to the Lord; but for all the first of my sons I give a price.

¹⁶And this will be for a sign on your hand and for a mark on your brow: for by the strength of his hand the Lord took us out of Egypt.

¹⁷Now after Pharaoh had let the people go, God did not take them through the land of the Philistines, though that was near: for God said, If the people see war, they may have a change of heart and go back to Egypt.

¹⁸But God took the people round by the waste land near the Red Sea: and the children of Israel went up in fighting order out of the land of Egypt.

¹⁹And Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, for Joseph had made the children of Israel take an oath, saying, God will certainly keep you in mind; and you are to take my bones away with you.

²⁰Then they went on their journey from Succoth, and put up their tents in Etham at the edge of the waste land.

²¹And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud, guiding them on their way; and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light: so that they were able to go on day and night:

²²The pillar of cloud went ever before them by day, and the pillar of fire by night.

14And the Lord said to Moses,

²Give orders to the children of Israel to go back and put up their tents before Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, in front of Baal-zephon, opposite to which you are to put up your tents by the sea.

³And Pharaoh will say of the children of Israel, They are wandering without direction, they are shut in by the waste land.

⁴And I will make Pharaoh's heart hard, and he will come after them and I will be honoured over Pharaoh and all his army, so that the Egyptians may see that I am the Lord. And they did so.

⁵And word came to Pharaoh of the flight of the people: and the feeling of Pharaoh and of his servants about the people was changed, and they said, Why have we let Israel go, so that they will do no more work for us?

⁶So he had his war-carriage made ready and took his people with him:

⁷And he took six hundred carriages, all the carriages of Egypt, and captains over all of them.

⁸And the Lord made the heart of Pharaoh hard, and he went after the children of Israel: for the children of Israel had gone out without fear.

⁹But the Egyptians went after them, all the horses and carriages of Pharaoh, and his horsemen, and his army, and overtook them in their tents by the sea, by Pihahiroth, before Baal-zephon.

¹⁰And when Pharaoh came near, the children of Israel, lifting up their eyes, saw the Egyptians coming after them, and were full of fear; and their cry went up to God.

¹¹And they said to Moses, Was there no resting-place for the dead in Egypt, that you have taken us away to come to our death in the waste land? why have you taken us out of Egypt?

¹²Did we not say to you in Egypt, Let us be as we are, working for the Egyptians? for it is better to be the servants of the Egyptians than to come to our death in the waste land.

¹³But Moses said, Keep where you are and have no fear; now you will see the salvation of the Lord which he will give you today; for the Egyptians whom you see today you will never see again.

¹⁴The Lord will make war for you, you have only to keep quiet.

¹⁵And the Lord said to Moses, Why are you crying out to me? give the children of Israel the order to go forward.

¹⁶And let your rod be lifted up and your hand stretched out over the sea, and it will be parted in two; and the children of Israel will go through on dry land.

¹⁷And I will make the heart of the Egyptians hard, and they will go in after them: and I will be honoured over Pharaoh and over his army, his war-carriages, and his horsemen.

¹⁸And the Egyptians will see that I am the Lord, when I get honour over Pharaoh and his war-carriages and his horsemen.

¹⁹Then the angel of God, who had been before the tents of Israel, took his place at their back; and the pillar of cloud, moving from before them, came to rest at their back:

²⁰And it came between the army of Egypt and the army of Israel; and there was a dark cloud between them, and they went on through the night; but the one army came no nearer to the other all the night.

²¹And when Moses' hand was stretched out over the sea, the Lord with a strong east wind made the sea go back all night, and the waters were parted in two and the sea became dry land.

²²And the children of Israel went through the sea on dry land: and the waters were a wall on their right side and on their left.

²³Then the Egyptians went after them into the middle of the sea, all Pharaoh's horses and his war-carriages and his horsemen.

²⁴And in the morning watch, the Lord, looking out on the armies of the Egyptians from the pillar of fire and cloud, sent trouble on the army of the Egyptians;

²⁵And made the wheels of their war-carriages stiff, so that they had hard work driving them: so the Egyptians said, Let us go in flight from before the face of Israel, for the Lord is fighting for them against the Egyptians.

²⁶And the Lord said to Moses, Let your hand be stretched out over the sea, and the waters will come back again on the Egyptians, and on their war-carriages and on their horsemen.

²⁷And when Moses' hand was stretched out over the sea, at dawn the sea came flowing back, meeting the Egyptians in their flight, and the Lord sent destruction on the Egyptians in the middle of the sea.

²⁸And the waters came back, covering the war-carriages and the horsemen and all the army of Pharaoh which went after them into the middle of the sea; not one of them was to be seen.

²⁹But the children of Israel went through the sea walking on dry land, and the waters were a wall on their right side and on their left.

³⁰So that day the Lord gave Israel salvation from the hands of the Egyptians; and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the sea's edge.

³¹And Israel saw the great work which the Lord had done against the Egyptians, and the fear of the Lord came on the people and they had faith in the Lord and in his servant Moses.

15Then Moses and the children of Israel made this song to the Lord, and said, I will make a song to the Lord, for he is lifted up in glory: the horse and the horseman he has sent down into the sea.

²The Lord is my strength and my strong helper, he has become my salvation: he is my God and I will give him praise; my father's God and I will give him glory.

³The Lord is a man of war: the Lord is his name.

⁴Pharaoh's war-carriages and his army he has sent down into the sea: the best of his captains have gone down into the Red Sea.

⁵They were covered by the deep waters: like a stone they went down under the waves.

⁶Full of glory, O Lord, is the power of your right hand; by your right hand those who came against you are broken.

⁷When you are lifted up in power, all those who come against you are crushed: when you send out your wrath, they are burned up like dry grass.

⁸By your breath the waves were massed together, the flowing waters were lifted up like a pillar; the deep waters became solid in the heart of the sea.

⁹Egypt said, I will go after them, I will overtake, I will make division of their goods: my desire will have its way with them; my sword will be uncovered, my hand will send destruction on them.

¹⁰You sent your wind and the sea came over them: they went down like lead into the great waters.

¹¹Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? who is like you, in holy glory, to be praised with fear, doing wonders?

¹²When your right hand was stretched out, the mouth of the earth was open for them.

¹³In your mercy you went before the people whom you have made yours; guiding them in your strength to your holy place.

¹⁴Hearing of you the peoples were shaking in fear: the people of Philistia were gripped with pain.

¹⁵The chiefs of Edom were troubled in heart; the strong men of Moab were in the grip of fear: all the people of Canaan became like water.

¹⁶Fear and grief came on them; by the strength of your arm they were turned to stone; till your people went over, O Lord, till the people went over whom you have made yours.

¹⁷You will take them in, planting them in the mountain of your heritage, the place, O Lord, where you have made your house, the holy place, O Lord, the building of your hands.

¹⁸The Lord is King for ever and ever.

¹⁹For the horses of Pharaoh, with his war-carriages and his horsemen, went into the sea, and the Lord sent the waters of the sea back over them; but the children of Israel went through the sea on dry land.

²⁰And Miriam, the woman prophet, the sister of Aaron, took an instrument of music in her hand; and all the women went after her with music and dances.

²¹And Miriam, answering, said, Make a song to the Lord, for he is lifted up in glory; the horse and the horseman he has sent into the sea.

²²Then Moses took Israel forward from the Red Sea, and they went out into the waste land of Shur; and for three days they were in the waste land where there was no water.

²³And when they came to Marah, the water was no good for drinking, for the waters of Marah were bitter, which is why it was named Marah.

²⁴And the people, crying out against Moses, said, What are we to have for drink?

²⁵And in answer to his prayer, the Lord made him see a tree, and when he put it into the water, the water was made sweet. There he gave them a law and an order, testing them;

²⁶And he said, If with all your heart you will give attention to the voice of the Lord your God, and do what is right in his eyes, giving ear to his orders and keeping his laws, I will not put on you any of the diseases which I put on the Egyptians: for I am the Lord your life-giver.

²⁷And they came to Elim where there were twelve water-springs and seventy palm-trees: and they put up their tents there by the waters.

16And they went on their way from Elim, and all the children of Israel came into the waste land of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they went out of the land of Egypt.

²And all the children of Israel were crying out against Moses and Aaron in the waste land:

³And the children of Israel said to them, It would have been better for the Lord to have put us to death in the land of Egypt, where we were seated by the flesh-pots and had bread enough for our needs; for you have taken us out to this waste of sand, to put all this people to death through need of food.

⁴Then the Lord said to Moses, See, I will send down bread from heaven for you; and the people will go out every day and get enough for the day's needs; so that I may put them to the test to see if they will keep my laws or not.

⁵And on the sixth day they are to make ready what they get in, and it will be twice as much as they get on the other days.

⁶And Moses and Aaron said to all the children of Israel, This evening it will be clear to you that it is the Lord who has taken you out of the land of Egypt:

⁷And in the morning you will see the glory of the Lord; for your angry words against the Lord have come to his ears: and what are we that you are crying out against us?

⁸And Moses said, The Lord will give you meat for your food at evening, and in the morning bread in full measure; for your outcry against the Lord has come to his ears: for what are we? your outcry is not against us but against the Lord.

⁹And Moses said to Aaron, Say to all the people of Israel, Come near before the Lord for he has given ear to your outcry.

¹⁰And while Aaron was talking to the children of Israel, their eyes were turned in the direction of the waste land, and they saw the glory of the Lord shining in the cloud.

¹¹And the Lord said to Moses,

¹²The outcry of the children of Israel has come to my ears: say to them now, At nightfall you will have meat for your food, and in the morning bread in full measure; and you will see that I am the Lord your God.

¹³And it came about that in the evening little birds came up and the place was covered with them: and in the morning there was dew all round about the tents.

¹⁴And when the dew was gone, on the face of the earth was a small round thing, like small drops of ice on the earth.

¹⁵And when the children of Israel saw it, they said to one another, What is it? for they had no idea what it was. And Moses said to them, It is the bread which the Lord has given you for your food.

¹⁶This is what the Lord has said, Let every man take up as much as he has need of; at the rate of one omer for every person, let every man take as much as is needed for his family.

¹⁷And the children of Israel did so, and some took more and some less.

¹⁸And when it was measured, he who had taken up much had nothing over, and he who had little had enough; every man had taken what he was able to make use of.

¹⁹And Moses said to them, Let nothing be kept till the morning.

²⁰But they gave no attention to Moses, and some of them kept it till the morning and there were worms in it and it had an evil smell: and Moses was angry with them.

²¹And they took it up morning by morning, every man as he had need: and when the sun was high it was gone.

²²And on the sixth day they took up twice as much of the bread, two omers for every person: and all the rulers of the people gave Moses word of it.

²³And he said, This is what the Lord has said, Tomorrow is a day of rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord: what has to be cooked may be cooked; and what is over, put on one side to be kept till the morning.

²⁴And they kept it till the morning as Moses had said: and no smell came from it, and it had no worms.

²⁵And Moses said, Make your meal today of what you have, for this day is a Sabbath to the Lord: today you will not get any in the fields.

²⁶For six days you will get it, but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will not be any.

²⁷But still on the seventh day some of the people went out to get it, and there was not any.

²⁸And the Lord said to Moses, How long will you go against my orders and my laws?

²⁹See, because the Lord has given you the Sabbath, he gives you on the sixth day bread enough for two days; let every man keep where he is; let no man go out of his place on the seventh day.

³⁰So the people took their rest on the seventh day.

³¹And this bread was named manna by Israel: it was white, like a grain seed, and its taste was like cakes made with honey.

³²And Moses said, This is the order which the Lord has given: Let one omer of it be kept for future generations, so that they may see the bread which I gave you for your food in the waste land, when I took you out from the land of Egypt.

³³And Moses said to Aaron, Take a pot and put one omer of manna in it, and put it away before the Lord, to be kept for future generations.

³⁴So Aaron put it away in front of the holy chest to be kept, as the Lord gave orders to Moses.

³⁵And the children of Israel had manna for their food for forty years, till they came to a land with people in it, till they came to the edge of the land of Canaan.

³⁶Now an omer is the tenth part of an ephah.

17And the children of Israel went on from the waste land of Sin, by stages as the Lord gave them orders, and put up their tents in Rephidim: and there was no drinking-water for the people.

²So the people were angry with Moses, and said, Give us water for drinking. And Moses said, Why are you angry with me? and why do you put God to the test?

³And the people were in great need of water; and they made an outcry against Moses, and said, Why have you taken us out of Egypt to send death on us and our children and our cattle through need of water?

⁴And Moses, crying out to the Lord, said, What am I to do to this people? they are almost ready to put me to death by stoning.

⁵And the Lord said to Moses, Go on before the people, and take some of the chiefs of Israel with you, and take in your hand the rod which was stretched out over the Nile, and go.

⁶See, I will take my place before you on the rock in Horeb; and when you give the rock a blow, water will come out of it, and the people will have drink. And Moses did so before the eyes of the chiefs of Israel.

⁷And he gave that place the name Massah and Meribah, because the children of Israel were angry, and because they put the Lord to the test, saying, Is the Lord with us or not?

⁸Then Amalek came and made war on Israel in Rephidim.

⁹And Moses said to Joshua, Get together a band of men for us and go out, make war on Amalek: tomorrow I will take my place on the top of the hill with the rod of God in my hand.

¹⁰So Joshua did as Moses said to him, and went to war with Amalek: and Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill.

¹¹Now while Moses' hand was lifted up, Israel was the stronger: but when he let his hand go down, Amalek became the stronger.

¹²But Moses' hands became tired; so they put a stone under him and he took his seat on it, Aaron and Hur supporting his hands, one on one side and one on the other; so his hands were kept up without falling till the sun went down.

¹³And Joshua overcame Amalek and his people with the sword.

¹⁴And the Lord said to Moses, Make a record of this in a book, so that it may be kept in memory, and say it again in the ears of Joshua: that all memory of Amalek is to be completely uprooted from the earth.

¹⁵Then Moses put up an altar and gave it the name of Yahweh-nissi:

¹⁶For he said, The Lord has taken his oath that there will be war with Amalek from generation to generation.

18Now news came to Jethro, the priest of Midian, Moses' father-in-law, of all God had done for Moses and for Israel his people, and how the Lord had taken Israel out of Egypt.

²And Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, took Zipporah, Moses' wife, after he had sent her away,

³And her two sons, one of whom was named Gershom, for he said, I have been living in a strange land:

⁴And the name of the other was Eliezer, for he said, The God of my father was my help, and kept me safe from the sword of Pharaoh:

⁵And Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, came with his sons and his wife to where Moses had put up his tent in the waste land, by the mountain of God.

⁶And he said to Moses, I, your father-in-law, have come to you, with your wife and your two sons.

⁷And Moses went out to his father-in-law, and went down on his face before him and gave him a kiss; and they said to one another, Are you well? and they came into the tent.

⁸And Moses gave his father-in-law an account of all the Lord had done to Pharaoh and to the Egyptians because of Israel, and of all the troubles which had come on them by the way, and how the Lord had given them salvation.

⁹And Jethro was glad because the Lord had been good to Israel, freeing them from the power of the Egyptians.

¹⁰And Jethro said, Praise be to the Lord, who has taken you out of the hand of Pharaoh and out of the hand of the Egyptians; freeing the people from the yoke of the Egyptians.

¹¹Now I am certain that the Lord is greater than all gods, for he has overcome them in their pride.

¹²Then Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, made a burned offering to God: and Aaron came, with the chiefs of Israel, and had a meal with Moses' father-in-law, before God.

¹³Now on the day after, Moses took his seat to give decisions for the people: and the people were waiting before Moses from morning till evening.

¹⁴And when Moses' father-in-law saw all he was doing, he said, What is this you are doing for the people? why are you seated here by yourself, with all the people waiting before you from morning till evening?

¹⁵And Moses said to his father-in-law, Because the people come to me to get directions from God:

¹⁶And if they have any question between themselves, they come to me, and I am judge between a man and his neighbour, and I give them the orders and laws of God.

¹⁷And Moses' father-in-law said to him, What you are doing is not good.

¹⁸Your strength and that of the people will be completely used up: this work is more than you are able to do by yourself.

¹⁹Give ear now to my suggestion, and may God be with you: you are to be the people's representative before God, taking their causes to him:

²⁰Teaching them his rules and his laws, guiding them in the way they have to go, and making clear to them the work they have to do.

²¹But for the rest, take from among the people able men, such as have the fear of God, true men hating profits wrongly made; and put such men over them, to be captains of thousands, captains of hundreds and of fifties and of tens;

²²And let them be judges in the causes of the people at all times: and let them put before you all important questions, but in small things let them give decisions themselves: in this way, it will be less hard for you, and they will take the weight off you.

²³If you do this, and God gives approval, then you will be able to go on without weariness, and all this people will go to their tents in peace.

²⁴So Moses took note of the words of his father-in-law, and did as he had said.

²⁵And he made selection of able men out of all Israel, and made them heads over the people, captains of thousands, captains of hundreds and of fifties and of tens.

²⁶And they were judges in the causes of the people at all times: the hard questions they put before Moses; but on every small point they gave decisions themselves.

²⁷And Moses let his father-in-law go away, and he went back to his land.

19In the third month after the children of Israel went out from Egypt, on the same day, they came into the waste land of Sinai.

²And when they had gone away from Rephidim and had come into the waste land of Sinai, they put up their tents in the waste land before the mountain: there Israel put up its tents.

³And Moses went up to God, and the voice of the Lord came to him from the mountain, saying, Say to the family of Jacob, and give word to the children of Israel:

⁴You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I took you, as on eagles' wings, guiding you to myself.

⁵If now you will truly give ear to my voice and keep my agreement, you will be my special property out of all the peoples: for all the earth is mine:

⁶And you will be a kingdom of priests to me, and a holy nation. These are the words which you are to say to the children of Israel.

⁷And Moses came and sent for the chiefs of the people and put before them all these words which the Lord had given him orders to say.

⁸And all the people, answering together, said, Whatever the Lord has said we will do. And Moses took back to the Lord the words of the people.

⁹And the Lord said to Moses, See, I will come to you in a thick cloud, so that what I say to you may come to the ears of the people and they may have belief in you for ever. And Moses gave the Lord word of what the people had said.

¹⁰And the Lord said to Moses, Go to the people and make them holy today and tomorrow, and let their clothing be washed.

¹¹And by the third day let them be ready: for on the third day the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai, before the eyes of all the people.

¹²And let limits be marked out for the people round the mountain, and say to them, Take care not to go up the mountain or near the sides of it: whoever puts his foot on the mountain will certainly come to his death:

¹³He is not to be touched by a hand, but is to be stoned or have an arrow put through him; man or beast, he is to be put to death: at the long sounding of a horn they may come up to the mountain.

¹⁴Then Moses went down from the mountain to the people, and made the people holy; and their clothing was washed.

¹⁵And he said to the people, Be ready by the third day: do not come near a woman.

¹⁶And when morning came on the third day, there were thunders and flames and a thick cloud on the mountain, and a horn sounding very loud; and all the people in the tents were shaking with fear.

¹⁷And Moses made the people come out of their tents and take their places before God; and they came to the foot of the mountain,

¹⁸And all the mountain of Sinai was smoking, for the Lord had come down on it in fire: and the smoke of it went up like the smoke of a great burning; and all the mountain was shaking.

¹⁹And when the sound of the horn became louder and louder, Moses' words were answered by the voice of God.

²⁰Then the Lord came down on to Mount Sinai, to the top of the mountain, and the Lord sent for Moses to come up to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up.

²¹And the Lord said to Moses, Go down and give the people orders to keep back, for fear that a great number of them, forcing their way through to see the Lord, may come to destruction.

²²And let the priests who come near to the Lord make themselves holy, for fear that the Lord may come on them suddenly.

²³And Moses said to the Lord, The people will not be able to come up the mountain, for you gave us orders to put limits round the mountain, marking it out and making it holy.

²⁴And the Lord said to him, Go down, and you and Aaron may come up; but let not the priests and the people make their way through to the Lord, or he will come on them suddenly.

²⁵So Moses went down to the people and said this to them.

20And God said all these words:

²I am the Lord your God who took you out of the land of Egypt, out of the prison-house.

³You are to have no other gods but me.

⁴You are not to make an image or picture of anything in heaven or on the earth or in the waters under the earth:

⁵You may not go down on your faces before them or give them worship: for I, the Lord your God, am a God who will not give his honour to another; and I will send punishment on the children for the wrongdoing of their fathers, to the third and fourth generation of my haters;

⁶And I will have mercy through a thousand generations on those who have love for me and keep my laws.

⁷You are not to make use of the name of the Lord your God for an evil purpose; whoever takes the Lord's name on his lips for an evil purpose will be judged a sinner by the Lord

⁸Keep in memory the Sabbath and let it be a holy day.

⁹On six days do all your work:

¹⁰But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; on that day you are to do no work, you or your son or your daughter, your man-servant or your woman-servant, your cattle or the man from a strange country who is living among you:

¹¹For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and the sea, and everything in them, and he took his rest on the seventh day: for this reason the Lord has given his blessing to the seventh day and made it holy.

¹²Give honour to your father and to your mother, so that your life may be long in the land which the Lord your God is giving you.

¹³Do not put anyone to death without cause.

¹⁴Do not be false to the married relation.

¹⁵Do not take the property of another.

¹⁶Do not give false witness against your neighbour.

¹⁷Let not your desire be turned to your neighbour's house, or his wife or his man-servant or his woman-servant or his ox or his ass or anything which is his.

¹⁸And all the people were watching the thunderings and the flames and the sound of the horn and the mountain smoking; and when they saw it, they kept far off, shaking with fear.

¹⁹And they said to Moses, To your words we will give ear, but let not the voice of God come to our ears, for fear death may come on us.

²⁰And Moses said to the people, Have no fear: for God has come to put you to the test, so that fearing him you may be kept from sin.

²¹And the people kept their places far off, but Moses went near to the dark cloud where God was.

²²And the Lord said to Moses, Say to the children of Israel, You yourselves have seen that my voice has come to you from heaven

²³Gods of silver and gods of gold you are not to make for yourselves.

²⁴Make for me an altar of earth, offering on it your burned offerings and your peace-offerings, your sheep and your oxen: in every place where I have put the memory of my name, I will come to you and give you my blessing.

²⁵And if you make me an altar of stone do not make it of cut stones: for the touch of an instrument will make it unclean.

²⁶And do not go up by steps to my altar, for fear that your bodies may be seen uncovered.

21Now these are the laws which you are to put before them.

²If you get a Hebrew servant for money, he is to be your servant for six years, and in the seventh year you are to let him go free without payment.

³If he comes to you by himself, let him go away by himself: if he is married, let his wife go away with him.

⁴If his master gives him a wife, and he gets sons or daughters by her, the wife and her children will be the property of the master, and the servant is to go away by himself.

⁵But if the servant says clearly, My master and my wife and children are dear to me; I have no desire to be free:

⁶Then his master is to take him to the gods of the house, and at the door, or at its framework, he is to make a hole in his ear with a sharp-pointed instrument; and he will be his servant for ever.

⁷And if a man gives his daughter for a price to be a servant, she is not to go away free as the men-servants do.

⁸If she is not pleasing to her master who has taken her for himself, let a payment be made for her so that she may go free; her master has no power to get a price for her and send her to a strange land, because he has been false to her.

⁹And if he gives her to his son, he is to do everything for her as if she was his daughter.

¹⁰And if he takes another woman, her food and clothing and her married rights are not to be less.

¹¹And if he does not do these three things for her, she has the right to go free without payment.

¹²He who gives a man a death-blow is himself to be put to death.

¹³But if he had no evil purpose against him, and God gave him into his hand, I will give you a place to which he may go in flight.

¹⁴But if a man makes an attack on his neighbour on purpose, to put him to death by deceit, you are to take him from my altar and put him to death.

¹⁵Any man who gives a blow to his father or his mother is certainly to be put to death.

¹⁶Any man who gets another into his power in order to get a price for him is to be put to death, if you take him in the act.

¹⁷Any man cursing his father or his mother is to be put to death.

¹⁸If, in a fight, one man gives another a blow with a stone, or with the shut hand, not causing his death, but making him keep in bed;

¹⁹If he is able to get up again and go about with a stick, the other will be let off; only he will have to give him payment for the loss of his time, and see that he is cared for till he is well.

²⁰If a man gives his man-servant or his woman-servant blows with a rod, causing death, he is certainly to undergo punishment.

²¹But, at the same time, if the servant goes on living for a day or two, the master is not to get punishment, for the servant is his property.

²²If men, while fighting, do damage to a woman with child, causing the loss of the child, but no other evil comes to her, the man will have to make payment up to the amount fixed by her husband, in agreement with the decision of the judges.

²³But if damage comes to her, let life be given in payment for life,

²⁴Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,

²⁵Burning for burning, wound for wound, blow for blow.

²⁶If a man gives his man-servant or his woman-servant a blow in the eye, causing its destruction, he is to let him go free on account of the damage to his eye.

²⁷Or if the loss of a tooth is caused by his blow, he will let him go free on account of his tooth.

²⁸If an ox comes to be the cause of death to a man or a woman, the ox is to be stoned, and its flesh may not be used for food; but the owner will not be judged responsible.

²⁹But if the ox has frequently done such damage in the past, and the owner has had word of it and has not kept it under control, so that it has been the cause of the death of a man or woman, not only is the ox to be stoned, but its owner is to be put to death.

³⁰If a price is put on his life, let him make payment of whatever price is fixed.

³¹If the death of a son or of a daughter has been caused, the punishment is to be in agreement with this rule.

³²If the death of a man-servant or of a woman-servant is caused by the ox, the owner is to give their master thirty shekels of silver, and the ox is to be stoned.

³³If a man makes a hole in the earth without covering it up, and an ox or an ass dropping into it comes to its death;

³⁴The owner of the hole is responsible; he will have to make payment to their owner, but the dead beast will be his.

³⁵And if one man's ox does damage to another man's ox, causing its death, then the living ox is to be exchanged for money, and division made of the price of it, and of the price of the dead one.

³⁶But if it is common knowledge that the ox has frequently done such damage in the past, and its owner has not kept it under control, he will have to give ox for ox; and the dead beast will be his.

22If a man takes without right another man's ox or his sheep, and puts it to death or gets a price for it, he is to give five oxen for an ox, or four sheep for a sheep, in payment: the thief will have to make payment for what he has taken; if he has no money, he himself will have to be exchanged for money, so that payment may be made.

²If a thief is taken in the act of forcing his way into a house, and his death is caused by a blow, the owner of the house is not responsible for his blood.

³But if it is after dawn, he will be responsible.

⁴If he still has what he had taken, whatever it is, ox or ass or sheep, he is to give twice its value.

⁵If a man makes a fire in a field or a vine-garden, and lets the fire do damage to another man's field, he is to give of the best produce of his field or his vine-garden to make up for it.

⁶If there is a fire and the flames get to the thorns at the edge of the field, causing destruction of the cut grain or of the living grain, or of the field, he who made the fire will have to make up for the damage.

⁷If a man puts money or goods in the care of his neighbour to keep for him, and it is taken from the man's house, if they get the thief, he will have to make payment of twice the value.

⁸If they do not get the thief, let the master of the house come before the judges and take an oath that he has not put his hand on his neighbour's goods.

⁹In any question about an ox or an ass or a sheep or clothing, or about the loss of any property which anyone says is his, let the two sides put their cause before God; and he who is judged to be in the wrong is to make payment to his neighbour of twice the value.

¹⁰If a man puts an ass or an ox or a sheep or any beast into the keeping of his neighbour, and it comes to death or is damaged or is taken away, without any person seeing it:

¹¹If he takes his oath before the Lord that he has not put his hand to his neighbour's goods, the owner is to take his word for it and he will not have to make payment for it.

¹²But if it is taken from him by a thief, he is to make up for the loss of it to its owner.

¹³But if it has been damaged by a beast, and he is able to make this clear, he will not have to make payment for what was damaged.

¹⁴If a man gets from his neighbour the use of one of his beasts, and it is damaged or put to death when the owner is not with it, he will certainly have to make payment for the loss.

¹⁵If the owner is with it, he will not have to make payment: if he gave money for the use of it, the loss is covered by the payment.

¹⁶If a man takes a virgin, who has not given her word to another man, and has connection with her, he will have to give a bride-price for her to be his wife.

¹⁷If her father will not give her to him on any account, he will have to give the regular payment for virgins.

¹⁸Any woman using unnatural powers or secret arts is to be put to death.

¹⁹Any man who has sex connection with a beast is to be put to death.

²⁰Complete destruction will come on any man who makes offerings to any other god but the Lord.

²¹Do no wrong to a man from a strange country, and do not be hard on him; for you yourselves were living in a strange country, in the land of Egypt.

²²Do no wrong to a widow, or to a child whose father is dead.

²³If you are cruel to them in any way, and their cry comes up to me, I will certainly give ear;

²⁴And in the heat of my wrath I will put you to death with the sword, so that your wives will be widows and your children without fathers.

²⁵If you let any of the poor among my people have the use of your money, do not be a hard creditor to him, and do not take interest.

²⁶If ever you take your neighbour's clothing in exchange for the use of your money, let him have it back before the sun goes down:

²⁷For it is the only thing he has for covering his skin; what is he to go to sleep in? and when his cry comes up to me, I will give ear, for my mercy is great.

²⁸You may not say evil of the judges, or put a curse on the ruler of your people.

²⁹Do not keep back your offerings from the wealth of your grain and your vines. The first of your sons you are to give to me.

³⁰In the same way with your oxen and your sheep: for seven days let the young one be with its mother; on the eighth day give it to me.

³¹You are to be holy men to me: the flesh of no animal whose death has been caused by the beasts of the field may be used for your food; it is to be given to the dogs.

23Do not let a false statement go further; do not make an agreement with evil-doers to be a false witness.

²Do not be moved to do wrong by the general opinion, or give the support of your words to a wrong decision:

³But, on the other hand, do not be turned from what is right in order to give support to a poor man's cause.

⁴If you come across the ox or the ass of one who is no friend to you wandering from its way, you are to take it back to him.

⁵If you see the ass of one who has no love for you bent down to the earth under the weight which is put on it, you are to come to its help, even against your desire.

⁶Let no wrong decisions be given in the poor man's cause.

⁷Keep yourselves far from any false business; never let the upright or him who has done no wrong be put to death: for I will make the evil-doer responsible for his sin.

⁸Take no rewards in a cause: for rewards make blind those who have eyes to see, and make the decisions of the upright false.

⁹Do not be hard on the man from a strange country who is living among you; for you have had experience of the feelings of one who is far from the land of his birth, because you yourselves were living in Egypt, in a strange land.

¹⁰For six years put seed into your fields and get in the increase;

¹¹But in the seventh year let the land have a rest and be unplanted; so that the poor may have food from it: and let the beasts of the field take the rest. Do the same with your vine-gardens and your olive-trees.

¹²For six days do your work, and on the seventh day keep the Sabbath; so that your ox and your ass may have rest, together with the son of your servant and the man from a strange land living among you.

¹³Take note of all these things which I have said to you, and let not the names of other gods come into your minds or from your lips.

¹⁴Three times in the year you are to keep a feast to me.

¹⁵You are to keep the feast of unleavened bread; for seven days let your bread be without leaven, as I gave you orders, at the regular time in the month Abib (for in it you came out of Egypt); and let no one come before me without an offering:

¹⁶And the feast of the grain-cutting, the first-fruits of your planted fields: and the feast at the start of the year, when you have got in all the fruit from your fields.

¹⁷Three times in the year let all your males come before the Lord God.

¹⁸Do not give the blood of my offering with leavened bread; and do not let the fat of my feast be kept all night till the morning.

¹⁹The best of the first-fruits of your land are to be taken into the house of the Lord your God. The young goat is not to be cooked in its mother's milk.

²⁰See, I am sending an angel before you, to keep you on your way and to be your guide into the place which I have made ready for you.

²¹Give attention to him and give ear to his voice; do not go against him; for your wrongdoing will not be overlooked by him, because my name is in him.

²²But if you truly give ear to his voice, and do whatever I say, then I will be against those who are against you, fighting those who are fighting you.

²³And my angel will go before you, guiding you into the land of the Amorite and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Canaanite and the Hivite and the Jebusite, and they will be cut off by my hand.

²⁴Do not go down on your faces and give worship to their gods, or do as they do; but overcome them completely, and let their pillars be broken down.

²⁵And give worship to the Lord your God, who will send his blessing on your bread and on your water; and I will take all disease away from among you.

²⁶All your animals will give birth without loss, not one will be without young in all your land; I will give you a full measure of life.

²⁷I will send my fear before you, putting to flight all the people to whom you come; all those who are against you will go in flight, turning their backs before you.

²⁸I will send hornets before you, driving out the Hivite and the Canaanite and the Hittite before your face.

²⁹I will not send them all out in one year, for fear that their land may become waste, and the beasts of the field be increased overmuch against you.

³⁰Little by little I will send them away before you, till your numbers are increased and you take up your heritage in the land.

³¹I will let the limits of your land be from the Red Sea to the sea of the Philistines, and from the waste land to the river Euphrates: for I will give the people of those lands into your power; and you will send them out before you.

³²Make no agreement with them or with their gods.

³³Let them not go on living in your land, or they will make you do evil against me: for if you give worship to their gods, it will certainly be a cause of sin to you.

24And he said to Moses, Come up to the Lord, you and Aaron, and Nadab and Abihu and seventy of the chiefs of Israel; and give me worship from a distance.

²And Moses only may come near to the Lord; but the others are not to come near, and the people may not come up with them.

³Then Moses came and put before the people all the words of the Lord and his laws: and all the people, answering with one voice, said, Whatever the Lord has said we will do.

⁴Then Moses put down in writing all the words of the Lord, and he got up early in the morning and made an altar at the foot of the mountain, with twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel.

⁵And he sent some of the young men of the children of Israel to make burned offerings and peace-offerings of oxen to the Lord.

⁶And Moses took half the blood and put it in basins; draining out half of the blood over the altar.

⁷And he took the book of the agreement, reading it in the hearing of the people: and they said, Everything which the Lord has said we will do, and we will keep his laws.

⁸Then Moses took the blood and let it come on the people, and said, This blood is the sign of the agreement which the Lord has made with you in these words.

⁹Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the chiefs of Israel went up:

¹⁰And they saw the God of Israel; and under his feet there was, as it seemed, a jewelled floor, clear as the heavens.

¹¹And he put not his hand on the chiefs of the children of Israel: they saw God, and took food and drink.

¹²And the Lord said to Moses, Come up to me on the mountain, and take your place there: and I will give you the stones on which I have put in writing the law and the orders, so that you may give the people knowledge of them.

¹³Then Moses and Joshua his servant got up; and Moses went up into the mountain of God.

¹⁴And he said to the chiefs, Keep your places here till we come back to you: Aaron and Hur are with you; if anyone has any cause let him go to them.

¹⁵And Moses went up into the mountain, and it was covered by the cloud.

¹⁶And the glory of the Lord was resting on Mount Sinai, and the cloud was over it for six days; and on the seventh day he said Moses' name out of the cloud.

¹⁷And the glory of the Lord was like a flame on the top of the mountain before the eyes of the children of Israel.

¹⁸And Moses went up the mountain, into the cloud, and was there for forty days and forty nights.

25And the Lord said to Moses,

²Say to the children of Israel that they are to make me an offering; from every man who has the impulse in his heart take an offering for me.

³And this is the offering you are to take from them: gold and silver and brass;

⁴And blue and purple and red, and the best linen, and goats' hair;

⁵And sheepskins coloured red, and leather, and hard wood;

⁶Oil for the light, spices for the sweet-smelling oil, sweet perfumes for burning;

⁷Beryls and stones of value to be put on the ephod and on the priest's bag.

⁸And let them make me a holy place, so that I may be ever present among them.

⁹Make the House and everything in it from the designs which I will give you.

¹⁰And they are to make an ark of hard wood; two and a half cubits long, and a cubit and a half wide and high.

¹¹It is to be plated inside and out with the best gold, with an edge of gold all round it

¹²And make four rings of gold for it, to be fixed on its four feet, two rings on one side of it and two on the other.

¹³And make rods of the same wood, plating them with gold.

¹⁴And put the rods through the rings at the sides of the ark, for lifting it.

¹⁵The rods are to be kept in the rings, and never taken out.

¹⁶Inside the ark you are to put the record which I will give you.

¹⁷And you are to make a cover of the best gold, two and a half cubits long and a cubit and a half wide.

¹⁸And at the two ends of the cover you are to make two winged ones of hammered gold,

¹⁹One at one end and one at the other; the winged ones are to be part of the cover.

²⁰And their wings are to be outstretched over the cover, and the winged ones are to be opposite one another, facing the cover.

²¹And put the cover over the ark, and in the ark the record which I will give you.

²²And there, between the two winged ones on the cover of the ark, I will come to you, face to face, and make clear to you all the orders I have to give you for the children of Israel.

²³And you are to make a table of the same wood, two cubits long, a cubit wide and a cubit and a half high,

²⁴Plated with the best gold, with a gold edge all round it;

²⁵And make a frame all round it, as wide as a man's hand, with a gold edge to the frame.

²⁶And make four gold rings and put them at the four angles, on the four feet of the table;

²⁷The rings are to be fixed under the frame to take the rods with which the table is to be lifted.

²⁸Make rods of the same wood, plated with gold, for lifting the table.

²⁹And make the table-vessels, the spoons and the cups and the basins for liquids, all of the best gold.

³⁰And on the table at all times you are to keep my holy bread.

³¹And you are to make a support for lights, of the best gold; its base and its pillar are to be of hammered gold; its cups, its buds, and its flowers are to be made of the same metal.

³²It is to have six branches coming out from its sides; three branches from one side and three from the other.

³³Every branch having three cups made like almond flowers, every cup with a bud and a flower, on all the branches.

³⁴And on the pillar, four cups like almond flowers, every one with its bud and its flower:

³⁵And under every two branches a bud, made with the branch, for all the six branches of it.

³⁶The buds and the branches are to be made of the same metal; all together one complete work of hammered gold.

³⁷Then you are to make its seven vessels for the lights, putting them in their place so that they give light in front of it.

³⁸And the instruments and trays for use with it are all to be of the best gold.

³⁹A talent of gold will be needed for it, with all these vessels.

⁴⁰And see that you make them from the design which you saw on the mountain.

26And you are to make a House for me, with ten curtains of the best linen, blue and purple and red, worked with designs of winged ones by a good workman.

²Every curtain is to be twenty-eight cubits long and four cubits wide, all of the same measure.

³Five curtains are to be joined together, and the other five are to be joined together.

⁴And you are to put twists of blue cord on the edge of the outside curtain of the first group of five, and on the edge of the outside curtain of the second group of five;

⁵Fifty twists on one curtain and fifty on the other, the twists to be opposite one another.

⁶Then make fifty gold hooks, joining the curtains together by the hooks, and in this way the House will be made.

⁷And you are to make curtains of goats' hair for a tent over the House, eleven curtains.

⁸Every curtain is to be thirty cubits long and four cubits wide, all of the same measure.

⁹Five of these curtains are to be joined together, and the other six are to be joined together, the sixth being folded over to make a hanging in front of the tent.

¹⁰And you are to put fifty twists of cord on the edge of the outside curtain of one group, and fifty twists on the edge of the outside curtain of the other group.

¹¹Then make fifty brass hooks and put the hooks into the twists, joining the tent together to make it one.

¹²And the folded part which is over of the curtains of the tent, the half-curtain which is folded back, will be hanging down over the back of the House.

¹³And the cubit which is over of the ten curtains at the sides will be hanging over the two sides of the House as a cover.

¹⁴And then you are to make a cover for the tent, of sheepskins coloured red, and a cover of leather over that.

¹⁵And you are to make upright boards of hard wood for the House.

¹⁶Every board is to be ten cubits high and a cubit and a half wide.

¹⁷Every board is to be joined to the one nearest to it by two tongues, and so for every board in the House.

¹⁸These are the boards needed for the house; twenty boards for the south side,

¹⁹With forty silver bases under the twenty boards, two bases under every board to take its tongues.

²⁰And twenty boards for the second side of the house on the north,

²¹With their forty silver bases, two under every board.

²²And six boards for the back of the House on the west,

²³With two boards for the angles of the House at the back.

²⁴The two are to be joined together at the base and at the top to one ring, forming the two angles.

²⁵So there are to be eight boards, with their sixteen silver bases, two bases under every board.

²⁶And make rods of the same wood, five for the boards on the one side,

²⁷And five for the boards on the other side of the House, and five for the west side of the House at the back.

²⁸And the middle rod is to go through the rings of all the boards from end to end.

²⁹And the boards are to be plated with gold, having gold rings for the rods to go through: and the rods are to be plated with gold.

³⁰And you are to make the House from the design which you saw on the mountain.

³¹And you are to make a veil of the best linen, blue and purple and red, worked with designs of winged ones by a good workman:

³²Hanging it by gold hooks from four pillars of wood, plated with gold and fixed in silver bases.

³³And you are to put up the veil under the hooks, and put inside it the ark of the law: the veil is to be a division between the holy place and the most holy.

³⁴You are to put the cover on the ark of the law, inside the most holy place.

³⁵And outside the veil you are to put the table, and the support for the lights opposite the table on the south side of the House; and the table is to be on the north side.

³⁶And you are to make a curtain for the doorway of the Tent, of the best linen with needlework of blue and purple and red.

³⁷And make five pillars for the curtain, of hard wood plated with gold; their hooks are to be of gold and their bases of brass

27And make an altar of hard wood, a square altar, five cubits long, five cubits wide and three cubits high.

²Put horns at the four angles of it, made of the same, plating it all with brass.

³And make all its vessels, the baskets for taking away the dust of the fire, the spades and basins and meat-hooks and fire-trays, of brass.

⁴And make a network of brass, with four brass rings at its four angles.

⁵And put the network under the shelf round the altar so that the net comes half-way up the altar.

⁶And make rods for the altar, of hard wood, plated with brass.

⁷And put the rods through the rings at the two opposite sides of the altar, for lifting it.

⁸The altar is to be hollow, boarded in with wood; make it from the design which you saw on the mountain.

⁹And let there be an open space round the House, with hangings for its south side of the best linen, a hundred cubits long.

¹⁰Their twenty pillars and their twenty bases are to be of brass; the hooks of the pillars and their bands are to be of silver.

¹¹And on the north side in the same way, hangings a hundred cubits long, with twenty pillars of brass on bases of brass; their hooks and their bands are to be of silver.

¹²And for the open space on the west side, the hangings are to be fifty cubits wide, with ten pillars and ten bases;

¹³And on the east side the space is to be fifty cubits wide.

¹⁴On the one side of the doorway will be hangings fifteen cubits long, with three pillars and three bases;

¹⁵And on the other side, hangings fifteen cubits long, with three pillars and three bases.

¹⁶And across the doorway, a veil of twenty cubits of the best linen, made of needlework of blue and purple and red, with four pillars and four bases.

¹⁷All the pillars round the open space are to have silver bands, with hooks of silver and bases of brass.

¹⁸The open space is to be a hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide, with sides five cubits high, curtained with the best linen, with bases of brass.

¹⁹All the instruments for the work of the House, and all its nails, and the nails of the open space are to be of brass.

²⁰Give orders to the children of Israel to give you clear olive oil for the lights, so that a light may be burning there at all times.

²¹Let Aaron and his sons put this in order, evening and morning, before the Lord, inside the Tent of meeting, outside the veil which is before the ark; this is to be an order for ever, from generation to generation, to be kept by the children of Israel.

28Now let Aaron your brother, and his sons with him, come near from among the children of Israel, so that they may be my priests, even Aaron, and Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar, his sons.

²And make holy robes for Aaron your brother, so that he may be clothed with glory and honour.

³Give orders to all the wise-hearted workmen, whom I have made full of the spirit of wisdom, to make robes for Aaron, so that he may be made holy as my priest.

⁴This is what they are to make: a priest's bag, an ephod, and a robe, and a coat of coloured needlework, a head-dress, and a linen band; they are to make holy robes for Aaron your brother and for his sons, so that they may do the work of priests for me.

⁵They are to take the gold and blue and purple and red and the best linen,

⁶And make the ephod of gold and blue and purple and red and the best linen, the work of a designer.

⁷It is to have two bands stitched to it at the top of the arms, joining it together.

⁸And the beautifully worked band, which goes on it, is to be of the same work and the same material, of gold and blue and purple and red and twisted linen-work.

⁹You are to take two beryl stones, on which the names of the children of Israel are to be cut:

¹⁰Six names on the one stone and six on the other, in the order of their birth.

¹¹With the work of a jeweller, like the cutting of a stamp, the names of the children of Israel are to be cut on them, and they are to be fixed in twisted frames of gold.

¹²And the two stones are to be placed on the ephod, over the arm-holes, to be stones of memory for the children of Israel: Aaron will have their names on his arms when he goes in before the Lord, to keep the Lord in mind of them.

¹³And you are to make twisted frames of gold;

¹⁴And two chains of the best gold, twisted like cords; and have the chains fixed on to the frames.

¹⁵And make a priest's bag for giving decisions, designed like the ephod, made of gold and blue and purple and red and the best linen.

¹⁶It is to be square, folded in two, a hand-stretch long and a hand-stretch wide.

¹⁷And on it you are to put four lines of jewels; the first line is to be a cornelian, a chrysolite, and an emerald;

¹⁸The second, a ruby, a sapphire, and an onyx;

¹⁹The third, a jacinth, an agate, and an amethyst;

²⁰The fourth, a topaz, a beryl, and a jasper; they are to be fixed in twisted frames of gold.

²¹The jewels are to be twelve in number, for the names of the children of Israel; every jewel having the name of one of the twelve tribes cut on it as on a stamp.

²²And you are to make two chains of gold, twisted like cords, to be fixed to the priest's bag.

²³And put two gold rings on the two ends of the bag.

²⁴Put the two gold chains on the two rings at the ends of the bag;

²⁵Joining the other ends of the chains to the gold frames and putting them on the front of the ephod, at the top of the arms.

²⁶Then make two gold rings and put them on the lower ends of the bag, at the edge of it on the inner side nearest to the ephod.

²⁷And make two more gold rings and put them on the front of the ephod at the top of the arms, at the join, over the worked band:

²⁸So that the rings on the bag may be fixed to the rings of the ephod by a blue cord and on to the band of the ephod, so that the bag may not come loose from the ephod.

²⁹And so Aaron will have the names of the children of Israel on the priest's bag over his heart whenever he goes into the holy place, to keep the memory of them before the Lord.

³⁰And in the bag you are to put the Urim and Thummim, so that they may be on Aaron's heart whenever he goes in before the Lord; and Aaron may have the power of making decisions for the children of Israel before the Lord at all times.

³¹The robe which goes with the ephod is to be made all of blue;

³²With a hole at the top, in the middle of it; the hole is to be edged with a band to make it strong like the hole in the coat of a fighting-man, so that it may not be broken open.

³³And round the skirts of it put fruits in blue and purple and red, with bells of gold between;

³⁴A gold bell and a fruit in turn all round the skirts of the robe.

³⁵Aaron is to put it on for his holy work; and the sound of it will be clear, when he goes into the holy place before the Lord, and when he comes out, keeping him safe from death.

³⁶You are to make a plate of the best gold, cutting on it, as on a stamp, these words: HOLY TO THE LORD.

³⁷Put a blue cord on it and put it on the front of the twisted head-dress:

³⁸And it will be over Aaron's brow, so that Aaron will be responsible for any error in all the holy offerings made by the children of Israel; it will be on his brow at all times, so that their offerings may be pleasing to the Lord.

³⁹The coat is to be made of the best linen, worked in squares; and you are to make a head-dress of linen, and a linen band worked in needlework.

⁴⁰And for Aaron's sons you are to make coats, and bands, and head-dresses, so that they may be clothed with glory and honour.

⁴¹These you are to put on Aaron, your brother, and on his sons, putting oil on them, separating them and making them holy, to do the work of priests to me.

⁴²And you are to make them linen trousers, covering their bodies from the middle to the knee;

⁴³Aaron and his sons are to put these on whenever they go into the Tent of meeting or come near the altar, when they are doing the work of the holy place, so that they may be free from any sin causing death: this is to be an order for him and his seed after him for ever.

29This is what you are to do to make them holy, to do the work of priests to me: Take one young ox and two male sheep, without any mark on them,

²And unleavened bread, and unleavened cakes mixed with oil, and thin unleavened cakes on which oil has been put, made of the best bread-meal;

³Put these in a basket and take them, with the ox and the two sheep.

⁴And let Aaron and his sons come to the door of the Tent of meeting, and there let them be washed with water.

⁵Take the robes, and put the coat and the dress and the ephod and the priest's bag on Aaron; put the band of needlework round him,

⁶And let the head-dress be placed on his head and the holy crown on the head-dress.

⁷Then take the oil and put it on his head.

⁸And take his sons and put their robes on them;

⁹And put the linen bands round Aaron and his sons, and the head-dresses on them, to make them priests by my order for ever: so you are to make Aaron and his sons holy to me.

¹⁰Then let the ox be taken in front of the Tent of meeting: and let Aaron and his sons put their hands on its head.

¹¹And you are to put the ox to death before the Lord at the door of the Tent of meeting.

¹²Then take some of the blood of the ox, and put it on the horns of the altar with your finger, draining out all the rest of the blood at the base of the altar.

¹³And take all the fat covering the inside of the ox, and the fat joining the liver and the two kidneys with the fat round them, and let them be burned on the altar;

¹⁴But the flesh of the ox and its skin and its waste parts are to be burned outside the circle of the tents, for it is a sin-offering.

¹⁵Then take one of the sheep, and let Aaron and his sons put their hands on its head.

¹⁶Then let it be put to death, so that the sides of the altar are marked with its blood.

¹⁷Then the sheep is to be cut up into its parts, and after washing its legs and its inside parts, you are to put them with the parts and the head,

¹⁸And let them all be burned on the altar as a burned offering to the Lord: a sweet smell, an offering made by fire to the Lord.

¹⁹Then take the other sheep; and after Aaron and his sons have put their hands on its head,

²⁰You are to put the sheep to death, and take some of its blood and put it on the point of Aaron's right ear, and of the right ears of his sons, and on the thumbs of their right hands and the great toes of their right feet, dropping the rest of the blood on the sides of the altar.

²¹Then take some of the blood on the altar, and the oil, and put it on Aaron and his robes and on his sons and on their robes, so that he and his robes and his sons and their robes may be made holy.

²²Then take the fat of the sheep, the fat tail, the fat covering the insides, and the fat joining the liver and the two kidneys with the fat round them, and the right leg; for by the offering of this sheep they are to be marked out as priests:

²³And take one bit of bread and one cake of oiled bread and one thin cake out of the basket of unleavened bread which is before the Lord:

²⁴And put them all on the hands of Aaron and of his sons, to be waved for a wave offering before the Lord.

²⁵Then take them from their hands, and let them be burned on the burned offering on the altar, a sweet smell before the Lord, an offering made by fire to the Lord.

²⁶Then take the breast of Aaron's sheep, waving it before the Lord; and it is to be your part of the offering.

²⁷So you are to make holy the breast of the sheep which is waved and the leg which is lifted up on high, that is, of the sheep which is offered for Aaron and his sons;

²⁸And it will be their part as a right for ever from the children of Israel, it is a special offering from the children of Israel, made from their peace-offerings, a special offering lifted up to the Lord.

²⁹And Aaron's holy robes will be used by his sons after him; they will put them on when they are made priests.

³⁰For seven days the son who becomes priest in his place will put them on when he comes into the Tent of meeting to do the work of the holy place.

³¹Then take the sheep of the wave offering and let its flesh be cooked in water in a holy place.

³²And let Aaron and his sons make a meal of it, with the bread in the basket, at the door of the Tent of meeting.

³³All those things which were used as offerings to take away sin, and to make them holy to be priests, they may have for food: but no one who is not a priest may have them, for they are holy food.

³⁴And if any of the flesh of the offering or of the bread is over till the morning, let it be burned with fire; it is not to be used for food, for it is holy.

³⁵All these things you are to do to Aaron and his sons as I have given you orders: for seven days the work of making them priests is to go on.

³⁶Every day an ox is to be offered as a sin-offering, to take away sins: and by this offering on it, you will make the altar clean from sin; and you are to put oil on it and make it holy.

³⁷For seven days you are to make offerings for the altar and make it holy, so that it may become completely holy, and anything touching it will become holy.

³⁸Now this is the offering which you are to make on the altar: two lambs in their first year, every day regularly.

³⁹One lamb is to be offered in the morning and the other in the evening:

⁴⁰And with the one lamb, a tenth part of an ephah of the best meal, mixed with a fourth part of a hin of clear oil; and the fourth part of a hin of wine for a drink offering.

⁴¹And the other lamb is to be offered in the evening, and with it the same meal offering and drink offering, for a sweet smell, an offering made by fire to the Lord.

⁴²This is to be a regular burned offering made from generation to generation, at the door of the Tent of meeting before the Lord, where I will come face to face with you and have talk with you.

⁴³There I will come face to face with the children of Israel, and the Tent will be made holy by my glory

⁴⁴I will make holy the Tent of meeting and the altar: and Aaron and his sons I will make holy, to be my priests

⁴⁵Among the children of Israel I will make my living-place, and I will be their God.

⁴⁶And they will see that I am the Lord their God, who took them out of the land of Egypt, so that I might be ever with them: I am the Lord their God.

30And you are to make an altar for the burning of perfume; of hard wood let it be made.

²The altar is to be square, a cubit long and a cubit wide, and two cubits high, and its horns are to be made of the same.

³It is to be plated with the best gold, the top of it and the sides and the horns, with an edging of gold all round it.

⁴Under the edge on the two opposite sides, you are to make two gold rings, to take the rods for lifting it.

⁵And make these rods of the same wood, plating them with gold.

⁶And let it be placed in front of the veil before the ark of the law, before the cover which is over the law, where I will come face to face with you.

⁷And on this altar sweet spices are to be burned by Aaron every morning when he sees to the lights.

⁸And every evening, when he puts the lights up in their places, the spices are to be burned, a sweet-smelling smoke going up before the Lord from generation to generation for ever.

⁹No strange perfume, no burned offering or meal offering, and no drink offering is to be offered on it.

¹⁰And once every year Aaron is to make its horns clean: with the blood of the sin-offering he is to make it clean once every year from generation to generation: it is most holy to the Lord.

¹¹And the Lord said to Moses,

¹²When you are taking the number of the children of Israel, let every man who is numbered give to the Lord a price for his life, so that no disease may come on them when they are numbered.

¹³And this is what they are to give; let every man who is numbered give half a shekel, by the scale of the holy place: (the shekel being valued at twenty gerahs:) this money is an offering to the Lord.

¹⁴Everyone who is numbered, from twenty years old and over, is to give an offering to the Lord.

¹⁵The man of wealth is to give no more and the poor man no less than the half-shekel of silver, when the offering is made to the Lord as the price for your lives.

¹⁶And you are to take this money from the children of Israel to be used for the work of the Tent of meeting, to keep the memory of the children of Israel before the Lord and to be the price of your lives.

¹⁷And the Lord said to Moses,

¹⁸You are to make a brass washing-vessel, with a brass base; and put it between the Tent of meeting and the altar, with water in it;

¹⁹That it may be used by Aaron and his sons for washing their hands and feet;

²⁰Whenever they go into the Tent of meeting they are to be washed with water, to keep them from death; and whenever they come near to do the work of the altar, or to make an offering by fire to the Lord,

²¹Their hands and feet are to be washed. so that they may be safe from death: this is an order to them for ever; to him and his seed from generation to generation.

²²And the Lord said to Moses,

²³Take the best spices, five hundred shekels' weight of liquid myrrh, and of sweet cinnamon half as much, that is, two hundred and fifty shekels, and two hundred and fifty shekels of sweet calamus,

²⁴And of cassia, five hundred shekels' weight measured by the scale of the holy place, and of olive oil a hin:

²⁵And make these into a holy oil, a perfume made by the art of the perfume-maker; it is to be a holy oil.

²⁶This oil is to be put on the Tent of meeting, and on the ark of the law,

²⁷And on the table and all its vessels, and on the support for the lights, with its vessels, and on the altar for burning spices,

²⁸And on the altar of burned offerings with its vessels, and on the washing-vessel and its base.

²⁹And you are to make them most holy; anything touching them will become holy.

³⁰And put the oil on Aaron and his sons, making them holy to do the work of priests to me.

³¹And say to the children of Israel, This is to be the Lord's holy oil, from generation to generation.

³²It is not to be used for man's flesh, and no other is to be made like it: holy it is, and you are to keep it holy.

³³Whoever makes any like it, or puts it on one who is not a priest, will be cut off from his people.

³⁴And the Lord said to Moses, Take sweet spices, stacte and onycha and galbanum, with the best frankincense, in equal weights;

³⁵And make from them a perfume, such as is made by the art of the perfume-maker, mixed with salt, and clean and holy.

³⁶And put some of it, crushed very small, in front of the ark in the Tent of meeting, where I will come face to face with you; it is to be most holy.

³⁷You are not to make any perfume like it for yourselves: it is to be kept holy to the Lord.

³⁸Whoever makes any like it, for its sweet smell, will be cut off from his people.

31And the Lord said to Moses,

²I have made selection of Bezalel, the son of Uri, by name, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah:

³And I have given him the spirit of God and made him wise and full of knowledge and expert in every sort of handwork,

⁴To do all sorts of delicate work in gold and silver and brass;

⁵In cutting stones for framing, and to do every form of woodwork.

⁶And I have made selection of Oholiab with him, the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan; and in the hearts of all who are wise I have put the knowledge to make whatever I have given you orders to have made;

⁷The Tent of meeting, and the ark of the law, and the cover which is on it, and all the things for the tent,

⁸And the table with its vessels, and the holy light-support with all its vessels, and the altar for the burning of spices,

⁹And the altar of burned offerings with all its vessels, and the washing-vessel with its base,

¹⁰And the robes of needlework, the holy robes for Aaron and for his sons, for their use when acting as priests,

¹¹And the holy oil, and the perfume of sweet spices for the holy place; they will do whatever I have given you orders to have done.

¹²And the Lord said to Moses,

¹³Say to the children of Israel that they are to keep my Sabbaths; for the Sabbath day is a sign between me and you through all your generations; so that you may see that I am the Lord who makes you holy.

¹⁴So you are to keep the Sabbath as a holy day; and anyone not honouring it will certainly be put to death: whoever does any work on that day will be cut off from his people.

¹⁵Six days may work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of complete rest, holy to the Lord; whoever does any work on the Sabbath day is to be put to death.

¹⁶And the children of Israel are to keep the Sabbath holy, from generation to generation, by an eternal agreement.

¹⁷It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever; because in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he took his rest and had pleasure in it.

¹⁸And when his talk with Moses on Mount Sinai was ended, he gave him the two stones of the law, two stones on which was the writing made by the finger of God.

32And when the people saw that Moses was a long time coming down from the mountain, they all came to Aaron and said to him, Come, make us a god to go before us: as for this Moses, who took us up out of the land of Egypt, we have no idea what has become of him.

²Then Aaron said to them, Take off the gold rings which are in the ears of your wives and your sons and your daughters, and give them to me.

³And all the people took the gold rings from their ears and gave them to Aaron.

⁴And he took the gold from them and, hammering it with an instrument, he made it into the metal image of a young ox: and they said, This is your god, O Israel, who took you out of the land of Egypt.

⁵And when Aaron saw this, he made an altar before it, and made a public statement, saying, Tomorrow there will be a feast to the Lord.

⁶So early on the day after they got up and made burned offerings and peace-offerings; and took their seats at the feast, and then gave themselves to pleasure.

⁷And the Lord said to Moses, Go down quickly; for your people, whom you took out of the land of Egypt, are turned to evil ways;

⁸Even now they are turned away from the rule I gave them, and have made themselves a metal ox and given worship to it and offerings, saying, This is your god, O Israel, who took you up out of the land of Egypt.

⁹And the Lord said to Moses, I have been watching this people, and I see that they are a stiff-necked people.

¹⁰Now do not get in my way, for my wrath is burning against them; I will send destruction on them, but of you I will make a great nation.

¹¹But Moses made prayer to God, saying, Lord, why is your wrath burning against your people whom you took out of the land of Egypt, with great power and with the strength of your hand?

¹²Why let the Egyptians say, He took them out to an evil fate, to put them to death on the mountains, cutting them off from the earth? Let your wrath be turned away from them, and send not this evil on your people.

¹³Have in mind Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you gave your oath, saying, I will make your seed like the stars of heaven in number, and all this land will I give to your seed, as I said, to be their heritage for ever.

¹⁴So the Lord let himself be turned from his purpose of sending punishment on his people.

¹⁵Then Moses came down the mountain with the two stones of the law in his hand; the stones had writing on their two sides, on the front and on the back.

¹⁶The stones were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, cut on the stones.

¹⁷Now when the noise and the voices of the people came to the ears of Joshua, he said to Moses, There is a noise of war in the tents.

¹⁸And Moses said, It is not the voice of men who are overcoming in the fight, or the cry of those who have been overcome; it is the sound of songs which comes to my ear.

¹⁹And when he came near the tents he saw the image of the ox, and the people dancing; and in his wrath Moses let the stones go from his hands, and they were broken at the foot of the mountain.

²⁰And he took the ox which they had made, burning it in the fire and crushing it to powder, and he put it in the water and made the children of Israel take a drink of it.

²¹And Moses said to Aaron, What did the people do to you that you let this great sin come on them?

²²And Aaron said, Let not my lord be angry; you have seen how the purposes of this people are evil.

²³For they said to me, Make us a god to go before us: as for this Moses, who took us up out of the land of Egypt, we have no idea what has come to him.

²⁴Then I said to them, Whoever has any gold, let him take it off; so they gave it to me, and I put it in the fire, and this image of an ox came out.

²⁵And Moses saw that the people were out of control, for Aaron had let them loose to their shame before their haters:

²⁶Then Moses took his place at the way into the tents, and said, Whoever is on the Lord's side, let him come to me. And all the sons of Levi came together to him.

²⁷And he said to them, This is the word of the Lord, the God of Israel: Let every man take his sword at his side, and go from one end of the tents to the other, putting to death his brother and his friend and his neighbour.

²⁸And the sons of Levi did as Moses said; and about three thousand of the people were put to death that day.

²⁹And Moses said, You have made yourselves priests to the Lord this day; for every one of you has made the offering of his son and his brother; the blessing of the Lord is on you this day.

³⁰And on the day after, Moses said to the people, Great has been your sin: but I will go up to the Lord, and see if I may get forgiveness for your sin.

³¹Then Moses went back to the Lord and said, This people has done a great sin, making themselves a god of gold;

³²But now, if you will give them forgiveness--but if not, let my name be taken out of your book.

³³And the Lord said to Moses, Whoever has done evil against me will be taken out of my book.

³⁴But now, go, take the people into that place of which I have given you word; see, my angel will go before you: but when the time of my judging has come, I will send punishment on them for their sin.

³⁵And the Lord sent punishment on the people because they gave worship to the ox which Aaron made.

33And the Lord said to Moses, Go forward from this place, you and the people whom you have taken up out of the land of Egypt, to that land about which I made an oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, To your seed will I give it.

²And I will send an angel before you, driving out the Canaanite and the Amorite and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite:

³Go up to that land flowing with milk and honey; but I will not go up among you, for you are a stiff-necked people, for fear that I send destruction on you while you are on the way.

⁴Hearing this bad news the people were full of grief, and no one put on his ornaments.

⁵And the Lord said to Moses, Say to the children of Israel, You are a stiff-necked people: if I come among you, even for a minute, I will send destruction on you; so take off all your ornaments, so that I may see what to do with you.

⁶So the children of Israel took off their ornaments at Mount Horeb, and did not put them on again.

⁷Now it was Moses' way to put up the Tent of meeting outside the tent-circle, at some distance away; giving it the name of The Tent of meeting. And everyone desiring to make his prayer to the Lord went to the Tent of meeting outside the tent-circle.

⁸And whenever Moses went out to the Tent of meeting, all the people got up and everyone went to the door of his tent, looking after Moses till he went inside the Tent.

⁹And whenever Moses went into the Tent, the pillar of cloud came down, and took its place by the door of the Tent, as long as the Lord was talking with Moses.

¹⁰And all the people saw the cloud at the door of the Tent, and they went down on their faces, everyone at the door of his tent.

¹¹And the Lord had talk with Moses face to face, as a man may have talk with his friend. And when Moses came back to the tents, his servant, the young man Joshua, the son of Nun, did not come away from the Tent.

¹²And Moses said to the Lord, See, you say to me, Be this people's guide on their journey, but you have not made clear to me whom you will send with me. But you have said, I have knowledge of you by name, and you have grace in my eyes.

¹³If then I have grace in your eyes, let me see your ways, so that I may have knowledge of you and be certain of your grace; and my prayer is that you will keep in mind that this nation is your people.

¹⁴And he said, I myself will go with you and give you rest.

¹⁵And Moses said, If you yourself are not going with us, do not send us on from here.

¹⁶For is not the fact of your going with us the sign that I and this people have grace in your eyes, so that we, that is, I and your people, are separate from all other people on the face of the earth?

¹⁷And the Lord said to Moses, I will do as you say: for you have grace in my eyes, and I have knowledge of you by your name.

¹⁸And Moses said, O Lord, let me see your glory.

¹⁹And he said, I will make all the light of my being come before you, and will make clear to you what I am; I will be kind to those to whom I will be kind, and have mercy on those on whom I will have mercy.

²⁰But it is not possible for you to see my face, for no man may see me and still go on living.

²¹And the Lord said, See, there is a place near me, and you may take your place on the rock:

²²And when my glory goes by, I will put you in a hole in the rock, covering you with my hand till I have gone past:

²³Then I will take away my hand, and you will see my back: but my face is not to be seen.

34And the Lord said to Moses, Make two other stones like the first two; and I will put on them the words which were on the first stones, which were broken by you.

²And be ready by the morning, and come up on Mount Sinai, and come before me there in the morning, on the top of the mountain.

³No one is to come up with you, and let no man be seen anywhere on the mountain; let no flocks or herds come near to get their food at its foot.

⁴So Moses got two stones cut like the first; and early in the morning he went up Mount Sinai, as the Lord had said, with the two stones in his hand.

⁵And the Lord came down in the cloud and took his place by the side of Moses, and Moses gave worship to the name of the Lord.

⁶And the Lord went past before his eyes, saying, The Lord, the Lord, a God full of pity and grace, slow to wrath and great in mercy and faith;

⁷Having mercy on thousands, overlooking evil and wrongdoing and sin; he will not let wrongdoers go free, but will send punishment on children for the sins of their fathers, and on their children's children to the third and fourth generation.

⁸Then Moses quickly went down on his face in worship.

⁹And he said, If now I have grace in your eyes, let the Lord go among us, for this is a stiff-necked people, and give us forgiveness for our wrongdoing and our sin, and take us for your heritage.

¹⁰And the Lord said, See, this is what I will undertake: before the eyes of your people I will do wonders, such as have not been done in all the earth or in any nation: and all your people will see the work of the Lord, for what I am about to do for you is greatly to be feared.

¹¹Take care to do the orders which I give you today; I will send out from before you the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite.

¹²But take care, and do not make any agreement with the people of the land where you are going, for it will be a cause of sin to you.

¹³But their altars are to be overturned and their pillars broken and their images cut down:

¹⁴For you are to be worshippers of no other god: for the Lord is a God who will not give his honour to another.

¹⁵So see that you make no agreement with the people of the land, and do not go after their gods, or take part in their offerings, or be guests at their feasts,

¹⁶Or take their daughters for your sons; for when their daughters give worship before their gods, they will make your sons take part with them.

¹⁷Make for yourselves no gods of metal.

¹⁸Keep the feast of unleavened bread; for seven days your food is to be bread without leaven, as I gave you orders, at the regular time in the month Abib; for in that month you came out of Egypt.

¹⁹Every first male child is mine; the first male birth of your cattle, the first male of every ox and sheep.

²⁰A lamb may be given in payment for the young of an ass, but if you will not make payment for it, its neck will have to be broken. For all the first of your sons you are to make payment. No one is to come before me without an offering.

²¹Six days let work be done, but on the seventh day take your rest: at ploughing time and at the grain-cutting you are to have a day for rest.

²²And you are to keep the feast of weeks when you get in the first-fruits of the grain, and the feast at the turn of the year when you take in the produce of your fields.

²³Three times in the year let all your males come before the Lord, the God of Israel.

²⁴For I will send out the nations before you and make wide the limits of your land; and no man will make an attempt to take your land while you go up to give worship to the Lord, three times in the year.

²⁵No leaven is to be offered with the blood of my offering, and the offering of the Passover feast may not be kept till the morning.

²⁶Take the first-fruits of your land as an offering to the house of the Lord your God. Let not the young goat be cooked in its mother's milk

²⁷And the Lord said to Moses, Put all these words in writing; for on them is based the agreement which I will make with you.

²⁸And for forty days and forty nights Moses was there with the Lord, and in that time he had no food or drink. And he put in writing on the stones the words of the agreement, the ten rules of the law.

²⁹Now when Moses came down from Mount Sinai, with the two stones in his hand, he was not conscious that his face was shining because of his talk with God.

³⁰But when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, and the shining of his face, they would not come near him for fear.

³¹Then Moses sent for them; and Aaron, with the chiefs of the people, came to him; and Moses had talk with them.

³²And later, all the children of Israel came near, and he gave them all the orders which the Lord had given him on Mount Sinai.

³³And at the end of his talk with them, Moses put a veil over his face.

³⁴But whenever Moses went in before the Lord to have talk with him, he took off the veil till he came out. And whenever he came out he said to the children of Israel what he had been ordered to say;

³⁵And the children of Israel saw that the face of Moses was shining: so Moses put the veil over his face again till he went to the Lord.

35And Moses sent for all the children of Israel to come together, and said to them, This is what the Lord has said and these are his orders.

²Six days let work be done, but the seventh day is to be a holy day to you, a Sabbath of rest to the Lord; whoever does any work on that day is to be put to death.

³No fire is to be lighted in any of your houses on the Sabbath day.

⁴And Moses said to all the meeting of the children of Israel, This is the order which the Lord has given:

⁵Take from among you an offering to the Lord; everyone who has the impulse in his heart, let him give his offering to the Lord; gold and silver and brass;

⁶And blue and purple and red and the best linen and goats' hair,

⁷And sheepskins coloured red, and leather, and hard wood,

⁸And oil for the lights, and spices for the holy oil and for the sweet perfumes for burning.

⁹And beryls and jewels to be cut for the ephod and for the priest's bag.

¹⁰And let every wise-hearted man among you come and make whatever has been ordered by the Lord;

¹¹The House and its tent and its cover, its hooks and its boards, its rods and its pillars and its bases;

¹²The ark with its cover and its rods and the veil hanging before it;

¹³The table and its rods and all its vessels, and the holy bread;

¹⁴And the support for the lights, with its vessels and its lights and the oil for the light;

¹⁵And the altar for burning spices, with its rods, and the holy oil and the sweet perfume, and the curtain for the door, at the door of the House;

¹⁶The altar of burned offerings, with its network of brass, its rods, and all its vessels, the washing-vessel and its base;

¹⁷The hangings for the open space, its pillars and their bases, and the curtain for the doorway;

¹⁸The nails for the House, and the nails for the open space and their cords;

¹⁹The robes of needlework for the work of the holy place, the holy robes for Aaron the priest, and the robes for his sons when acting as priests.

²⁰And all the children of Israel went away from Moses.

²¹And everyone whose heart was moved, everyone who was guided by the impulse of his spirit, came with his offering for the Lord, for whatever was needed for the Tent of meeting and its work and for the holy robes.

²²They came, men and women, all who were ready to give, and gave pins and nose-rings and finger-rings and neck-ornaments, all of gold; everyone gave an offering of gold to the Lord.

²³And everyone who had blue and purple and red and the best linen and goats' hair and sheepskins coloured red and leather, gave them.

²⁴Everyone who had silver and brass gave an offering of them to the Lord; and everyone who had hard wood, such as was needed for the work, gave it.

²⁵And all the women who were expert with their hands, made cloth, and gave the work of their hands, blue and purple and red and the best linen.

²⁶And those women who had the knowledge, made the goats' hair into cloth.

²⁷And the rulers gave the beryls and the cut jewels for the ephod and the priest's bag;

²⁸And the spice and the oil for the light, and the holy oil and the sweet perfumes.

²⁹The children of Israel, every man and woman, from the impulse of their hearts, gave their offerings freely to the Lord for the work which the Lord had given Moses orders to have done.

³⁰And Moses said to the children of Israel, See, the Lord has made selection of Bezalel, the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah;

³¹And he has made him full of the spirit of God, in all wisdom and knowledge and art of every sort;

³²As an expert designer of beautiful things, working in gold and silver and brass;

³³Trained in the cutting of stones and the ornamenting of wood and in every sort of handwork.

³⁴And he has given to him, and to Oholiab, the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan, the power of training others.

³⁵To them he has given knowledge of all the arts of the handworker, of the designer, and the expert workman; of the maker of needlework in blue and purple and red and the best linen, and of the maker of cloth; in all the arts of the designer and the trained workman they are expert.

36So let Bezalel and Oholiab get to work, with every wise-hearted man to whom the Lord has given wisdom and knowledge, to do whatever is necessary for the ordering of the holy place, as the Lord has given orders.

²Then Moses sent for Bezalel and Oholiab, and for all the wise-hearted men to whom the Lord had given wisdom, even everyone who was moved by the impulse of his heart to come and take part in the work:

³And they took from Moses all the offerings which the children of Israel had given for the building of the holy place. And still they went on giving him more free offerings every morning.

⁴Then the wise men, who were doing all the work of the holy place, came from their work;

⁵And said to Moses, The people are giving much more than is needed for the work which the Lord has given us orders to do.

⁶So Moses made an order and had it given out through all the tents, saying, Let no man or woman make any more offerings for the holy place. So the people were kept from giving more.

⁷For the material they had was enough and more than enough for all the work which had to be done.

⁸Then all the expert workmen among them made the House with its ten curtains; of the best linen, blue and purple and red, they made them, with winged ones worked by expert designers.

⁹Every curtain was twenty-eight cubits long and four cubits wide, all of the same measure.

¹⁰And five curtains were joined together, and the other five curtains were joined together.

¹¹And they put twists of blue cord on the edge of the outside curtain of the first group, and in the same way on the outside curtain of the second group.

¹²Fifty twists on the one curtain and fifty on the edge of the curtain of the other group; the twists being opposite to one another.

¹³And they made fifty hooks of gold, joining the curtains one to another with the hooks; and so the House was made.

¹⁴And they made curtains of goats' hair for the tent; eleven curtains were made.

¹⁵Every curtain was thirty cubits long and four cubits wide, all of the same measure.

¹⁶Five curtains were joined together to make one group, and six curtains were joined together to make the other group.

¹⁷And they put fifty twists of cord on the edge of the outside curtain of the first group, and fifty twists on the edge of the outside curtain of the second group,

¹⁸And fifty hooks of brass for joining them together to make the tent.

¹⁹And they made a cover of sheepskins coloured red, to go over the tent, and a cover of leather over that.

²⁰And for the uprights of the House they made boards of hard wood.

²¹The boards were ten cubits long and one cubit and a half wide.

²²Every board had two tongues fixed into it; all the boards were made in this way.

²³They made twenty boards for the south side of the House:

²⁴And for these twenty boards, forty silver bases, two bases under every board, to take its tongues.

²⁵And for the second side of the House, on the north, they made twenty boards,

²⁶With their forty silver bases, two bases for every board.

²⁷And for the west side of the House, at the back, they made six boards,

²⁸And two boards for the angles at the back.

²⁹These were joined together at the base and at the top to one ring, so forming the two angles.

³⁰So there were eight boards with sixteen bases of silver, two bases under every board.

³¹And they made rods of hard wood; five for the boards on one side of the House,

³²And five for the boards on the other side of the House, and five for the boards at the back, on the west.

³³The middle rod was made to go right through the rings of all the boards from one end to the other.

³⁴All the boards were plated with gold, and the rings through which the rods went were of gold, and the rods were plated with gold.

³⁵And he made the veil of the best linen, blue and purple and red, worked with winged ones designed by expert workmen.

³⁶And they made four pillars for it of hard wood plated with gold: they had hooks of gold and four silver bases.

³⁷And they made a curtain for the door of the tent, of the best linen with needlework of blue and purple and red;

³⁸And five pillars for the curtain, with their hooks; the heads of the pillars were of gold and they were circled with bands of gold; and their five bases were of brass.

37And Bezalel made the ark of hard wood, two and a half cubits long, a cubit and a half wide and a cubit and a half high;

²Plating it inside and out with the best gold, and putting an edge of gold all round it.

³And he made four gold rings for its four angles, two on one side and two on the other,

⁴And rods of the same wood plated with gold.

⁵These rods he put in the rings at the sides of the ark, for lifting it.

⁶And he made the cover all of gold, two and a half cubits long and a cubit and a half wide.

⁷And he made two winged ones, hammered out of one bit of gold, for the two ends of the cover;

⁸Placing one at one end and one at the other; the winged ones were part of the cover.

⁹And their wings were stretched out over the cover; the faces of the winged ones were opposite one another and facing the cover.

¹⁰And he made the table of hard wood, two cubits long, a cubit wide and a cubit and a half high;

¹¹Plating it with the best gold and putting a gold edge all round it.

¹²And he made a frame all round it about as wide as a man's hand, edged with gold all round.

¹³And he made four gold rings, and put the rings at the angles of its four feet.

¹⁴The rings were fixed under the frame to take the rods with which the table was to be lifted.

¹⁵The rods for lifting the table he made of hard wood plated with gold.

¹⁶And all the table-vessels, the plates and spoons and basins and the cups for liquids, he made of the best gold.

¹⁷Then he made the support for the lights, all of the best gold; its base and its pillar were of hammered gold; its cups and buds and flowers were all made out of the same metal:

¹⁸It had six branches coming out from its sides, three from one side and three from the other;

¹⁹Every branch having three cups made like almond flowers, every cup with a bud and a flower on all the branches;

²⁰And on its pillar, four cups like almond flowers, every one with its bud and its flower;

²¹And under every two branches a bud, made with the branch, for all six branches of it.

²²The buds and the branches were made of the same metal, all together one complete work of the best hammered gold.

²³And he made the seven vessels for the lights, and all the necessary instruments for it, of gold.

²⁴A talent of the best gold was used for the making of it and its vessels.

²⁵And he made the altar for the burning of spices, using the same hard wood; it was square, a cubit long and a cubit wide and two cubits high; the horns made of the same.

²⁶The top and the sides and the horns were all plated with the best gold; and he put an edge of gold all round it.

²⁷And he made two gold rings, placing them on the two opposite sides under the edge, to take the rods for lifting it.

²⁸The rods he made of the same hard wood, plating them with gold.

²⁹And he made the holy oil and the perfume of sweet spices for burning, after the art of the perfume-maker.

38The altar of burned offerings he made of hard wood; a square altar, five cubits long, five cubits wide and three cubits high,

²And he put horns at its four angles made of the same, plating it all with brass;

³And brass was used for all the vessels of the altar, the baskets and the spades, the basins and the meat-hooks and the fire-trays; all the vessels he made of brass

⁴And he made a network of brass for the altar, under the frame round it, stretching half-way up;

⁵And four rings for the four angles of this network, to take the rods.

⁶The rods he made of hard wood plated with brass.

⁷He put the rods through the rings at the opposite sides of the altar for lifting it; he made the altar hollow, boarded in with wood.

⁸And he made the washing-vessel of brass on a brass base, using the polished brass looking-glasses given by the women who did work at the doors of the Tent of meeting.

⁹To make the open space, he put hangings on the south side, of the best linen, a hundred cubits long:

¹⁰Their twenty pillars and their twenty bases were brass; and the hooks of the pillars and their bands were of silver.

¹¹And for the north side. hangings a hundred cubits long, on twenty brass pillars in brass bases, with silver hooks and bands.

¹²And on the west side, hangings fifty cubits long, on ten pillars in ten bases, with silver bands.

¹³And on the east side, the open space was fifty cubits long.

¹⁴The hangings on one side of the doorway were fifteen cubits long, on three pillars with their three bases;

¹⁵And the same on the other side of the doorway; on this side and on that the hangings were fifteen cubits long, on three pillars with their three bases.

¹⁶All the hangings were of the best linen.

¹⁷And the bases of the pillars were of brass; their hooks and the bands round the tops of them were of silver; all the pillars were ringed with silver.

¹⁸And the curtain for the doorway of the open space was of the best linen, with designs of blue and purple and red in needlework; it was twenty cubits long and five cubits high, to go with the hangings round the sides.

¹⁹There were four pillars with their bases, all of brass, the hooks being of silver, and their tops and their bands being covered with silver.

²⁰All the nails used for the House and the open space round it were of brass.

²¹This is the price of the making of the House, even the House of witness, as it was valued by the word of Moses, for the work of the Levites under the direction of Ithamar, the son of Aaron the priest.

²²Bezalel, the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, made everything as the Lord had given orders to Moses.

²³And with him was Oholiab, the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan; a designer and a trained workman, expert in needlework of blue and purple and red and the best linen.

²⁴The gold used for all the different work done for the holy place, the gold which was given, was twenty-nine talents, and seven hundred and thirty shekels in weight, by the scale of the holy place.

²⁵And the silver given by those who were numbered of the people was a hundred talents, and a thousand, seven hundred and seventy-five shekels in weight, by the scale of the holy place.

²⁶A beka, that is, half a shekel by the holy scale, for everyone who was numbered; there were six hundred and three thousand, five hundred and fifty men of twenty years old and over.

²⁷Of this silver, a hundred talents was used for making the bases of the pillars of the holy place and of the veil; a talent for every base.

²⁸And a thousand, seven hundred and seventy-five shekels of silver was used to make the hooks for the pillars, and for plating the tops of the pillars and for making their bands.

²⁹The brass which was given was seventy talents, two thousand four hundred shekels;

³⁰From it he made the bases of the doorway of the Tent of meeting and the brass altar and the network for it and all the vessels for the altar,

³¹And the bases for the open space all round and for its doorway, and all the nails for the House and for the open space.

39And from the needlework of blue and purple and red they made the robes used for the work of the holy place, and the holy robes for Aaron, as the Lord had given orders to Moses.

²The ephod he made of gold and blue and purple and red and the best linen;

³Hammering the gold into thin plates and cutting it into wires to be worked into the blue and the purple and the red and the linen by the designer.

⁴And they made two bands for joining its edges together at the top of the arms.

⁵And the beautifully worked band which went on it was of the same design and the same material, worked in gold and blue and purple and red and twisted linen-work, as the Lord gave orders to Moses.

⁶Then they made the beryl stones, fixed in twisted frames of gold and cut like the cutting of a stamp, with the names of the children of Israel.

⁷These he put on the ephod, over the arm-holes, to be stones of memory for the children of Israel, as the Lord had said to Moses.

⁸The priest's bag was designed like the ephod, of the best linen worked with gold and blue and purple and red.

⁹It was square and folded in two, as long and as wide as the stretch of a man's hand;

¹⁰And on it they put four lines of stones: in the first line was a carnelian, a chrysolite, and an emerald;

¹¹In the second, a ruby, a sapphire, and an onyx;

¹²In the third, a jacinth, an agate, and an amethyst;

¹³In the fourth, a topaz, a beryl, and a jasper; they were fixed in twisted frames of gold.

¹⁴There were twelve stones for the twelve tribes of Israel; on every one the name of one of the tribes of Israel was cut, like the cutting of a stamp.

¹⁵And on the bag they put gold chains, twisted like cords.

¹⁶And they made two gold frames and two gold rings, the rings being fixed to the ends of the priest's bag;

¹⁷And they put the two twisted chains on the two rings at the ends of the priest's bag;

¹⁸And the other two ends of the chains were joined to the two frames and fixed to the front of the ephod over the arm-holes.

¹⁹And they made two rings of gold and put them on the two lower ends of the bag, on the inner side nearest to the ephod.

²⁰And two other gold rings were put on the front of the ephod, over the arm-holes, at the join, and over the worked band.

²¹And the rings on the bag were fixed to the rings of the ephod by a blue cord, keeping it in place over the band, so that the bag might not get loose, as the Lord gave orders to Moses.

²²The robe which went with the ephod was made all of blue;

²³With a hole at the top in the middle, like the hole in the coat of a fighting-man, edged with a band to make it strong.

²⁴The skirts of the robe were worked all round with fruits in blue and purple and red made of twisted linen.

²⁵And between the fruits all round the skirt they put gold bells, as the Lord gave orders to Moses.

²⁶All round the skirt of the robe were bells and fruits in turn.

²⁷The coats for Aaron and his sons they made of the best linen;

²⁸And the twisted head-dress for Aaron, and beautiful head-dresses of linen, and linen trousers,

²⁹And a linen band worked with a design of blue and purple and red, as the Lord had said to Moses.

³⁰The plate for the holy crown was made of the best gold, and on it were cut these words, HOLY TO THE LORD.

³¹It was fixed to the head-dress by a blue cord, as the Lord had given orders to Moses.

³²So all the work on the House of the Tent of meeting was done; as the Lord had given orders to Moses, so the children of Israel did it.

³³Then they took the House to Moses, the tent with all the things for it; its hooks, its boards, its rods, its pillars, and its bases;

³⁴The outer cover of sheepskins coloured red, and the cover of leather, and the veil for the doorway;

³⁵The ark of the law, with its rods and its cover;

³⁶The table, with all its vessels and the holy bread;

³⁷The support for the lights, with the vessels for the lights to be put in their places on it, and all its vessels, and the oil for the lights;

³⁸And the gold altar, and the holy oil, and the sweet perfume for burning, and the curtain for the doorway of the tent;

³⁹And the brass altar, with its network of brass, and its rods and all its vessels, and the washing-vessel and its base;

⁴⁰The hangings for the open space, with the pillars and their bases, and the curtain for the doorway, and the cords and nails, and all the instruments necessary for the work of the House of the Tent of meeting;

⁴¹The robes for use in the holy place, and the holy robes for Aaron and his sons when acting as priests.

⁴²The children of Israel did everything as the Lord had given orders to Moses.

⁴³Then Moses, when he saw all their work and saw that they had done everything as the Lord had said, gave them his blessing.

40And the Lord said to Moses,

²On the first day of the first month you are to put up the House of the Tent of meeting.

³And inside it put the ark of the law, hanging the veil before it.

⁴And put the table inside, placing all the things on it in order; and put in the support for the lights, and let its lights be burning.

⁵And put the gold altar for burning perfumes in front of the ark of the law, hanging the curtain over the doorway of the House.

⁶And put the altar of burned offerings before the doorway of the House of the Tent of meeting.

⁷And let the washing-vessel, with water in it, be put between the Tent of meeting and the altar.

⁸And put up the hangings forming the open space all round it, with the curtain over its doorway.

⁹And take the holy oil and put it on the House and everything in it, and make it and everything in it holy:

¹⁰And put oil on the altar of burned offering, and make it and all its vessels holy; this altar is to be most holy.

¹¹And put oil on the washing-vessel and its base, and make them holy.

¹²Then let Aaron and his sons come to the door of the Tent of meeting; and after washing them with water,

¹³You are to put on Aaron the holy robes; and you are to put oil on him, and make him holy, so that he may be my priest.

¹⁴And take his sons with him and put coats on them;

¹⁵And put oil on them as you did on their father, so that they may be my priests: the putting on of oil will make them priests for ever, from generation to generation.

¹⁶And Moses did this; as the Lord gave him orders, so he did.

¹⁷So on the first day of the first month in the second year the House was put up.

¹⁸Moses put up the House; placing its bases in position and lifting up its uprights, putting in the rods and planting the pillars in their places;

¹⁹Stretching the outer tent over it, and covering it, as the Lord had given him orders.

²⁰And he took the law and put it inside the ark, and put the rods at its side and the cover over it;

²¹And he took the ark into the House, hanging up the veil before it as the Lord had given him orders.

²²And he put the table in the Tent of meeting, on the north side outside the veil.

²³And he put the bread on it in order before the Lord, as the Lord had said.

²⁴The support for the lights he put in the Tent of meeting, opposite the table, on the south side:

²⁵Lighting the lights before the Lord, as the Lord had given him orders.

²⁶And he put the gold altar in the Tent of meeting, in front of the veil:

²⁷Burning sweet perfumes on it, as the Lord had given him orders.

²⁸And he put up the curtain at the doorway of the House.

²⁹And at the door of the House of the Tent of meeting, he put the altar of burned offerings, offering on it the burned offering and the meal offering, as the Lord had given him orders.

³⁰And between the altar and the Tent of meeting he put the vessel with water in it for washing.

³¹In it the hands and feet of Moses and Aaron and his sons were washed,

³²Whenever they went into the Tent of meeting, and when they came near the altar, as the Lord had given orders to Moses.

³³And he put up the hangings forming the open space round the House and the altar, and put the curtain over the doorway. So Moses made the work complete.

³⁴Then the cloud came down covering the Tent of meeting, and the House was full of the glory of the Lord;

³⁵So that Moses was not able to go into the Tent of meeting, because the cloud was resting on it, and the House was full of the glory of the Lord.

³⁶And whenever the cloud was taken up from the House, the children of Israel went forward on their journey:

³⁷But while the cloud was there, they made no move till it was taken up.

³⁸For the cloud of the Lord was resting on the House by day, and at night there was fire in the cloud, before the eyes of all the people of Israel, and so it was through all their journeys.

1And the voice of the Lord came to Moses out of the Tent of meeting, saying,

²Give these orders to the children of Israel: When anyone of you makes an offering to the Lord, you are to take it from the cattle, from the herd or from the flock.

³If the offering is a burned offering of the herd, let him give a male without a mark: he is to give it at the door of the Tent of meeting so that he may be pleasing to the Lord.

⁴And he is to put his hand on the head of the burned offering and it will be taken for him, to take away his sin.

⁵And the ox is to be put to death before the Lord: then Aaron's sons, the priests, are to take the blood and put some of it on and round the altar which is at the door of the Tent of meeting.

⁶And the burned offering is to be skinned and cut up into its parts.

⁷And Aaron's sons, the priests, are to put fire on the altar and put the wood in order on the fire:

⁸And Aaron's sons, the priests, are to put the parts, the head and the fat, in order on the wood which is on the fire on the altar:

⁹But its inside parts and its legs are to be washed with water, and it will all be burned on the altar by the priest for a burned offering, an offering made by fire, for a sweet smell to the Lord.

¹⁰And if his offering is of the flock, a burned offering of sheep or goats, let him give a male without a mark.

¹¹And he is to put it to death on the north side of the altar before the Lord: and Aaron's sons, the priests, are to put some of the blood on and round the altar.

¹²And the offering is to be cut into its parts, with its head and its fat; and the priest is to put them in order on the wood which is on the fire on the altar:

¹³But the inside parts and the legs are to be washed with water; and the priest will make an offering of all of it, burning it on the altar: it is a burned offering, an offering made by fire, for a sweet smell to the Lord.

¹⁴And if his offering to the Lord is a burned offering of birds, then he is to make his offering of doves or of young pigeons.

¹⁵And the priest is to take it to the altar, and after its head has been twisted off, it is to be burned on the altar, and its blood drained out on the side of the altar:

¹⁶And he is to take away its stomach, with its feathers, and put it down by the east side of the altar, where the burned waste is put:

¹⁷And let it be broken open at the wings, but not cut in two; and let it be burned on the altar by the priest on the wood which is on the fire; it is a burned offering; an offering made by fire for a sweet smell to the Lord.

2And when anyone makes a meal offering to the Lord, let his offering be of the best meal, with oil on it and perfume:

²And let him take it to Aaron's sons, the priests; and having taken in his hand some of the meal and of the oil, with all the perfume, let him give it to the priest to be burned on the altar, as a sign, an offering made by fire, for a sweet smell to the Lord.

³And the rest of the meal offering will be for Aaron and his sons; it is most holy among the Lord's fire offerings.

⁴And when you give a meal offering cooked in the oven, let it be of unleavened cakes of the best meal mixed with oil, or thin unleavened cakes covered with oil.

⁵And if you give a meal offering cooked on a flat plate, let it be of the best meal, unleavened and mixed with oil.

⁶Let it be broken into bits, and put oil on it; it is a meal offering.

⁷And if your offering is of meal cooked in fat over the fire, let it be made of the best meal mixed with oil.

⁸And you are to give the meal offering made of these things to the Lord, and let the priest take it to the altar.

⁹And he is to take from the meal offering a part, for a sign, burning it on the altar; an offering made by fire for a sweet smell to the Lord.

¹⁰And the rest of the meal offering will be for Aaron and his sons; it is most holy among the Lord's fire offerings.

¹¹No meal offering which you give to the Lord is to be made with leaven; no leaven or honey is to be burned as an offering made by fire to the Lord.

¹²You may give them as an offering of first-fruits to the Lord, but they are not to go up as a sweet smell on the altar.

¹³And every meal offering is to be salted with salt; your meal offering is not to be without the salt of the agreement of your God: with all your offerings give salt.

¹⁴And if you give a meal offering of first-fruits to the Lord, give, as your offering of first-fruits, new grain, made dry with fire, crushed new grain.

¹⁵And put oil on it and perfume: it is a meal offering.

¹⁶And part of the meal of the offering and part of the oil and all the perfume is to be burned for a sign by the priest: it is an offering made by fire to the Lord.

3And if his offering is given for a peace-offering; if he gives of the herd, male or female, let him give it without any mark on it, before the Lord.

²And he is to put his hand on the head of his offering and put it to death at the door of the Tent of meeting; and Aaron's sons, the priests, are to put some of the blood on and round the altar.

³And he is to give of the peace-offering, as an offering made by fire to the Lord; the fat covering the inside parts and all the fat on the inside parts,

⁴And the two kidneys, and the fat on them, which is by the top part of the legs, and the fat joining the liver and the kidneys, he is to take away;

⁵That it may be burned by Aaron's sons on the altar, on the burned offering which is on the wood on the fire: it is an offering made by fire of a sweet smell to the Lord.

⁶And if what he gives for a peace-offering to the Lord is of the flock, let him give a male or female, without any mark on it.

⁷If his offering is a lamb, then let it be placed before the Lord:

⁸And he is to put his hand on the head of his offering and put it to death before the Tent of meeting; and Aaron's sons are to put some of its blood on and round the altar.

⁹And of the peace-offering, let him give an offering made by fire to the Lord; the fat of it, all the fat tail, he is to take away near the backbone; and the fat covering the inside parts and all the fat on the inside parts,

¹⁰And the two kidneys, with the fat on them, which is by the top part of the legs, and the fat joining the liver and the kidneys, he is to take away;

¹¹That it may be burned by the priest on the altar; it is the food of the offering made by fire to the Lord.

¹²And if his offering is a goat, then let it be placed before the Lord,

¹³And let him put his hand on the head of it and put it to death before the Tent of meeting; and the sons of Aaron are to put some of its blood on and round the altar.

¹⁴And of it let him make his offering, an offering made by fire to the Lord; the fat covering the inside parts and all the fat on the inside parts,

¹⁵And the two kidneys, with the fat on them, which is by the top part of the legs, and the fat joining the liver and the kidneys, let him take away;

¹⁶That it may be burned by the priest on the altar; it is the food of the offering made by fire for a sweet smell: all the fat is the Lord's.

¹⁷Let it be an order for ever, through all your generations, in all your houses, that you are not to take fat or blood for food.

4And the Lord said to Moses,

²Say to the children of Israel: These are the offerings of anyone who does wrong through error, doing any of the things which by the Lord's order are not to be done:

³If the chief priest by doing wrong becomes a cause of sin to the people, then let him give to the Lord for the sin which he has done, an ox, without any mark, for a sin-offering.

⁴And he is to take the ox to the door of the Tent of meeting before the Lord; and put his hand on its head and put it to death before the Lord.

⁵And the chief priest is to take some of its blood and take it to the Tent of meeting;

⁶And the priest is to put his finger in the blood, shaking drops of it before the Lord seven times, in front of the veil of the holy place.

⁷And the priest is to put some of the blood on the horns of the altar on which perfume is burned before the Lord in the Tent of meeting, draining out all the rest of the blood of the ox at the base of the altar of burned offering which is at the door of the Tent of meeting.

⁸And he is to take away all the fat of the ox of the sin-offering; the fat covering the inside parts and all the fat of the inside parts,

⁹And the two kidneys, with the fat on them, which is by the top part of the legs, and the fat joining the liver and the kidneys, he is to take away,

¹⁰As it is taken from the ox of the peace-offering; and it is to be burned by the priest on the altar of burned offerings.

¹¹And the skin of the ox and all its flesh, with its head and its legs and its inside parts and its waste,

¹²All the ox, he is to take away outside the circle of the tents into a clean place where the burned waste is put, and there it is to be burned on wood with fire.

¹³And if all the people of Israel do wrong, without anyone's knowledge; if they have done any of the things which by the Lord's order are not to be done, causing sin to come on them;

¹⁴When the sin which they have done comes to light, then let all the people give an ox for a sin-offering, and take it before the Tent of meeting.

¹⁵And let the chiefs of the people put their hands on its head before the Lord, and put the ox to death before the Lord.

¹⁶And the priest is to take some of its blood to the Tent of meeting;

¹⁷And put his finger in the blood, shaking drops of the blood seven times before the Lord in front of the veil.

¹⁸And he is to put some of the blood on the horns of the altar which is before the Lord in the Tent of meeting; and all the rest of the blood is to be drained out at the base of the altar of burned offering at the door of the Tent of meeting.

¹⁹And he is to take off all its fat, burning it on the altar.

²⁰Let him do with the ox as he did with the ox of the sin-offering; and the priest will take away their sin and they will have forgiveness.

²¹Then let the ox be taken away outside the tent-circle, that it may be burned as the other ox was burned; it is the sin-offering for all the people.

²²If a ruler does wrong, and in error does any of the things which, by the order of the Lord his God, are not to be done, causing sin to come on him;

²³When the sin which he has done is made clear to him, let him give for his offering a goat, a male without any mark.

²⁴And he is to put his hand on the head of the goat and put it to death in the place where they put to death the burned offering before the Lord: it is a sin-offering.

²⁵And the priest is to take some of the blood of the offering with his finger and put it on the horns of the altar of burned offering, draining out the rest of the blood at the base of the altar of burned offering.

²⁶And all the fat of it is to be burned on the altar like the fat of the peace-offering; and the priest will take away his sin and he will have forgiveness.

²⁷And if any one of the common people does wrong in error, doing any of the things which the Lord has given orders are not to be done, causing sin to come on him;

²⁸When the sin which he has done is made clear to him, then he is to give for his offering a goat, a female without any mark, for the sin which he has done.

²⁹And he is to put his hand on the head of the sin-offering and put it to death in the place where they put to death the burned offering.

³⁰And the priest is to take some of the blood with his finger, and put it on the horns of the altar of burned offering, and all the rest of its blood is to be drained out at the base of the altar.

³¹And let all its fat be taken away, as the fat is taken away from the peace-offerings, and let it be burned on the altar by the priest for a sweet smell to the Lord; and the priest will take away his sin and he will have forgiveness.

³²And if he gives a lamb as his sin-offering, let it be a female without any mark;

³³And he is to put his hand on the head of the offering and put it to death for a sin-offering in the place where they put to death the burned offering.

³⁴And the priest is to take some of the blood of the offering with his finger and put it on the horns of the altar of burned offering, and all the rest of the blood is to be drained out at the base of the altar;

³⁵And let him take away all its fat, as the fat is taken away from the lamb of the peace-offerings; and let it be burned by the priest on the altar among the offerings made by fire to the Lord: and the priest will take away his sin and he will have forgiveness.

5And if anyone does wrong by saying nothing when he is put under oath as a witness of something he has seen or had knowledge of, then he will be responsible:

²If anyone becomes unclean through touching unconsciously some unclean thing, such as the dead body of an unclean beast or of unclean cattle or of any unclean animal which goes flat on the earth, he will be responsible:

³Or if he becomes unclean through touching unconsciously any unclean thing of man, whatever it may be, when it is made clear to him he will be responsible:

⁴Or if anyone, without thought, takes an oath to do evil or to do good, whatever he says without thought, with an oath, having no knowledge of what he is doing; when it becomes clear to him, he will be responsible for any of these things.

⁵And whoever is responsible for any such sin, let him make a statement openly of his wrongdoing;

⁶And take to the Lord the offering for the wrong which he has done, a female from the flock, a lamb or a goat, for a sin-offering, and the priest will take away his sin.

⁷And if he has not money enough for a lamb, then let him give, for his offering to the Lord, two doves or two young pigeons; one for a sin-offering and one for a burned offering.

⁸And let him take them to the priest, who will first give the sin-offering, twisting off its head from its neck, but not cutting it in two;

⁹And he is to put drops of the blood of the offering on the side of the altar, and the rest of the blood is to be drained out at the base of the altar; it is a sin-offering.

¹⁰And the second is for a burned offering, in agreement with the law; and the priest will take away his sin and he will have forgiveness.

¹¹But if he has not enough money for two doves or two young pigeons, then let him give, for the sin he has done, the tenth part of an ephah of the best meal, for a sin-offering; let him put no oil on it, and no perfume, for it is a sin-offering.

¹²And let him come to the priest with it, and the priest will take some of it in his hand, to be burned on the altar as a sign, among the offerings of the Lord made by fire: it is a sin-offering.

¹³And the priest will take away his sin and he will have forgiveness: and the rest of the offering will be the priest's, in the same way as the meal offering.

¹⁴And the Lord said to Moses,

¹⁵If anyone is untrue, sinning in error in connection with the holy things of the Lord, let him take his offering to the Lord, a male sheep from the flock, without any mark, of the value fixed by you in silver by shekels, by the scale of the holy place.

¹⁶And he is to make payment to the priest for what he has done wrong in relation to the holy thing, together with a fifth part of its value in addition; and the priest will take away his sin by the sheep of his offering, and he will have forgiveness.

¹⁷And if anyone does wrong, and does any of the things which the Lord has given orders are not to be done, though he has no knowledge of it, still he is in the wrong and he is responsible.

¹⁸Let him come to the priest with a sheep, a male without any mark out of the flock, of the value fixed by you, as an offering for his error; and the priest will take away the sin which he did in error, and he will have forgiveness.

¹⁹It is an offering for his error: he is certainly responsible before the Lord.

6And the Lord said to Moses,

²If anyone does wrong, and is untrue to the Lord, acting falsely to his neighbour in connection with something put in his care, or something given for a debt, or has taken away anything by force, or has been cruel to his neighbour,

³Or has taken a false oath about the loss of something which he has come across by chance; if a man has done any of these evil things,

⁴Causing sin to come on him, then he will have to give back the thing he took by force or got by cruel acts, or the goods which were put in his care or the thing he came on by chance,

⁵Or anything about which he took a false oath; he will have to give it all back, with the addition of a fifth of its value, to him whose property it is, when he has been judged to be in the wrong.

⁶Then let him take to the Lord the offering for his wrongdoing; giving to the priest for his offering, a male sheep from the flock, without any mark, of the value fixed by you:

⁷And the priest will take away his sin from before the Lord, and he will have forgiveness for whatever crime he has done

⁸And the Lord said to Moses,

⁹Give orders to Aaron and to his sons, saying, This is the law for the burned offering: the offering is to be on the fire-wood on the altar all night till the morning; and the fire of the altar is to be kept burning.

¹⁰And the priest is to put on his linen robes and his linen trousers, and take up what is over of the offering after it has been burned on the altar, and put it by the side of the altar.

¹¹Then having taken off his linen robes and put on other clothing, he is to take it away into a clean place, outside the tent-circle.

¹²The fire on the altar is to be kept burning; it is never to go out; every morning the priest is to put wood on it, placing the burned offering in order on it, and there the fat of the peace-offering is to be burned.

¹³Let the fire be kept burning on the altar at all times; it is never to go out.

¹⁴And this is the law for the meal offering: it is to be offered to the Lord before the altar by the sons of Aaron.

¹⁵The priest is to take in his hand some of the meal of the meal offering and of the oil of it, and all the perfume on it, burning it on the altar as a sign, for a sweet smell to the Lord.

¹⁶And whatever is over Aaron and his sons may have for their food, taking it without leaven in a holy place; in the open space of the Tent of meeting they may take a meal of it.

¹⁷It is not to be cooked with leaven. I have given it to them as their part of the offerings made by fire to me; it is most holy, as are the sin-offerings and the offerings for error.

¹⁸Every male among the children of Aaron may have it for food; it is their right for ever through all your generations, from the offerings made by fire to the Lord: anyone touching them will be holy.

¹⁹And the Lord said to Moses,

²⁰This is the offering which Aaron and his sons are to make to the Lord on the day when he is made a priest: the tenth part of an ephah of the best meal for a meal offering for ever; half of it in the morning and half in the evening.

²¹Let it be made with oil on a flat plate; when it is well mixed and cooked, let it be broken and taken in as a meal offering, for a sweet smell to the Lord.

²²And the same offering is to be given by that one of his sons who takes his place as priest; by an order for ever, all of it is to be burned before the Lord.

²³Every meal offering offered for the priest is to be completely burned: nothing of it is to be taken for food.

²⁴And the Lord said to Moses,

²⁵Say to Aaron and his sons, This is the law for the sin-offering: the sin-offering is to be put to death before the Lord in the same place as the burned offering; it is most holy.

²⁶The priest by whom it is offered for sin, is to take it for his food in a holy place, in the open space of the Tent of meeting.

²⁷Anyone touching the flesh of it will be holy: and if any of the blood is dropped on any clothing, the thing on which the blood has been dropped is to be washed in a holy place.

²⁸But the vessel of earth in which the flesh was cooked is to be broken; or if a brass vessel was used, it is to be rubbed clean and washed out with water.

²⁹Every male among the priests may take it for his food: it is most holy.

³⁰No sin-offering, the blood of which is taken into the Tent of meeting, to take away sin in the holy place, may be used for food: it is to be burned with fire.

7And this is the law of the offering for wrongdoing: it is most holy.

²They are to put to death the offering for wrongdoing in the same place as the burned offering; and the priest is to put the blood on and round the altar.

³And all the fat of it, the fat tail and the fat covering the inside parts, is to be given as an offering.

⁴And the two kidneys, and the fat on them, which is by the top of the legs, and the fat joining the liver and the kidneys, he is to take away:

⁵They are to be burned by the priest on the altar for an offering made by fire to the Lord: it is an offering for wrongdoing.

⁶Every male among the priests may have it as food in a holy place: it is most holy.

⁷As is the sin-offering, so is the offering for wrongdoing; there is one law for them: the priest who makes the offering to take away sin, he is to have it.

⁸And the priest offering any man's burned offering for him, may have the skin of the burned offering which is offered by him.

⁹And every meal offering which is cooked in the oven and everything made in a cooking pot or on a flat plate, is for the priest by whom it is offered.

¹⁰And every meal offering, mixed with oil or dry, is for all the sons of Aaron in equal measure.

¹¹And this is the law for the peace-offerings offered to the Lord.

¹²If any man gives his offering as a praise-offering, then let him give with the offering, unleavened cakes mixed with oil and thin unleavened cakes covered with oil and cakes of the best meal well mixed with oil.

¹³With his peace-offering let him give cakes of leavened bread, as a praise-offering.

¹⁴And let him give one out of every offering to be lifted up before the Lord; that it may be for the priest who puts the blood of the peace-offering on the altar.

¹⁵And the flesh of the praise-offering is to be taken as food on the day when it is offered; no part of it may be kept till the morning.

¹⁶But if his offering is made because of an oath or given freely, it may be taken as food on the day when it is offered; and the rest may be used up on the day after:

¹⁷But if any of the flesh of the offering is still unused on the third day, it is to be burned with fire.

¹⁸And if any of the flesh of the peace-offering is taken as food on the third day, it will not be pleasing to God and will not be put to the account of him who gives it; it will be unclean and a cause of sin to him who takes it as food.

¹⁹And flesh touched by any unclean thing may not be taken for food: it is to be burned with fire; and as for the flesh of the peace-offerings, everyone who is clean may take it as food:

²⁰But he who is unclean when he takes as food the flesh of the peace-offerings, which are the Lord's, will be cut off from his people.

²¹And anyone who, after touching any unclean thing of man or an unclean beast or any unclean and disgusting thing, takes as food the flesh of the peace-offerings, which are the Lord's, will be cut off from his people.

²²And the Lord said to Moses,

²³Say to the children of Israel: You are not to take any fat, of ox or sheep or goat, for food.

²⁴And the fat of that which comes to a natural death, and the fat of that which is attacked by beasts, may be used for other purposes, but not in any way for food.

²⁵For anyone who takes as food the fat of any beast of which men make an offering by fire to the Lord, will be cut off from his people.

²⁶And you are not to take for food any blood, of bird or of beast, in any of your houses.

²⁷Whoever takes any blood for food will be cut off from his people.

²⁸And the Lord said to Moses,

²⁹Say to the children of Israel: He who makes a peace-offering to the Lord, is to give an offering to the Lord out of his peace-offering:

³⁰He himself is to take to the Lord the offering made by fire, even the fat with the breast, so that the breast may be waved for a wave offering before the Lord.

³¹And the fat is to be burned by the priest on the altar, but the breast is for Aaron and his sons.

³²And the right leg you are to give to the priest for an offering to be lifted up out of what is given for your peace-offerings.

³³That man, among the sons of Aaron, by whom the blood of the peace-offering and the fat are offered, is to have the right leg for his part.

³⁴For the breast which is waved and the right leg which is lifted up on high I have taken from the children of Israel, from their peace-offerings, and have given them to Aaron the priest and to his sons as their right for ever from the children of Israel.

³⁵This is the holy part given to Aaron and to his sons, out of the offerings made to the Lord by fire, on the day when they were made priests before the Lord;

³⁶Which the Lord said the children of Israel were to give them, on the day when he made them his priests. It is their right for ever from generation to generation.

³⁷These are the laws for the burned offering, the meal offering, and the offering for wrongdoing; and for the making of priests, and for the giving of peace-offerings;

³⁸As they were given by the Lord to Moses on Mount Sinai, on the day when the Lord gave orders to the children of Israel to make their offerings to the Lord, in the waste land of Sinai.

8And the Lord said to Moses,

²Take Aaron, and his sons with him, and the robes and the holy oil and the ox of the sin-offering and the two male sheep and the basket of unleavened bread;

³And let all the people come together at the door of the Tent of meeting.

⁴And Moses did as the Lord said, and all the people came together at the door of the Tent of meeting.

⁵And Moses said to the people, This is what the Lord has given orders to be done.

⁶Then Moses took Aaron and his sons; and after washing them with water,

⁷He put the coat on him, making it tight with its band, and then the robe, and over it the ephod, with its band of needlework to keep it in place.

⁸And he put the priest's bag on him, and in the bag he put the Urim and Thummim.

⁹And on his head he put the head-dress, and in front of the head-dress the plate of gold, the holy crown, as the Lord gave orders to Moses.

¹⁰And Moses took the holy oil and put it on the House and on all the things in it, to make them holy.

¹¹Seven times he put oil on the altar and on all its vessels, and on the washing-basin and its base, to make them holy.

¹²And some of the oil he put on Aaron's head, to make him holy.

¹³Then he took Aaron's sons, clothing them with the coats, and putting the bands round them, and the head-dresses on their heads, as the Lord had given him orders.

¹⁴And he took the ox of the sin-offering: and Aaron and his sons put their hands on the head of the ox,

¹⁵And he put it to death; and Moses took the blood and put it on the horns of the altar and round it with his finger, and made the altar clean, draining out the blood at the base of the altar; so he made it holy, taking away what was unclean.

¹⁶And he took all the fat on the inside parts, and the fat on the liver, and the two kidneys with their fat, to be burned on the altar;

¹⁷But the ox, with its skin and its flesh and its waste, was burned with fire outside the tent-circle, as the Lord gave orders to Moses.

¹⁸And he put the male sheep of the burned offering before the Lord, and Aaron and his sons put their hands on its head,

¹⁹And he put it to death; and Moses put some of the blood on and round the altar.

²⁰And when the sheep had been cut into parts, the head and the parts and the fat were burned by Moses.

²¹And the inside parts and the legs were washed with water and all the sheep was burned by Moses on the altar; it was a burned offering for a sweet smell: it was an offering made by fire to the Lord, as the Lord gave orders to Moses.

²²And he put the other sheep before the Lord, the sheep with which they were made priests; and Aaron and his sons put their hands on the head of the sheep,

²³And he put it to death; and Moses took some of the blood and put it on the point of Aaron's right ear and on the thumb of his right hand and on the great toe of his right foot.

²⁴Then he took Aaron's sons, and Moses put some of the blood on the point of their right ears and on the thumbs of their right hands and on the great toes of their right feet: and Moses put the blood on and round the altar.

²⁵And he took the fat, and the fat tail, and the fat on the inside parts, and the fat on the liver, and the two kidneys with their fat, and the right leg;

²⁶And out of the basket of unleavened bread which was before the Lord he took one unleavened cake, and one cake of bread with oil on it, and one thin cake, and put them on the fat and on the right leg:

²⁷And he put them all on the hands of Aaron and on the hands of his sons, waving them for a wave offering before the Lord.

²⁸And Moses took them from their hands, and they were burned on the altar on the burned offering, as a priest's offering for a sweet smell, an offering made by fire to the Lord.

²⁹And Moses took the breast, waving it for a wave offering before the Lord; it was Moses' part of the sheep of the priest's offering, as the Lord gave orders to Moses.

³⁰And Moses took some of the holy oil and of the blood which was on the altar and put it on Aaron and on his robes, and on his sons and on his sons' robes; and made Aaron holy, and his robes and his sons and his sons' robes with him.

³¹And Moses said to Aaron and to his sons, The flesh is to be cooked in water at the door of the Tent of meeting, and there you are to take it as food, together with the bread in the basket, as I have given orders, saying, It is the food of Aaron and his sons.

³²And that which is over of the flesh and of the bread is to be burned with fire.

³³And you are not to go out from the door of the Tent of meeting for seven days, till the days for making you priest are ended; for this will be the work of seven days.

³⁴What has been done this day, has been ordered by the Lord to take away your sin.

³⁵And you are to keep watch for the Lord at the door of the Tent of meeting day and night for seven days, so that death may not come to you: for so he has given me orders.

³⁶And Aaron and his sons did all the things about which the Lord had given orders through Moses.

9And on the eighth day Moses sent for Aaron and his sons and the responsible men of Israel;

²And he said to Aaron, Take a young ox for a sin-offering and a male sheep for a burned offering, without a mark, and make an offering of them before the Lord.

³And say to the children of Israel: Take a he-goat for a sin-offering, and a young ox and a lamb, in their first year, without any mark on them, for a burned offering;

⁴And an ox and a male sheep for peace-offerings, to be put to death before the Lord; and a meal offering mixed with oil: for this day you are to see the Lord.

⁵And they took the things ordered by Moses, before the Tent of meeting, and all the people came near, waiting before the Lord.

⁶And Moses said, This is what the Lord has said you are to do; and you will see the glory of the Lord.

⁷And Moses said to Aaron, Come near to the altar and make your sin-offering and your burned offering to take away your sin and the sin of the people, and make the people's offering to take away their sin; as the Lord has given orders.

⁸So Aaron came near to the altar and put to death the ox for the sin-offering for himself;

⁹And the sons of Aaron gave him the blood and he put his finger in the blood and put it on the horns of the altar, draining out the blood at the base of the altar;

¹⁰But the fat and the kidneys and the fat on the liver of the sin-offering were burned by him on the altar as the Lord gave orders to Moses.

¹¹And the flesh and the skin were burned with fire outside the tent-circle;

¹²And he put to death the burned offering; and Aaron's sons gave him the blood and he put some of it on and round the altar;

¹³And they gave him the parts of the burned offering, in their order, and the head, to be burned on the altar.

¹⁴And the inside parts and the legs, when they had been washed with water, were burned on the burned offering on the altar.

¹⁵And he made an offering for the people and took the goat of the sin-offering for the people and put it to death, offering it for sin, in the same way as the first.

¹⁶And he took the burned offering, offering it in the ordered way;

¹⁷And he put the meal offering before the Lord, and taking some of it in his hand he had it burned on the altar, separately from the burned offering of the morning.

¹⁸And he put to death the ox and the sheep, which were the peace-offerings for the people; and Aaron's sons gave him the blood and he put some of it on and round the altar;

¹⁹And as for the fat of the ox and the fat tail of the sheep and the fat covering the inside parts and the kidneys and the fat on the liver;

²⁰They put the fat on the breasts, and the fat was burned on the altar.

²¹And Aaron took the breasts and the right leg, waving them for a wave offering before the Lord, as Moses gave orders.

²²And Aaron, lifting up his hands to the people, gave them a blessing; and he came down from offering the sin-offering, and the burned offering, and the peace-offerings.

²³And Moses and Aaron went into the Tent of meeting, and came out and gave the people a blessing, and the glory of the Lord was seen by all the people.

²⁴And fire came out from before the Lord, burning up the offering on the altar and the fat: and when all the people saw it, they gave a loud cry, falling down on their faces.

10And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took their vessels and put fire in them and perfume, burning strange fire before the Lord, which he had not given them orders to do.

²And fire came out from before the Lord, burning them up and causing their destruction before the Lord.

³Then Moses said to Aaron, This is what the Lord said, I will be holy in the eyes of all those who come near to me, and I will be honoured before all the people. And Aaron said nothing.

⁴And Moses sent for Mishael and Elzaphan, the sons of Uzziel, the brother of Aaron's father, and said to them, Come near and take your brothers away from before the holy place, outside the tent-circle.

⁵So they came and took them, in their coats, outside the tent-circle, as Moses had said.

⁶And Moses said to Aaron and to Eleazar and Ithamar, his sons, Do not let your hair be loose, and give no signs of grief; so that death may not overtake you, and his wrath come on all the people; but let there be weeping among your brothers and all the house of Israel for this burning of the Lord's fire.

⁷And do not go out from the door of the Tent of meeting, or death will come to you; for the holy oil of the Lord is on you. And they did as Moses said.

⁸And the Lord said to Aaron:

⁹Take no wine, or strong drink, you or your sons with you, when you go into the Tent of meeting, that it may not be the cause of death to you; this is an order for ever through all your generations.

¹⁰And make a division between the holy and the common, and between the unclean and the clean;

¹¹Teaching the children of Israel all the laws which the Lord has given them by the hand of Moses.

¹²And Moses said to Aaron and to Eleazar and Ithamar, his sons who were still living, Take the rest of the meal offering from the offerings of the Lord made by fire, and take it for your food, without leaven, at the side of the altar, for it is most holy.

¹³It is to be for your food in a holy place, because it is your right and your sons' right, from the offerings of the Lord made by fire: for so am I ordered.

¹⁴And the breast which is waved and the leg which is lifted up on high, you are to take as your food in a clean place; you and your sons and your daughters with you: for they are given to you as your right and your sons' right, from the peace-offerings of the children of Israel.

¹⁵Let them take the breast which is waved and the leg which is lifted up on high, with the fat of the burned offering, to be waved for a wave offering before the Lord; and this will be for you and for your sons with you, for a right for ever, as the Lord has given orders.

¹⁶And Moses was looking for the goat of the sin-offering, but it was burned; and he was angry with Eleazar and Ithamar, the sons of Aaron, who were still living, saying,

¹⁷Why did you not make a meal of the sin-offering in the holy place? For it is most holy and he has given it to you, so that the sin of the people may be put on it, to take away their sin before the Lord.

¹⁸See, its blood was not taken into the holy place: certainly it was right for you to have taken it as food in the holy place, as I gave orders.

¹⁹And Aaron said to Moses, You have seen that today they have made their sin-offering and their burned offering before the Lord, and such things as these have come on me. If I had taken the sin-offering as food today, would it have been pleasing to the Lord?

²⁰And after hearing this, Moses was no longer angry.

11And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron,

²Say to the children of Israel: These are the living things which you may have for food among all the beasts on the earth.

³You may have as food any beast which has a division in the horn of its foot, and whose food comes back into its mouth to be crushed again.

⁴But, at the same time, of those beasts, you may not take for food the camel, because its food comes back but the horn of its foot is not parted in two; it is unclean to you.

⁵And the rock-badger, for the same reason, is unclean to you.

⁶And the hare, because the horn of its foot is not parted in two, is unclean to you.

⁷And the pig is unclean to you, because though the horn of its foot is parted, its food does not come back.

⁸Their flesh may not be used for food, and their dead bodies may not even be touched; they are unclean to you.

⁹These you may have for food of all things living in the water: anything living in the water, in the seas or rivers, which has special parts for swimming and skin formed of thin plates, may be used for food.

¹⁰All other things living and moving in the water, in the sea or in the rivers, are a disgusting thing to you;

¹¹They may not be used for food, and their dead bodies are disgusting to you.

¹²Anything in the water which has no special parts for swimming and no thin plates on its skin is disgusting to you.

¹³And among birds these are to be disgusting to you, and not to be used for food: the eagle and the gier-eagle and the ospray;

¹⁴And the kite and the falcon, and birds of that sort;

¹⁵Every raven, and birds of that sort;

¹⁶And the ostrich and the night-hawk and the sea-hawk, and birds of that sort;

¹⁷And the little owl and the cormorant and the great owl;

¹⁸And the water-hen and the pelican and the vulture;

¹⁹The stork and the heron, and birds of that sort, and the hoopoe and the bat.

²⁰Every winged four-footed thing which goes on the earth is disgusting to you;

²¹But of the winged four-footed things, those which have long legs for jumping on the earth you may have for food;

²²Such as all the different sorts of locust.

²³But all other winged four-footed things which go on the earth are disgusting to you.

²⁴By these you will be made unclean; anyone touching their dead bodies will be unclean till evening:

²⁵Whoever takes away the dead body of one of them is to have his clothing washed, and will be unclean till evening.

²⁶Every beast, in the horn of whose foot there is not a complete division, and whose food does not come back, is unclean to you: anyone touching one of these will be unclean.

²⁷Any four-footed beast which goes on the ball of its foot, is unclean to you: anyone touching the dead body of one of these will be unclean till evening.

²⁸Anyone who takes away the dead body of one of these is to have his clothing washed and be unclean till evening.

²⁹And these are unclean to you among things which go low down on the earth; the weasel and the mouse and the great lizard, and animals of that sort;

³⁰And the ferret and the land crocodile and the lizard and the sand-lizard and the chameleon.

³¹All these are unclean to you: anyone touching them when they are dead will be unclean till evening.

³²The dead body of any of these, falling on anything, will make that thing unclean; if it is any vessel of wood, or clothing, or skin, or bag, whatever it is, if it is used for any purpose, it will have to be put into water, and will be unclean till evening; after that it will be clean.

³³And if one of them gets into any vessel of earth, whatever is in the vessel will be unclean and the vessel will have to be broken.

³⁴Any food in it, and anything on which water from it comes, will be unclean: any drink taken from such a vessel will be unclean.

³⁵Any part of the dead body of one of these, falling on anything, will make it unclean; if it is an oven or a cooking-pot it will have to be broken: they are unclean and will be unclean to you.

³⁶But at the same time a fountain or a place where water is stored for use will be clean; but anyone touching their dead bodies will be unclean.

³⁷If any part of the dead body of one of these gets on to any seed for planting, it is clean;

³⁸But if water is put on the seed, and any part of the dead body gets on to it, it will be unclean to you.

³⁹And if any beast which may be used for food comes to a natural death, anyone touching its dead body will be unclean till evening.

⁴⁰And he who makes use of any part of its body for food is to have his clothing washed and be unclean till evening; and anyone taking away its body is to have his clothing washed and be unclean till evening.

⁴¹Everything which goes flat on its body on the earth is disgusting, and is not to be used for food.

⁴²Whatever goes on its stomach or on four feet or has a great number of feet, even all those going flat on the earth, may not be used for food, for they are disgusting.

⁴³You are not to make yourselves disgusting with anything which goes about flat on the earth; you may not make yourselves unclean with them, in such a way that you are not holy to me.

⁴⁴For I am the Lord your God: for this reason, make and keep yourselves holy, for I am holy; you are not to make yourselves unclean with any sort of thing which goes about flat on the earth.

⁴⁵For I am the Lord, who took you out of the land of Egypt, to be your God; so be you holy, for I am holy.

⁴⁶This is the law about beasts and birds and every living thing moving in the waters, and every living thing which goes flat on the earth:

⁴⁷Marking out the unclean from the clean, and the living thing which may be used for food from that which may not.

12And the Lord said to Moses,

²Say to the children of Israel, If a woman is with child and gives birth to a male child, she will be unclean for seven days, as when she is unwell.

³And on the eighth day let him be given circumcision.

⁴And she will be unclean for thirty-three days till the flow of her blood is stopped; no holy thing may be touched by her, and she may not come into the holy place, till the days for making her clean are ended.

⁵But if she gives birth to a female child, then she will be unclean for two weeks, as when she is unwell; and she will not be completely clean for sixty-six days.

⁶And when the days are ended for making her clean for a son or a daughter, let her take to the priest at the door of the Tent of meeting, a lamb of the first year for a burned offering and a young pigeon or a dove for a sin-offering:

⁷And the priest is to make an offering of it before the Lord and take away her sin, and she will be made clean from the flow of her blood. This is the law for a woman who gives birth to a male or a female.

⁸And if she has not money enough for a lamb, then let her take two doves or two young pigeons, one for a burned offering and the other for a sin-offering, and the priest will take away her sin and she will be clean,

13And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron,

²If a man has on his skin a growth or a mark or a white place, and it becomes the disease of a leper, let him be taken to Aaron the priest, or to one of the priests, his sons;

³And if, when the priest sees the mark on his skin, the hair on the place is turned white and the mark seems to go deeper than the skin, it is the mark of a leper: and the priest, after looking at him, will say that he is unclean.

⁴But if the mark on his skin is white, and does not seem to go deeper than the skin, and the hair on it is not turned white, then the priest will keep him shut up for seven days;

⁵And the priest is to see him on the seventh day; and if, in his opinion, the place on his skin has not become worse and is not increased in size, then the priest will keep him shut up for seven days more:

⁶And the priest is to see him again on the seventh day; and if the mark is less bright and is not increased on his skin, then let the priest say that he is clean: it is only a skin-mark, and after his clothing has been washed he will be clean.

⁷But if the size of the mark on his skin is increased after he has been seen by the priest, let him go to the priest again:

⁸And if, after looking at him, he sees that the mark is increased in his skin, let the priest say that he is unclean; he is a leper.

⁹When the disease of a leper is seen on a man, let him be taken to the priest;

¹⁰And if the priest sees that there is a white growth on the skin, and the hair is turned white, and there is diseased flesh in the growth,

¹¹It is an old disease in the skin of his flesh, and the priest will say that he is unclean; he will not have to be shut up, for he is clearly unclean.

¹²And if the disease comes out all over his skin, from his head to his feet, as far as the priest is able to see,

¹³And if the priest sees that all his flesh is covered with the leper's disease, the priest will say that he is clean: it is all turned white, he is clean.

¹⁴But whenever diseased flesh is seen on him, he will be unclean.

¹⁵And when the priest sees the diseased flesh he will say that he is unclean; the diseased flesh is unclean, he is a leper.

¹⁶Or if the diseased flesh is turned again and changed to white then he is to come to the priest,

¹⁷And the priest will see him: and if the place is turned white, then the priest will say that he is free from the disease.

¹⁸And if a bad place has come out on the skin and is well again,

¹⁹And on the same place there is a white growth of a bright mark, red and white, then let the priest see it;

²⁰And after looking at it, if it seems to go deeper than the skin, and the hair on it is turned white, then the priest will say that the man is unclean: it is the leper's disease, it has come out in the bad place.

²¹But if, after looking at it, he sees that there are no white hairs on it, and it is not deeper than the skin, and it is not very bright, then let the priest keep him shut up for seven days:

²²And if it is increasing on the skin, the priest will say that he is unclean: it is a disease.

²³But if the bright mark keeps in the same place and gets no greater, it is the mark of the old wound, and the priest will say that he is clean.

²⁴Or if there is a burn on the skin of the flesh, and if the diseased flesh in the burn becomes a bright place, red and white or white,

²⁵The priest is to see it: and if the hair on the bright place is turned white and it seems to go deeper than the skin, he is a leper: it has come out in the burn, and the priest will say that he is unclean: it is the leper's disease.

²⁶But if, after looking at it, the priest sees that there is no white hair on the bright place, and it is not deeper than the skin, and is not very bright, then let the priest keep him shut up for seven days:

²⁷And the priest is to see him again on the seventh day; if it is increased in the skin, then the priest will say that he is unclean: it is the leper's disease.

²⁸And if the bright place keeps the same size and gets no greater on the skin, but is less bright, it is the effect of the burn, and the priest will say that he is clean: it is the mark of the burn.

²⁹And when a man or a woman has a disease on the head, or in the hair of the chin,

³⁰Then the priest is to see the diseased place: and if it seems to go deeper than the skin, and if there is thin yellow hair in it, then the priest will say that he is unclean: he has the mark of the leper's disease on his head or in the hair of his chin.

³¹And after looking at the diseased place, if it does not seem to go deeper than the skin, and there is no black hair in it, then the priest will have him shut up for seven days:

³²And on the seventh day the priest will see the place: and if it is not increased, and there is no yellow hair in it, and it does not seem to go deeper than the skin,

³³Then his hair is to be cut off, but not on the diseased place, and he is to be shut up for seven days more:

³⁴And on the seventh day the priest will see the place: and if it is not increased, and does not seem to go deeper than the skin, the priest will say that he is clean: and after his clothing has been washed he will be clean.

³⁵But if the disease in his skin becomes worse after he has been made clean,

³⁶Then the priest is to see him: and if the mark is increased, the priest, without looking for the yellow hair, will say that he is unclean.

³⁷But if, in his opinion, the growth is stopped, and black hair has come up on it, the disease has gone; he is clean and the priest will say that he is clean.

³⁸And if a man or a woman has bright marks on the skin of their flesh, that is, bright white marks,

³⁹Then the priest is to see them: and if the white marks on their skin are not very bright, it is a skin disease which has come out on the skin; he is clean.

⁴⁰And if a man's hair has come out and he has no hair, still he is clean.

⁴¹And if the hair has gone from the front part of his head, so that he has no hair there, still he is clean.

⁴²But if, on his head or on his brow, where he has no hair, there is a red and white place, it is the disease of the leper coming out on his head or on his brow.

⁴³Then if the priest sees that the growth of the disease has become red and white on his head or on his brow where there is no hair, like the mark in the skin of a leper;

⁴⁴He is a leper and unclean; the priest is to say that he is most certainly unclean: the disease is in his head.

⁴⁵And the leper who has the disease on him is to go about with signs of grief, with his hair loose and his mouth covered, crying, Unclean, unclean.

⁴⁶While the disease is on him, he will be unclean. He is unclean: let him keep by himself, living outside the tent-circle.

⁴⁷And any clothing of wool or of linen in which is the mark of the disease;

⁴⁸If it is in the threads of the linen or of the wool, or in leather, or in anything made of skin;

⁴⁹If there are red or green marks on the clothing, or on the leather, or in the threads of the cloth, or in anything made of skin, it is the leper's disease: let the priest see it.

⁵⁰And after it has been seen by the priest, the thing which is so marked is to be shut up for seven days:

⁵¹And he is to see the mark on the seventh day; if the mark is increased in the clothing, or in the threads of the material, or in the leather, whatever the leather is used for, it is the disease biting into it: it is unclean.

⁵²And the clothing, or the wool or linen material, or anything of leather in which is the disease, is to be burned: for the disease is biting into it; let it be burned in the fire.

⁵³And if the priest sees that the mark is not increased in the clothing or in any part of the material or in the leather,

⁵⁴Then the priest will give orders for the thing on which the mark is, to be washed, and to be shut up for seven days more:

⁵⁵And if, after the mark has been washed, the priest sees that the colour of it is not changed and it is not increased, it is to be burned in the fire: the disease is working in it, though the damage may be inside or outside.

⁵⁶And if the priest sees that the mark is less bright after the washing, then let him have it cut out of the clothing or the leather or from the threads of the material:

⁵⁷And if the mark is still seen in the clothing or in the threads of the material or in the leather, it is the disease coming out: the thing in which the disease is will have to be burned with fire.

⁵⁸And the material of the clothing, or anything of skin, which has been washed, if the mark has gone out of it, let it be washed a second time and it will be clean.

⁵⁹This is the law about the leper's disease in the thread of wool or linen material, in clothing or in anything of skin, saying how it is to be judged clean or unclean.

14And the Lord said to Moses,

²This is the law of the leper on the day when he is made clean: he is to be taken to the priest;

³And the priest is to go outside the tent-circle; and if, after looking, the priest sees that the mark of the disease has gone from him,

⁴Then the priest is to give orders to take, for him who is to be made clean, two living clean birds and some cedar wood and red thread and hyssop.

⁵And the priest will give orders for one of the birds to be put to death in a vessel made of earth, over flowing water.

⁶And he will take the living bird and the wood and the red thread and the hyssop and put them in the blood of the bird which was put to death over flowing water.

⁷And shaking it seven times over the man who is to be made clean, he will say that he is clean and will let the living bird go free into the open country.

⁸And he who is to be made clean will have his clothing washed and his hair cut and have a bath, and he will be clean. And after that he will come back to the tent-circle; but he is to keep outside his tent for seven days.

⁹And on the seventh day he is to have all the hair cut off his head and his chin and over his eyes--all his hair is to be cut off--and he will have his clothing washed and his body bathed in water and he will be clean.

¹⁰And on the eighth day let him take two male lambs, without any marks on them, and one female lamb of the first year, without a mark, and three tenth parts of an ephah of the best meal, mixed with oil, and one log of oil.

¹¹And the priest who is making him clean will put the man who is being made clean, together with these things, before the door of the Tent of meeting.

¹²And the priest is to take one of the male lambs and give it as an offering for wrongdoing, and the log of oil, waving them for a wave offering before the Lord;

¹³And he is to put the male lamb to death in the place where they put to death the sin-offering and the burned offering, in the holy place; for as the sin-offering is the property of the priest, so is the offering for wrongdoing: it is most holy.

¹⁴And let the priest take some of the blood of the offering for wrongdoing and put it on the point of the right ear of him who is to be made clean, and on the thumb of his right hand and on the great toe of his right foot;

¹⁵And take some of the oil and put it in the hollow of his left hand;

¹⁶And let the priest put his right finger in the oil which is in his left hand, shaking it out with his finger seven times before the Lord;

¹⁷And of the rest of the oil which is in his hand, the priest will put some on the point of the right ear of the man who is to be made clean, and on the thumb of his right hand and on the great toe of his right foot, over the blood of the offering for wrongdoing;

¹⁸And the rest of the oil in the priest's hand he will put on the head of him who is to be made clean; and so the priest will make him free from sin before the Lord.

¹⁹And the priest will give the sin-offering, and take away the sin of him who is to be made clean from his unclean condition; and after that he will put the burned offering to death.

²⁰And the priest is to have the burned offering and the meal offering burned on the altar; and the priest will take away his sin and he will be clean.

²¹And if he is poor and not able to get so much, then he may take one male lamb as an offering for wrongdoing, to be waved to take away his sin, and one tenth part of an ephah of the best meal mixed with oil for a meal offering, and a log of oil;

²²And two doves or two young pigeons, such as he is able to get; and one will be for a sin-offering and the other for a burned offering.

²³And on the eighth day he will take them to the priest, to the door of the Tent of meeting before the Lord, so that he may be made clean.

²⁴And the priest will take the lamb of the offering for wrongdoing and the oil, waving them for a wave offering before the Lord;

²⁵And he will put to death the lamb of the offering for wrongdoing and the priest will take some of the blood of the offering for wrongdoing and put it on the point of the right ear of him who is to be made clean, and on the thumb of his right hand and on the great toe of his right foot;

²⁶And the priest will put out some of the oil in the hollow of his left hand,

²⁷Shaking out drops of oil with his right finger before the Lord seven times:

²⁸And the priest will put some of the oil which is in his hand on the point of the ear of the man who is to be made clean and on the thumb of his right hand and on the great toe of his right foot, on the place where the blood of the offering for wrongdoing was put;

²⁹And the rest of the oil which is in the priest's hand he will put on the head of him who is to be made clean, to take away his sin before the Lord.

³⁰And he will make an offering of one of the doves or the young pigeons, such as he is able to get;

³¹And of these, he will give one for a sin-offering and one for a burned offering, with the meal offering; and the priest will take away the sin of him who is to be made clean before the Lord.

³²This is the law for the man who has the disease of the leper on him, and who is not able to get that which is necessary for making himself clean.

³³And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron,

³⁴When you have come into the land of Canaan which I will give you for your heritage, if I put the leper's disease on a house in the land of your heritage,

³⁵Then let the owner of the house come and say to the priest, It seems to me that there is a sort of leper's disease in the house.

³⁶And the priest will give orders for everything to be taken out of the house, before he goes in to see the disease, so that the things in the house may not become unclean; and then the priest is to go in to see the house;

³⁷And if he sees that the walls of the house are marked with hollows of green and red, and if it seems to go deeper than the face of the wall;

³⁸Then the priest will go out of the door of the house, and keep the house shut up for seven days:

³⁹And the priest is to come again on the seventh day and have a look and see if the marks on the walls of the house are increased in size;

⁴⁰Then the priest will give orders to them to take out the stones in which the disease is seen, and put them out into an unclean place outside the town:

⁴¹And he will have the house rubbed all over inside, and the paste which is rubbed off will be put out into an unclean place outside the town:

⁴²And they will take other stones and put them in place of those stones, and he will take other paste and put it on the walls of the house.

⁴³And if the disease comes out again in the house after he has taken out the stones and after the walls have been rubbed and the new paste put on,

⁴⁴Then the priest will come and see it; and if the disease in the house is increased in size, it is the leper's disease working out in the house: it is unclean.

⁴⁵And the house will have to be pulled down, the stones of it and the wood and the paste; and everything is to be taken out to an unclean place outside the town.

⁴⁶And, in addition, anyone who goes into the house at any time, while it is shut up, will be unclean till evening.

⁴⁷And anyone who has been sleeping in the house will have to have his clothing washed; and anyone who takes food in that house will have to have his clothing washed.

⁴⁸And if the priest comes in, and sees that the disease is not increased after the new paste has been put on the house, then the priest will say that the house is clean, because the disease is gone.

⁴⁹And in order to make the house clean, let him take two birds and cedar-wood and red thread and hyssop;

⁵⁰And put one of the birds to death in a vessel of earth over flowing water;

⁵¹And take the cedar-wood and the hyssop and the red thread and the living bird and put them in the blood of the dead bird and in the flowing water, shaking it over the house seven times.

⁵²And he will make the house clean with the blood of the bird and the flowing water and with the living bird and with the cedar-wood and the hyssop and the red thread.

⁵³But he will let the living bird go out of the town into the open country; so he will take away sin from the house and it will be clean.

⁵⁴This is the law for all signs of the leper's disease and for skin diseases;

⁵⁵And for signs of disease in clothing, or in a house;

⁵⁶And for a growth or a bad place or a bright mark on the skin;

⁵⁷To make clear when it is unclean and when it is clean: this is the law about the disease of the leper.

15And the Lord said to Moses and to Aaron,

²Say to the children of Israel: If a man has an unclean flow from his flesh, it will make him unclean.

³If the flow goes on or if the part is stopped up, to keep back the flow, he is still unclean.

⁴Every bed on which he has been resting will be unclean, and everything on which he has been seated will be unclean.

⁵And anyone touching his bed is to have his clothing washed and his body bathed in water and be unclean till evening.

⁶And he who has been seated on anything on which the unclean man has been seated is to have his clothing washed and his body bathed in water and be unclean till evening.

⁷And anyone touching the flesh of the unclean man is to have his clothing washed and his body bathed in water and be unclean till evening.

⁸And if liquid from the mouth of the unclean man comes on to him who is clean, then he is to have his clothing washed and his body bathed in water and be unclean till evening.

⁹And any leather seat on a horse on which the unclean man has been seated will be unclean.

¹⁰And anyone touching anything which was under him will be unclean till the evening; anyone taking up any of these things is to have his clothing washed and his body bathed in water and be unclean till evening.

¹¹And anyone on whom the unclean man puts his hands, without washing them in water, is to have his clothing washed and his body bathed in water and be unclean till evening.

¹²And any vessel of earth which has been touched by the unclean man will have to be broken and any vessel of wood washed.

¹³And when a man who has a flow from his body is made clean from it, he is to take seven days to make himself clean, washing his clothing and bathing his body in flowing water, and then he will be clean.

¹⁴And on the eighth day he is to take two doves or two young pigeons and come before the Lord to the door of the Tent of meeting and give them to the priest:

¹⁵And they are to be offered by the priest, one for a sin-offering and one for a burned offering, and the priest will take away his sin before the Lord on account of his flow.

¹⁶And if a man's seed goes out from him, then all his body will have to be bathed in water and he will be unclean till evening.

¹⁷And any clothing or skin on which the seed comes is to be washed with water and be unclean till evening.

¹⁸And if a man has sex relations with a woman and his seed goes out from him, the two of them will have to be bathed in water and will be unclean till evening.

¹⁹And if a woman has a flow of blood from her body, she will have to be kept separate for seven days, and anyone touching her will be unclean till evening.

²⁰And everything on which she has been resting, while she is kept separate, will be unclean, and everything on which she has been seated will be unclean.

²¹And anyone touching her bed will have to have his clothing washed and his body bathed in water and be unclean till evening.

²²And anyone touching anything on which she has been seated will have to have his clothing washed and his body bathed in water and be unclean till evening.

²³Anyone touching anything on the bed or on the thing on which she has been seated, will be unclean till evening.

²⁴And if any man has sex relations with her so that her blood comes on him, he will be unclean for seven days and every bed on which he has been resting will be unclean.

²⁵And if a woman has a flow of blood for a long time, not at the time when she generally has it, or if the flow goes on longer than the normal time, she will be unclean while the flow of blood goes on, as she is at other normal times.

²⁶Every bed on which she has been resting will be unclean, as at the times when she normally has a flow of blood, and everything on which she has been seated will be unclean, in the same way.

²⁷And anyone touching these things will be unclean, and his clothing will have to be washed and his body bathed in water and he will be unclean till evening.

²⁸But when her flow of blood is stopped, after seven days she will be clean.

²⁹And on the eighth day let her get two doves or two young pigeons and take them to the priest to the door of the Tent of meeting,

³⁰To be offered by the priest, one for a sin-offering and one for a burned offering; and the priest will take away her sin before the Lord on account of her unclean condition.

³¹In this way may the children of Israel be made free from all sorts of unclean conditions, so that death may not overtake them when they are unclean and when they make unclean my holy place which is among them.

³²This is the law for the man who has a flow from his body, or whose seed goes from him so that he is unclean;

³³And for her who has a flow of blood, and for any man or woman who has an unclean flow, and for him who has sex relations with a woman when she is unclean.

16And the Lord said to Moses, after the death of the two sons of Aaron when they took in strange fire before the Lord and death overtook them;

²The Lord said to Moses, Say to Aaron, your brother, that he may not come at all times into the holy place inside the veil, before the cover which is on the ark, for fear that death may overtake him; for I will be seen in the cloud on the cover of the ark.

³Let Aaron come into the holy place in this way: with an ox for a sin-offering and a male sheep for a burned offering.

⁴Let him put on the holy linen coat, and the linen trousers on his body, and the linen band round him, and the linen head-dress on his head; for this is holy clothing, and before he puts them on his body is to be washed with water.

⁵And let him take from the children of Israel two he-goats for a sin-offering and one male sheep for a burned offering.

⁶And Aaron is to give the ox of the sin-offering for himself, to make himself and his house free from sin.

⁷And he is to take the two goats and put them before the Lord at the door of the Tent of meeting.

⁸And Aaron will make selection from the two goats by the decision of the Lord, one goat for the Lord and one for Azazel.

⁹And the goat which is marked out for the Lord, let Aaron give for a sin-offering.

¹⁰But the goat for Azazel is to be placed living before the Lord, for the taking away of sin, that it may be sent away for Azazel into the waste land.

¹¹And Aaron is to give the ox of the sin-offering for himself and take away sin from himself and his house, and put to death the ox of the sin-offering which is for himself.

¹²And he is to take a vessel full of burning coal from the altar before the Lord and in his hand some sweet perfume crushed small, and take it inside the veil;

¹³And let him put the perfume on the fire before the Lord so that the ark may be covered with a cloud of the smoke of the perfume, in order that death may not overtake him.

¹⁴And let him take some of the blood of the ox, shaking drops of it from his finger on the cover of the ark on the east side, and before it, seven times.

¹⁵Then let him put to death the goat of the sin-offering for the people, and take its blood inside the veil and do with it as he did with the blood of the ox, shaking drops of it on and before the cover of the ark.

¹⁶And let him make the holy place free from whatever is unclean among the children of Israel and from their wrongdoing in all their sins; and let him do the same for the Tent of meeting, which has its place among an unclean people.

¹⁷And no man may be in the Tent of meeting from the time when Aaron goes in to take away sin in the holy place till he comes out, having made himself and his house and all the people of Israel free from sin.

¹⁸And he is to go out to the altar which is before the Lord and make it free from sin; and he is to take some of the blood of the ox and the blood of the goat and put it on the horns of the altar and round it;

¹⁹Shaking drops of the blood from his finger on it seven times to make it holy and clean from whatever is unclean among the children of Israel.

²⁰And when he has done whatever is necessary to make the holy place and the Tent of meeting and the altar free from sin, let him put the living goat before the Lord;

²¹And Aaron, placing his two hands on the head of the living goat, will make a public statement over him of all the evil doings of the children of Israel and all their wrongdoing, in all their sins; and he will put them on the head of the goat and send him away, in the care of a man who will be waiting there, into the waste land.

²²And the goat will take all their sins into a land cut off from men, and he will send the goat away into the waste land.

²³Then let Aaron come into the Tent of meeting and take off the linen clothing which he put on when he went into the holy place, and put them down there;

²⁴And after bathing his body in water in a holy place, he is to put on his clothing and come out and give his burned offering and the burned offering of the people, to take away his sin and the sin of the people.

²⁵And the fat of the sin-offering is to be burned by him on the altar.

²⁶And the man who takes away the goat for Azazel is to have his clothing washed and his body bathed in water and then he may come back to the tent-circle.

²⁷And the ox of the sin-offering and the goat of the sin-offering, whose blood was taken in to make the holy place free from sin, are to be taken away outside the tent-circle and their skins and their flesh and their waste are to be burned with fire.

²⁸And the man by whom they are burned is to have his clothing washed and his body bathed in water, and then he may come back to the tent-circle.

²⁹And let this be an order to you for ever: in the seventh month, on the tenth day, you are to keep yourselves from pleasure and do no sort of work, those who are Israelites by birth and those from other lands who are living among you:

³⁰For on this day your sin will be taken away and you will be clean: you will be made free from all your sins before the Lord.

³¹It is a special Sabbath for you, and you are to keep yourselves from pleasure; it is an order for ever.

³²And the man on whose head the holy oil has been put, and who has been marked out to be a priest in his father's place, will do what is necessary to take away sin, and will put on the linen clothing, even the holy robes:

³³And he will make the holy place and the Tent of meeting and the altar free from sin; he will take away sin from the priests and from all the people.

³⁴And let this be an order for ever for you, so that the sin of the children of Israel may be taken away once every year. And he did as the Lord gave orders to Moses.

17And the Lord said to Moses,

²Say to Aaron and to his sons and to all the children of Israel: This is the order which the Lord has given.

³If any man of Israel puts to death an ox or a lamb or a goat, in or outside the tent-circle;

⁴And has not taken it to the door of the Tent of meeting, to make an offering to the Lord, before the Lord's House, its blood will be on him, for he has taken life, and he will be cut off from among his people:

⁵So that the children of Israel may take to the Lord, to the door of the Tent of meeting and to the priest, the offerings which they have put to death in the open country, and that they may make their peace-offerings to the Lord.

⁶And the priest will put blood on the altar of the Lord at the door of the Tent of meeting, burning the fat for a sweet smell to the Lord.

⁷And let them make no more offerings to evil spirits, after which they have gone, turning away from the Lord. Let this be a law to them for ever, through all their generations.

⁸And say to them, If any man of Israel, or any other living among them, makes a burned offering or other offering,

⁹And does not take it to the door of the Tent of meeting to make an offering to the Lord, that man will be cut off from among his people.

¹⁰And if any man of Israel, or any other living among them, takes any sort of blood for food, my wrath will be turned against that man and he will be cut off from among his people.

¹¹For the life of the flesh is in its blood; and I have given it to you on the altar to take away your sin: for it is the blood which makes free from sin because of the life in it.

¹²For this reason I have said to the children of Israel, No man among you, or any others living with you, may take blood as food.

¹³And any man of Israel, or any other living among them, who gets with his bow any beast or bird used for food, is to see that its blood is covered with earth.

¹⁴For the blood is the life of all flesh: and so I have said to the children of Israel, You may not take any sort of blood as food, and any man who does so will be cut of.

¹⁵And anyone who takes as food anything which has come to a natural end, or anything which has been put to death by beasts, if he is one of you by birth, or of another nation, will have to have his clothing washed and his body bathed in water and be unclean till evening, and then he will be clean.

¹⁶But if his clothing is not washed and his body bathed, his sin will be on him.

18And the Lord said to Moses,

²Say to the children of Israel, I am the Lord your God.

³You may not do those things which were done in the land of Egypt where you were living; and you may not do those things which are done in the land of Canaan where I am taking you, or be guided in your behaviour by their rules.

⁴But you are to be guided by my decisions and keep my rules, and be guided by them: I am the Lord your God.

⁵So keep my rules and my decisions, which, if a man does them, will be life to him: I am the Lord.

⁶You may not have sex connection with anyone who is a near relation: I am the Lord.

⁷You may not have sex relations with your father or your mother: she is your mother, you may not take her.

⁸And you may not have sex relations with your father's wife: she is your father's.

⁹You may not take your sister, the daughter of your father or of your mother, wherever her birth took place, among you or in another country.

¹⁰You may not have sex relations with your son's daughter or your daughter's daughter, for they are part of yourself;

¹¹Or your father's wife's daughter, the child of your father, for she is your sister.

¹²You may not have sex connection with your father's sister, for she is your father's near relation.

¹³You may not have sex connection with your mother's sister, for she is your mother's near relation.

¹⁴You may not have sex relations with the wife of your father's brother, for she is of your family;

¹⁵Or with your daughter-in-law, for she is your son's wife, and you may not take her.

¹⁶You may not have sex relations with your brother's wife, for she is your brother's.

¹⁷You may not take as wife a woman and her daughter, or her son's daughter or her daughter's daughter, for they are of one family: it is an act of shame.

¹⁸And you may not take as wife a woman and at the same time her sister, to be in competition with her in her life-time.

¹⁹And you may not go near a woman or have sex relations with her when she is unclean, at her regular time.

²⁰And you may not have sex relations with your neighbour's wife, making yourself unclean with her.

²¹And you may not make any of your children go through the fire as an offering to Molech, and you may not put shame on the name of your God: I am the Lord.

²²You may not have sex relations with men, as you do with women: it is a disgusting thing.

²³And you may not have sex relations with a beast, making yourself unclean with it; and a woman may not give herself to a beast: it is an unnatural act.

²⁴Do not make yourself unclean in any of these ways; for so have those nations whom I am driving out from before you made themselves unclean:

²⁵And the land itself has become unclean; so that I have sent on it the reward of its wrongdoing, and the land itself puts out those who are living in it.

²⁶So then keep my rules and my decisions, and do not do any of these disgusting things, those of you who are Israelites by birth, or any others who are living with you:

²⁷(For all these disgusting things were done by the men of this country who were there before you, and the land has been made unclean by them;)

²⁸So that the land may not put you out from it, when you make it unclean, as it put out the nations which were there before you.

²⁹For all those who do any of these disgusting things will be cut off from among their people.

³⁰So then, keep my orders, so that you may not do any of these disgusting things which were done before you, or make yourselves unclean through them: I am the Lord your God.

19And the Lord said to Moses,

²Say to all the people of Israel, You are to be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy.

³Let every man give honour to his mother and to his father and keep my Sabbaths: I am the Lord your God.

⁴Do not go after false gods, and do not make metal images of gods for yourselves: I am the Lord your God.

⁵And when you give a peace offering to the Lord, do it in the way which is pleasing to the Lord.

⁶Let it be used for food on the same day on which it is offered, or on the day after; and whatever is over on the third day is to be burned with fire.

⁷If any of it is used for food on the third day, it is a disgusting thing and will not be pleasing to the Lord.

⁸And as for anyone who takes it for food, his sin will be on him, for he has put shame on the holy thing of the Lord: he will be cut off from his people.

⁹And when you get in the grain from your land, do not let all the grain be cut from the edges of the field, or take up what has been dropped on the earth after the getting in of the grain.

¹⁰And do not take all the grapes from your vine-garden, or the fruit dropped on the earth; let the poor man, and the man from another country, have these: I am the Lord your God.

¹¹Do not take anyone's property or be false in act or word to another.

¹²And do not take an oath in my name falsely, putting shame on the name of your God: I am the Lord.

¹³Do not be cruel to your neighbour or take what is his; do not keep back a servant's payment from him all night till the morning.

¹⁴Do not put a curse on those who have no hearing, or put a cause of falling in the way of the blind, but keep the fear of your God before you: I am the Lord.

¹⁵Do no wrong in your judging: do not give thought to the position of the poor, or honour to the position of the great; but be a judge to your neighbour in righteousness.

¹⁶Do not go about saying untrue things among your people, or take away the life of your neighbour by false witness: I am the Lord.

¹⁷Let there be no hate in your heart for your brother; but you may make a protest to your neighbour, so that he may be stopped from doing evil.

¹⁸Do not make attempts to get equal with one who has done you wrong, or keep hard feelings against the children of your people, but have love for your neighbour as for yourself: I am the Lord.

¹⁹Keep my laws. Do not let your cattle have offspring by those of a different sort; do not put mixed seed into your field; do not put on a robe made of two sorts of cloth.

²⁰If any man has sex relations with a servant-woman who has given her word to be married to a man, and has not been made free for a price or in any other way, the thing will be looked into; but they will not be put to death because she was not a free woman.

²¹Let him take his offering for wrongdoing to the Lord, to the door of the Tent of meeting; let him give a male sheep as an offering for wrongdoing.

²²And the priest will take away his sin before the Lord with the sheep which is offered for his wrongdoing, and he will have forgiveness for the sin which he has done.

²³And when you have come into the land, and have put in all sorts of fruit-trees, their fruit will be as if they had not had circumcision, and for three years their fruit may not be used for food.

²⁴And in the fourth year all the fruit will be holy as a praise-offering to the Lord.

²⁵But in the fifth year you may take the fruit and the increase of it for your food: I am the Lord your God.

²⁶Nothing may be used for food with its blood in it; you may not make use of strange arts, or go in search of signs and wonders.

²⁷The ends of the hair round your face and on your chin may not be cut off.

²⁸You may not make cuts in your flesh in respect for the dead, or have marks printed on your bodies: I am the Lord.

²⁹Do not make your daughter common by letting her become a loose woman, for fear that the land may become full of shame.

³⁰Keep my Sabbaths and have respect for my holy place: I am the Lord.

³¹Do not go after those who make use of spirits, or wonder-workers; do not go in their ways or become unclean through them: I am the Lord your God.

³²Get up from your seats before the white-haired, and give honour to the old, and let the fear of your God be before you: I am the Lord.

³³And if a man from another country is living in your land with you, do not make life hard for him;

³⁴Let him be to you as one of your countrymen and have love for him as for yourself; for you were living in a strange land, in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.

³⁵Do not make false decisions in questions of yard-sticks and weights and measures.

³⁶Have true scales, true weights and measures for all things: I am the Lord your God, who took you out of the land of Egypt;

³⁷You are to keep all my rules and my decisions and do them: I am the Lord.

20And the Lord said to Moses,

²Again, say to the children of Israel, If any man of the children of Israel, or any other man living in Israel, gives his offspring to Molech, he is certainly to be put to death: he is to be stoned by the people of the land;

³And my face will be turned against that man, and he will be cut off from his people; because he has given his offspring to Molech, making my holy place unclean, and making my holy name common.

⁴And if the people of the land do not take note of that man when he gives his offspring to Molech, and do not put him to death,

⁵Then my face will be turned against him and his family, and he and all those who do evil with him will be cut off from among their people.

⁶And whoever goes after those who make use of spirits and wonder-workers, doing evil with them, against him will my face be turned, and he will be cut off from among his people.

⁷So make and keep yourselves holy, for I am the Lord your God.

⁸And keep my rules and do them: I am the Lord, who make you holy.

⁹Every man cursing his father or his mother is certainly to be put to death; because of his curse on his father or his mother, his blood will be on him.

¹⁰And if a man has sex relations with another man's wife, even the wife of his neighbour, he and she are certainly to be put to death.

¹¹And the man who has sex relations with his father's wife has put shame on his father: the two of them are to be put to death; their blood will be on them.

¹²And if a man has sex relations with his son's wife, the two of them are to be put to death: it is unnatural; their blood will be on them.

¹³And if a man has sex relations with a man, the two of them have done a disgusting thing: let them be put to death; their blood will be on them.

¹⁴And if a man takes as wife a woman and her mother, it is an act of shame; let them be burned with fire, all three of them, so that there may be no shame among you.

¹⁵And if a man has sex relations with a beast, let him be put to death, and let the beast be put to destruction.

¹⁶And if a woman goes near a beast and has sex relations with it, you will put an end to the woman and the beast: their blood will be on them.

¹⁷And if a man takes his sister, daughter of his father or his mother, and has sex relations with her and she with him, it is an act of shame: they are to be cut off before the children of their people; he has had sex relations with his sister, and his sin will be on him.

¹⁸And if a man has sex relations with a woman at the time when she is unwell, he has seen her fountain and she has let the fountain of her blood be uncovered, and the two of them are to be cut off from among their people.

¹⁹And you may not have sex connection with your mother's sister or your father's sister, for they are his near relations: their sin will be on them.

²⁰And if a man has sex relations with the wife of his father's brother, he has put shame on his father's brother: their sin will be on them; till the day of their death they will have no children.

²¹And if a man takes his brother's wife, it is an unclean act; he has put shame on his brother; they will have no children.

²²So then, keep my rules and my decisions and do them, so that the land which I am giving you as your resting-place may not violently send you out again.

²³And do not keep the rules of the nations which I am driving out before you; for they did all these things, and for that reason my soul was turned against them.

²⁴But I have said to you, You will take their land and I will give it to you for your heritage, a land flowing with milk and honey: I am the Lord your God who have made you separate from all other peoples.

²⁵So then, make division between the clean beast and the unclean, and between the clean bird and the unclean: do not make yourselves disgusting by any beast or bird or anything which goes flat on the earth, which has been marked by me as unclean for you.

²⁶And you are to be holy to me; for I the Lord am holy and have made you separate from the nations, so that you may be my people.

²⁷Any man or woman who makes use of spirits, or who is a wonder-worker, is to be put to death: they are to be stoned with stones: their blood will be on them.

21And the Lord said to Moses, Say to the priests, the sons of Aaron, Let no man make himself unclean for the dead among his people;

²But only for his near relations, for his mother or his father, his son or his daughter, and his brother;

³And for his sister, a virgin, for she is his near relation and has had no husband, he may make himself unclean.

⁴But let him, being a chief among his people, not make himself unclean in such a way as to put shame on himself.

⁵They are not to have their hair cut off for the dead, or the hair on their chins cut short, or make cuts in their flesh.

⁶Let them be holy to their God and not make the name of their God common; for the fire offerings of the Lord and the bread of their God are offered by them, and they are to be holy.

⁷They may not take as wife a loose or common woman, or one who has been put away by her husband: for the priest is holy to his God.

⁸And he is to be holy in your eyes, for by him the bread of your God is offered; he is to be holy in your eyes, for I the Lord, who make you holy, am holy.

⁹And if the daughter of a priest makes herself common and by her loose behaviour puts shame on her father, let her be burned with fire.

¹⁰And he who is the chief priest among his brothers, on whose head the holy oil has been put, who is marked out to put on the holy robes, may not let his hair go loose or have his clothing out of order as a sign of sorrow.

¹¹He may not go near any dead body or make himself unclean for his father or his mother;

¹²He may not go out of the holy place or make the holy place of his God common; for the crown of the holy oil of his God is on him: I am the Lord.

¹³And let him take as his wife one who has not had relations with a man.

¹⁴A widow, or one whose husband has put her away, or a common woman of loose behaviour, may not be the wife of a priest; but let him take a virgin from among his people.

¹⁵And he may not make his seed unclean among his people, for I the Lord have made him holy.

¹⁶And the Lord said to Moses,

¹⁷Say to Aaron, If a man of your family, in any generation, is damaged in body, let him not come near to make the offering of the bread of his God.

¹⁸For any man whose body is damaged may not come near: one who is blind, or has not the use of his legs, or one who has a broken nose or any unnatural growth,

¹⁹Or a man with broken feet or hands,

²⁰Or one whose back is bent, or one who is unnaturally small, or one who has a damaged eye, or whose skin is diseased, or whose sex parts are damaged;

²¹No man of the offspring of Aaron whose body is damaged in any way may come near to give the fire offerings of the Lord: he is damaged, he may not come near to make the offerings.

²²He may take of the bread of God, the holy and the most holy;

²³But he may not go inside the veil or come near the altar, because he is damaged; and he may not make my holy places common; for I the Lord have made them holy.

²⁴These are the words which Moses said to Aaron and to his sons and to all the children of Israel.

22And the Lord said to Moses,

²Give orders to Aaron and to his sons to keep themselves separate from the holy things of the children of Israel which they give to me, and not to make my holy name common: I am the Lord,

³Say to them, If any man of all your seed through all your generations, being unclean, comes near the holy things which the children of Israel make holy to the Lord, he will be cut off from before me: I am the Lord.

⁴No man of the seed of Aaron who is a leper, or who has a flow from his body, may take of the holy food till he is clean. And any man touching anything which is unclean because of the dead, or any man whose seed goes from him;

⁵Or anyone touching any unclean thing which goes flat on the earth, or someone by whom he may be made unclean in any way whatever;

⁶Any person touching any such unclean thing will be unclean till evening, and may not take of the holy food till his flesh has been bathed in water;

⁷And when the sun has gone down he will be clean; and after that he may take part in the holy food, because it is his bread.

⁸That which comes to a natural death, or is attacked by beasts, he may not take as food, for it will make him unclean: I am the Lord.

⁹So then, let them keep what I have put into their care, for fear that sin may come on them because of it, so causing their death because they have made it common: I am the Lord, who make them holy.

¹⁰No outside person may take of the holy food, or one living as a guest in the priest's house, or a servant working for payment.

¹¹But any person for whom the priest has given money, to make him his, may take of it with him; and those who come to birth in his house may take of his bread.

¹²And if the daughter of a priest is married to an outside person she may not take of the holy things which are lifted up as offerings.

¹³But if a priest's daughter is a widow, or parted from her husband, and has no child, and has come back to her father's house as when she was a girl, she may take of her father's bread; but no outside person may do so.

¹⁴And if a man takes the holy food in error, he will have to give the holy thing back to the priest, with the addition of a fifth part.

¹⁵And they may not make common the holy things which the children of Israel give to the Lord,

¹⁶So causing sin to come on them when they take their holy things for food: I am the Lord who make them holy.

¹⁷And the Lord said to Moses,

¹⁸Say to Aaron and to his sons and to all the children of Israel, If any man of the children of Israel, or of another nation living in Israel, makes an offering, given because of an oath or freely given to the Lord for a burned offering;

¹⁹So that it may be pleasing to the Lord, let him give a male, without any mark, from among the oxen or the sheep or the goats.

²⁰But anything which has a mark you may not give; it will not make you pleasing to the Lord.

²¹And whoever makes a peace-offering to the Lord, in payment of an oath or as a free offering, from the herd or the flock, if it is to be pleasing to the Lord, let it be free from any mark or damage.

²²Anything blind or broken or damaged or having any disease or any mark on it may not be offered to the Lord; you may not make an offering of it by fire on the altar to the Lord.

²³An ox or a lamb which has more or less than its natural parts, may be given as a free offering; but it will not be taken in payment of an oath.

²⁴An animal which has its sex parts damaged or crushed or broken or cut, may not be offered to the Lord; such a thing may not be done anywhere in your land.

²⁵And from one who is not an Israelite you may not take any of these for an offering to the Lord; for they are unclean, there is a mark on them, and the Lord will not be pleased with them.

²⁶And the Lord said to Moses,

²⁷When an ox or a sheep or a goat is given birth, let it be with its mother for seven days; and after the eighth day it may be taken as an offering made by fire to the Lord.

²⁸A cow or a sheep may not be put to death with its young on the same day.

²⁹And when you make an offering of praise to the Lord, make it in a way which is pleasing to him.

³⁰Let it be used for food on the same day; do not keep any part of it till the morning: I am the Lord.

³¹So then, keep my orders and do them: I am the Lord.

³²And do not make my holy name common; so that it may be kept holy by the children of Israel: I am the Lord who make you holy,

³³Who took you out of the land of Egypt that I might be your God: I am the Lord.

23And the Lord said to Moses,

²Say to the children of Israel, These are the fixed feasts of the Lord, which you will keep for holy meetings: these are my feasts.

³On six days work may be done; but the seventh day is a special day of rest, a time for worship; you may do no sort of work: it is a Sabbath to the Lord wherever you may be living.

⁴These are the fixed feasts of the Lord, the holy days of worship which you will keep at their regular times.

⁵In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at nightfall, is the Lord's Passover;

⁶And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread; for seven days let your food be unleavened bread.

⁷On the first day you will have a holy meeting; you may do no sort of field-work.

⁸And every day for seven days you will give a burned offering to the Lord; and on the seventh day there will be a holy meeting; you may do no field-work.

⁹And the Lord said to Moses,

¹⁰Say to the children of Israel, When you have come to the land which I will give you, and have got in the grain from its fields, take some of the first-fruits of the grain to the priest;

¹¹And let the grain be waved before the Lord, so that you may be pleasing to him; on the day after the Sabbath let it be waved by the priest.

¹²And on the day of the waving of the grain, you are to give a male lamb of the first year, without any mark, for a burned offering to the Lord.

¹³And let the meal offering with it be two tenth parts of an ephah of the best meal mixed with oil, an offering made by fire to the Lord for a sweet smell; and the drink offering with it is to be of wine, the fourth part of a hin.

¹⁴And you may take no bread or dry grain or new grain for food till the very day on which you have given the offering for your God: this is a rule for ever through all your generations wherever you are living.

¹⁵And let seven full weeks be numbered from the day after the Sabbath, the day when you give the grain for the wave offering;

¹⁶Let fifty days be numbered, to the day after the seventh Sabbath; then you are to give a new meal offering to the Lord.

¹⁷Take from your houses two cakes of bread, made of a fifth part of an ephah of the best meal, cooked with leaven, to be waved for first-fruits to the Lord.

¹⁸And with the bread, take seven lambs of the first year, without any marks, and one ox and two male sheep, to be a burned offering to the Lord, with their meal offering and their drink offerings, an offering of a sweet smell made by fire to the Lord.

¹⁹And you are to give one male goat for a sin-offering and two male lambs of the first year for peace-offerings.

²⁰And these will be waved by the priest, with the bread of the first-fruits, for a wave offering to the Lord, with the two lambs: they will be holy to the Lord for the priest.

²¹And on the same day, let it be given out that there will be a holy meeting for you: you may do no field-work on that day: it is a rule for ever through all your generations wherever you are living.

²²And when you get in the grain from your land, do not let all the grain at the edges of the field be cut, and do not take up the grain which has been dropped in the field; let that be for the poor, and for the man from another country: I am the Lord your God.

²³And the Lord said to Moses,

²⁴Say to the children of Israel, In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, let there be a special day of rest for you, a day of memory, marked by the blowing of horns, a meeting for worship.

²⁵Do no field-work and give to the Lord an offering made by fire.

²⁶And the Lord said to Moses,

²⁷The tenth day of this seventh month is the day for the taking away of sin; let it be a holy day of worship; you are to keep from pleasure, and give to the Lord an offering made by fire.

²⁸And on that day you may do no sort of work, for it is a day of taking away sin, to make you clean before the Lord your God.

²⁹For any person, whoever he may be, who takes his pleasure on that day will be cut off from his people.

³⁰And if any person, whoever he may be, on that day does any sort of work, I will send destruction on him from among his people.

³¹You may not do any sort of work: this is an order for ever through all your generations wherever you may be living.

³²Let this be a Sabbath of special rest to you, and keep yourselves from all pleasure; on the ninth day of the month at nightfall from evening to evening, let this Sabbath be kept.

³³And the Lord said to Moses,

³⁴Say to the children of Israel, On the fifteenth day of this seventh month let the feast of tents be kept to the Lord for seven days.

³⁵On the first day there will be a holy meeting: do no field-work.

³⁶Every day for seven days give an offering made by fire to the Lord; and on the eighth day there is to be a holy meeting, when you are to give an offering made by fire to the Lord; this is a special holy day: you may do no field-work on that day.

³⁷These are the fixed feasts of the Lord, to be kept by you as holy days of worship, for making an offering by fire to the Lord; a burned offering, a meal offering, an offering of beasts, and drink offerings; every one on its special day;

³⁸In addition to the Sabbaths of the Lord, and in addition to the things you give and the oaths you make and the free offerings to the Lord.

³⁹But on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have got in all the fruits of the land, you will keep the feast of the Lord for seven days: the first day will be a Sabbath, and the eighth day the same.

⁴⁰On the first day, take the fruit of fair trees, branches of palm-trees, and branches of thick trees and trees from the riverside, and be glad before the Lord for seven days.

⁴¹And let this feast be kept before the Lord for seven days in the year: it is a rule for ever from generation to generation; in the seventh month let it be kept.

⁴²For seven days you will be living in tents; all those who are Israelites by birth are to make tents their living-places:

⁴³So that future generations may keep in mind how I gave the children of Israel tents as their living-places when I took them out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.

⁴⁴And Moses made clear to the children of Israel the orders about the fixed feasts of the Lord.

24And the Lord said to Moses,

²Give orders to the children of Israel to give you clean olive oil for the light, so that a light may be burning at all times,

³Outside the veil of the ark in the Tent of meeting; let Aaron see that it is burning from evening till morning at all times before the Lord: it is a rule for ever through all your generations.

⁴Let Aaron put the lights in order on the support before the Lord at all times.

⁵And take the best meal and make twelve cakes of it, a fifth part of an ephah in every cake.

⁶And put them in two lines, six in a line, on the holy table before the Lord.

⁷And on the lines of cakes put clean sweet-smelling spices, for a sign on the bread, an offering made by fire to the Lord.

⁸Every Sabbath day regularly, the priest is to put it in order before the Lord: it is offered for the children of Israel, an agreement made for ever.

⁹And it will be for Aaron and his sons; they are to take it for food in a holy place: it is the most holy of all the offerings made by fire to the Lord, a rule for ever.

¹⁰And a son of an Israelite woman, whose father was an Egyptian, went out among the children of Israel and had a fight with a man of Israel by the tents;

¹¹And the son of the Israelite woman said evil against the holy Name, with curses; and they took him to Moses. His mother's name was Shelomith, the daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan.

¹²And they kept him shut up, till a decision might be given by the mouth of the Lord.

¹³And the Lord said to Moses,

¹⁴Take the curser outside the tent-circle; and let all in whose hearing the words were said put their hands on his head, and let him be stoned by all the people.

¹⁵And say to the children of Israel, As for any man cursing God, his sin will be on his head.

¹⁶And he who says evil against the name of the Lord will certainly be put to death; he will be stoned by all the people; the man who is not of your nation and one who is an Israelite by birth, whoever says evil against the holy Name is to be put to death.

¹⁷And anyone who takes another's life is certainly to be put to death.

¹⁸And anyone wounding a beast and causing its death, will have to make payment for it: a life for a life.

¹⁹And if a man does damage to his neighbour, as he has done, so let it be done to him;

²⁰Wound for wound, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; whatever damage he has done, so let it be done to him.

²¹He who puts a beast to death will have to make payment for it; he who puts a man to death will himself be put to death.

²²You are to have the same law for a man of another nation living among you as for an Israelite; for I am the Lord your God.

²³And Moses said these words to the children of Israel, and they took the man who had been cursing outside the tent-circle and had him stoned. The children of Israel did as the Lord gave orders to Moses.

25And the Lord said to Moses on Mount Sinai,

²Say to the children of Israel, When you come into the land which I will give you, let the land keep a Sabbath to the Lord.

³For six years put seed into your land, and for six years give care to your vines and get in the produce of them;

⁴But let the seventh year be a Sabbath of rest for the land, a Sabbath to the Lord; do not put seed into your land or have your vines cut.

⁵That which comes to growth of itself may not be cut, and the grapes of your uncared-for vines may not be taken off; let it be a year of rest for the land.

⁶And the Sabbath of the land will give food for you and your man-servant and your woman-servant and those working for payment, and for those of another country who are living among you;

⁷And for your cattle and the beasts on the land; all the natural increase of the land will be for food.

⁸And let seven Sabbaths of years be numbered to you, seven times seven years; even the days of seven Sabbaths of years, that is forty-nine years;

⁹Then let the loud horn be sounded far and wide on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the day of taking away sin let the horn be sounded through all your land.

¹⁰And let this fiftieth year be kept holy, and say publicly that everyone in the land is free from debt: it is the Jubilee, and every man may go back to his heritage and to his family.

¹¹Let this fiftieth year be the Jubilee: no seed may be planted, and that which comes to growth of itself may not be cut, and the grapes may not be taken from the uncared-for vines.

¹²For it is the Jubilee, and it is holy to you; your food will be the natural increase of the field.

¹³In this year of Jubilee, let every man go back to his heritage.

¹⁴And in the business of trading goods for money, do no wrong to one another.

¹⁵Let your exchange of goods with your neighbours have relation to the number of years after the year of Jubilee, and the number of times the earth has given her produce.

¹⁶If the number of years is great, the price will be increased, and if the number of years is small, the price will be less, for it is the produce of a certain number of years which the man is giving you.

¹⁷And do no wrong, one to another, but let the fear of your God be before you; for I am the Lord your God.

¹⁸So keep my rules and my decisions and do them, and you will be safe in your land.

¹⁹And the land will give her fruit, and you will have food in full measure and be safe in the land.

²⁰And if you say, Where will our food come from in the seventh year, when we may not put in seed, or get in the increase

²¹Then I will send my blessing on you in the sixth year, and the land will give fruit enough for three years.

²²And in the eighth year you will put in your seed, and get your food from the old stores, till the fruit of the ninth year is ready.

²³No exchange of land may be for ever, for the land is mine, and you are as my guests, living with me for a time.

²⁴Wherever there is property in land, the owner is to have the right of getting it back.

²⁵If your brother becomes poor, and has to give up some of his land for money, his nearest relation may come and get back that which his brother has given up.

²⁶And if he has no one to get it back for him, and later he himself gets wealth and has enough money to get it back;

²⁷Then let him take into account the years from the time when he gave it up, and make up the loss for the rest of the years to him who took it, and so get back his property.

²⁸But if he is not able to get it back for himself, then it will be kept by him who gave a price for it, till the year of Jubilee; and in that year it will go back to its first owner and he will have his property again.

²⁹And if a man gives his house in a walled town for money, he has the right to get it back for the space of a full year after he has given it up.

³⁰And if he does not get it back by the end of the year, then the house in the town will become the property of him who gave the money for it, and of his children for ever; it will not go from him in the year of Jubilee.

³¹But houses in small unwalled towns will be the same as property in the country; they may be got back, and they will go back to their owners in the year of Jubilee.

³²But the houses in the towns of the Levites may be got back by the Levites at any time.

³³And if a Levite does not give money to get back his property, his house in the town which was exchanged for money will come back to him in the year of Jubilee. For the houses of the towns of the Levites are their property among the children of Israel.

³⁴But the land on the outskirts of their towns may not be exchanged for money, for it is their property for ever.

³⁵And if your brother becomes poor and is not able to make a living, then you are to keep him with you, helping him as you would a man from another country who is living among you.

³⁶Take no interest from him, in money or in goods, but have the fear of your God before you, and let your brother make a living among you.

³⁷Do not take interest on the money which you let him have or on the food which you give him.

³⁸I am the Lord your God, who took you out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan, that I might be your God.

³⁹And if your brother becomes poor and gives himself to you for money, do not make use of him like a servant who is your property;

⁴⁰But let him be with you as a servant working for payment, till the year of Jubilee;

⁴¹Then he will go out from you, he and his children with him, and go back to his family and to the property of his fathers.

⁴²For they are my servants whom I took out from the land of Egypt; they may not become the property of another.

⁴³Do not be a hard master to him, but have the fear of God before you.

⁴⁴But you may get servants as property from among the nations round about; from them you may take men-servants and women-servants.

⁴⁵And in addition, you may get, for money, servants from among the children of other nations who are living with you, and from their families which have come to birth in your land; and these will be your property.

⁴⁶And they will be your children's heritage after you, to keep as their property; they will be your servants for ever; but you may not be hard masters to your countrymen, the children of Israel.

⁴⁷And if one from another nation living among you gets wealth, and your countryman, at his side, becomes poor and gives himself for money to the man from another nation or to one of his family;

⁴⁸After he has given himself he has the right to be made free, for a price, by one of his brothers,

⁴⁹Or his father's brother, or the son of his father's brother, or any near relation; or if he gets money, he may make himself free.

⁵⁰And let the years be numbered from the time when he gave himself to his owner till the year of Jubilee, and the price given for him will be in relation to the number of years, on the scale of the payment of a servant.

⁵¹If there is still a long time, he will give back, on account of it, a part of the price which was given for him.

⁵²And if there is only a short time, he will take account of it with his master, and in relation to the number of years he will give back the price of making him free.

⁵³And he will be with him as a servant working for payment year by year; his master is not to be cruel to him before your eyes.

⁵⁴And if he is not made free in this way, he will go out in the year of Jubilee, he and his children with him.

⁵⁵For the children of Israel are servants to me; they are my servants whom I took out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.

26Do not make images of false gods, or put up an image cut in stone or a pillar or any pictured stone in your land, to give worship to it; for I am the Lord your God.

²Keep my Sabbaths and give honour to my holy place: I am the Lord.

³If you are guided by my rules, and keep my laws and do them,

⁴Then I will give you rain at the right time, and the land will give her increase and the trees of the field will give their fruit;

⁵And the crushing of the grain will overtake the cutting of the grapes, and the cutting of the grapes will overtake the planting of the seed, and there will be bread in full measure, and you will be living in your land safely.

⁶And I will give you peace in the land, and you will take your rest and no one will give you cause for fear; and I will put an end to all evil beasts in the land, and no sword of war will go through your land.

⁷And you will put to flight those who are against you, and they will be put to death by your swords.

⁸Then five of you will put to flight a hundred, and a hundred of you will put to flight ten thousand, and all who are against you will be put to death by your swords.

⁹And I will have pleasure in you and make you fertile and greater in number; and I will keep my agreement with you.

¹⁰And old stores long kept will be your food, and you will take out the old because of the new;

¹¹And I will put my holy House among you, and my soul will not be turned away from you in disgust.

¹²And I will be present among you and will be your God and you will be my people.

¹³I am the Lord your God, who took you out of the land of Egypt so that you might not be servants to them; by me the cords of your yoke were broken and I made you go upright.

¹⁴But if you do not give ear to me, and do not keep all these my laws;

¹⁵And if you go against my rules and if you have hate in your souls for my decisions and you do not do all my orders, but go against my agreement;

¹⁶This will I do to you: I will put fear in your hearts, even wasting disease and burning pain, drying up the eyes and making the soul feeble, and you will get no profit from your seed, for your haters will take it for food.

¹⁷And my face will be turned from you, and you will be broken before those who are against you, and your haters will become your rulers, and you will go in flight when no man comes after you.

¹⁸And if, even after these things, you will not give ear to me, then I will send you punishment seven times more for your sins.

¹⁹And the pride of your strength will be broken, and I will make your heaven as iron and your earth as brass;

²⁰And your strength will be used up without profit; for your land will not give her increase and the trees of the field will not give their fruit.

²¹And if you still go against me and will not give ear to me, I will put seven times more punishments on you because of your sins.

²²I will let loose the beasts of the field among you, and they will take away your children and send destruction on your cattle, so that your numbers will become small and your roads become waste.

²³And if by these things you will not be turned to me, but still go against me;

²⁴Then I will go against you, and I will give you punishment, I myself, seven times for all your sins.

²⁵And I will send a sword on you to give effect to the punishment of my agreement; and when you come together into your towns I will send disease among you and you will be given up into the hands of your haters.

²⁶When I take away your bread of life, ten women will be cooking bread in one oven, and your bread will be measured out by weight; you will have food but never enough.

²⁷And if, after all this, you do not give ear to me, but go against me still,

²⁸Then my wrath will be burning against you, and I will give you punishment, I myself, seven times for your sins.

²⁹Then you will take the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters for food;

³⁰And I will send destruction on your high places, overturning your perfume altars, and will put your dead bodies on your broken images, and my soul will be turned from you in disgust.

³¹And I will make your towns waste and send destruction on your holy places; I will take no pleasure in the smell of your sweet perfumes;

³²And I will make your land a waste, a wonder to your haters living in it.

³³And I will send you out in all directions among the nations, and my sword will be uncovered against you, and your land will be without any living thing, and your towns will be made waste.

³⁴Then will the land take pleasure in its Sabbaths while it is waste and you are living in the land of your haters; then will the land have rest.

³⁵All the days while it is waste will the land have rest, such rest as it never had in your Sabbaths, when you were living in it.

³⁶And as for the rest of you, I will make their hearts feeble in the land of their haters, and the sound of a leaf moved by the wind will send them in flight, and they will go in flight as from the sword, falling down when no one comes after them;

³⁷Falling on one another, as before the sword, when no one comes after them; you will give way before your haters.

³⁸And death will overtake you among strange nations, and the land of your haters will be your destruction.

³⁹And those of you who are still living will be wasting away in their sins in the land of your haters; in the sins of their fathers they will be wasting away.

⁴⁰And they will have grief for their sins and for the sins of their fathers, when their hearts were untrue to me, and they went against me;

⁴¹So that I went against them and sent them away into the land of their haters: if then the pride of their hearts is broken and they take the punishment of their sins,

⁴²Then I will keep in mind the agreement which I made with Jacob and with Isaac and with Abraham, and I will keep in mind the land.

⁴³And the land, while she is without them, will keep her Sabbaths; and they will undergo the punishment of their sins, because they were turned away from my decisions and in their souls was hate for my laws.

⁴⁴But for all that, when they are in the land of their haters I will not let them go, or be turned away from them, or give them up completely; my agreement with them will not be broken, for I am the Lord their God.

⁴⁵And because of them I will keep in mind the agreement which I made with their fathers, whom I took out of the land of Egypt before the eyes of the nations, to be their God: I am the Lord.

⁴⁶These are the rules, decisions, and laws, which the Lord made between himself and the children of Israel in Mount Sinai, by the hand of Moses.

27And the Lord said to Moses,

²Say to the children of Israel, If a man makes a special oath, you will give your decision as to the value of the persons for the Lord.

³And you will put the value of a male from twenty years to sixty years old at fifty shekels of silver, by the scale of the holy place.

⁴And if it is a female, the value will be thirty shekels.

⁵And if the person is from five to twenty years old, the value will be twenty shekels for a male, and ten for a female.

⁶And if the person is from one month to five years old, then the value for a male will be five shekels of silver, and for a female three shekels.

⁷And for sixty years old and over, for a male the value will be fifteen shekels, and for a female, ten.

⁸But if he is poorer than the value which you have put on him, then let him be taken to the priest, and the priest will put a value on him, such as it is possible for him to give.

⁹And if it is a beast of which men make offerings to the Lord, whatever any man gives of such to the Lord will be holy.

¹⁰It may not be changed in any way, a good given for a bad, or a bad for a good; if one beast is changed for another, the two will be holy.

¹¹And if it is any unclean beast, of which offerings are not made to the Lord, then let him take the beast before the priest;

¹²And let the priest put a value on it, if it is good or bad; whatever value the priest puts on it, so will it be.

¹³But if he has a desire to get it back for himself, let him give a fifth more than your value.

¹⁴And if a man has given his house as holy to the Lord, then the priest will put a value on it, if it is good or bad; as the priest gives decision so will the value be fixed.

¹⁵And if the owner has a desire to get back his house, let him give a fifth more than your value, and it will be his.

¹⁶And if a man gives to the Lord part of the field which is his property, then let your value be in relation to the seed which is planted in it; a measure of barley grain will be valued at fifty shekels of silver.

¹⁷If he gives his field from the year of Jubilee, the value will be fixed by your decision.

¹⁸But if he gives his field after the year of Jubilee, the amount of the money will be worked out by the priest in relation to the number of years till the coming year of Jubilee, and the necessary amount will be taken off your value.

¹⁹And if the man who has given the field has a desire to get it back, let him give a fifth more than the price at which it was valued and it will be his.

²⁰But if he has no desire to get it back, or if he has given it for a price to another man, it may not be got back again.

²¹But the field, when it becomes free at the year of Jubilee, will be holy to the Lord, as a field given under oath: it will be the property of the priest.

²²And if a man gives to the Lord a field which he has got for money from another, which is not part of his heritage;

²³Then the value fixed by you up to the year of Jubilee will be worked out for him by the priest, and in that day he will give the amount of your value as holy to the Lord.

²⁴In the year of Jubilee the field will go back to him from whom he got it, that is, to him whose heritage it was.

²⁵And let all your values be based on the shekel of the holy place, that is, twenty gerahs to the shekel.

²⁶But a man may not give by oath to the Lord the first-fruits of cattle which are offered to the Lord: if it is an ox or a sheep it is the Lord's.

²⁷And if it is an unclean beast, then the owner of it may give money to get it back, in agreement with the value fixed by you, by giving a fifth more; or if it is not taken back, let it be given for money in agreement with your valuing.

²⁸But nothing which a man has given completely to the Lord, out of all his property, of man or beast, or of the land which is his heritage, may be given away or got back in exchange for money; anything completely given is most holy to the Lord.

²⁹Any man given completely to the Lord may not be got back: he is certainly to be put to death.

³⁰And every tenth part of the land, of the seed planted, or of the fruit of trees, is holy to the Lord.

³¹And if a man has a desire to get back any of the tenth part which he has given, let him give a fifth more.

³²And a tenth part of the herd and of the flock, whatever goes under the rod of the valuer, will be holy to the Lord.

³³He may not make search to see if it is good or bad, or make any changes in it; and if he makes exchange of it for another, the two will be holy; he will not get them back again.

³⁴These are the orders which the Lord gave to Moses for the children of Israel in Mount Sinai.

1And the Lord said to Moses in the waste land of Sinai, in the Tent of meeting, on the first day of the second month, in the second year after they came out of the land of Egypt,

²Take the full number of the children of Israel, by their families, and by their fathers' houses, every male by name;

³All those of twenty years old and over, who are able to go to war in Israel, are to be numbered by you and Aaron.

⁴And to give you help, take one man from every tribe, the head of his father's house.

⁵These are the names of those who are to be your helpers: from Reuben, Elizur, the son of Shedeur;

⁶From Simeon, Shelumiel, the son of Zurishaddai;

⁷From Judah, Nahshon, the son of Amminadab;

⁸From Issachar, Nethanel, the son of Zuar;

⁹From Zebulun, Eliab, the son of Helon;

¹⁰Of the children of Joseph: from Ephraim, Elishama, the son of Ammihud; from Manasseh, Gamaliel, the son of Pedahzur,

¹¹From Benjamin, Abidan, the son of Gideoni;

¹²From Dan, Ahiezer, the son of Ammi-shaddai;

¹³From Asher, Pagiel, the son of Ochran;

¹⁴From Gad, Eliasaph, the son of Reuel;

¹⁵From Naphtali, Ahira, the son of Enan.

¹⁶These are the men named out of all the people, chiefs of their fathers' houses, heads of the tribes of Israel.

¹⁷And Moses and Aaron took these men, marked out by name;

¹⁸And they got together all the people on the first day of the second month; and everyone made clear his family and his father's house, by the number of the names, from twenty years old and over.

¹⁹As the Lord had given orders to Moses, so they were numbered by him in the waste place of Sinai.

²⁰The generations of the sons of Reuben, the oldest son of Israel, were numbered by their families and their fathers' houses, every male of twenty years old and over, who was able to go to war;

²¹Forty-six thousand, five hundred of the tribe of Reuben were numbered.

²²The generations of the sons of Simeon were numbered by their families and their fathers' houses, every male of twenty years old and over, who was able to go to war;

²³Fifty-nine thousand, three hundred of the tribe of Simeon were numbered.

²⁴The generations of the sons of Gad were numbered by their families and their fathers' houses, every male of twenty years old and over who was able to go to war;

²⁵Forty-five thousand, six hundred and fifty of the tribe of Gad were numbered.

²⁶The generations of the sons of Judah were numbered by their families and their fathers' houses, every male of twenty years old and over who was able to go to war;

²⁷Seventy-four thousand, six hundred of the tribe of Judah were numbered.

²⁸The generations of the sons of Issachar were numbered by their families and their fathers' houses, every male of twenty years old and over who was able to go to war;

²⁹Fifty-four thousand, four hundred of the tribe of Issachar were numbered.

³⁰The generations of the sons of Zebulun were numbered by their families and their fathers' houses, every male of twenty years old and over who was able to go to war;

³¹Fifty-seven thousand, four hundred of the tribe of Zebulun were numbered.

³²The generations of the sons of Joseph were numbered by their families and their fathers' houses, every male of twenty years old and over who was able to go to war;

³³Forty thousand, five hundred of the tribe of Ephraim were numbered.

³⁴The generations of the sons of Manasseh were numbered by their families and their fathers' houses, every male of twenty years old and over who was able to go to war;

³⁵Thirty-two thousand, two hundred of the tribe of Manasseh were numbered.

³⁶The generations of the sons of Benjamin were numbered by their families and their fathers' houses, every male of twenty years old and over who was able to go to war;

³⁷Thirty-five thousand, four hundred of the tribe of Benjamin were numbered.

³⁸The generations of the sons of Dan were numbered by their families and their fathers' houses, every male of twenty years and over who was able to go to war;

³⁹Sixty-two thousand, seven hundred of the tribe of Dan were numbered.

⁴⁰The generations of the sons of Asher were numbered by their families and their fathers' houses, every male of twenty years old and over who was able to go to war;

⁴¹Forty-one thousand, five hundred of the tribe of Asher were numbered.

⁴²The generations of the sons of Naphtali were numbered by their families and their fathers' houses, every male of twenty years old and over who was able to go to war;

⁴³Fifty-three thousand, four hundred of the tribe of Naphtali were numbered.

⁴⁴These are they who were numbered by Moses and Aaron and by the twelve chiefs of Israel, one from every tribe.

⁴⁵So all those who were numbered of the children of Israel, by their families, all those of twenty years old and over who were able to go to war,

⁴⁶Were six hundred and three thousand, five hundred and fifty.

⁴⁷But the Levites, of the tribe of their fathers, were not numbered among them.

⁴⁸For the Lord said to Moses,

⁴⁹Only the tribe of Levi is not to be numbered among the children of Israel,

⁵⁰But to them you are to give the care of the Tent of meeting with its vessels and everything in it: they are to take up the Tent, and be responsible for everything to do with it, and put up their tents round it.

⁵¹And when the Tent of meeting goes forward, the Levites are to take it down; and when it is to be put up, they are to do it: any strange person who comes near it is to be put to death.

⁵²The children of Israel are to put up their tents, every man in his tent-circle round his flag.

⁵³But the tents of the Levites are to be round the Tent of meeting, so that wrath may not come on the children of Israel: the Tent of meeting is to be in the care of the Levites.

⁵⁴So the children of Israel did as the Lord had given orders to Moses.

2And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron,

²The children of Israel are to put up their tents in the order of their families, by the flags of their fathers' houses, facing the Tent of meeting on every side.

³Those whose tents are on the east side, looking to the dawn, will be round the flag of the children of Judah, with Nahshon, the son of Amminadab, as their chief.

⁴The number of his army was seventy-four thousand, six hundred.

⁵And nearest to him will be the tribe of Issachar, with Nethanel, the son of Zuar, as their chief.

⁶The number of his army was fifty-four thousand, four hundred.

⁷After him, the tribe of Zebulun, with Eliab, the son of Helon, as their chief.

⁸The number of his army was fifty-seven thousand, four hundred.

⁹The number of all the armies of Judah was a hundred and eighty-six thousand, four hundred. They go forward first.

¹⁰On the south side is the flag of the children of Reuben, in the order of their armies, with Elizur, the son of Shedeur, as their chief.

¹¹The number of his army was forty-six thousand, five hundred.

¹²And nearest to him, the tribe of Simeon, with Shelumiel, the son of Zurishaddai, as their chief.

¹³The number of his army was fifty-nine thousand, three hundred.

¹⁴Then the tribe of Gad, with Eliasaph, son of Reuel, as their chief.

¹⁵The number of his army was forty-five thousand, six hundred and fifty.

¹⁶The number of all the armies of Reuben together came to a hundred and fifty-one thousand, four hundred and fifty. They go forward second.

¹⁷Then the Tent of meeting is to go forward, with the tents of the Levites, in the middle of the armies; in the same order as their tents are placed, they are to go forward, every man under his flag.

¹⁸On the west side will be the flag of the children of Ephraim, with Elishama, the son of Ammihud, as their chief.

¹⁹The number of his army was forty thousand, five hundred.

²⁰And by him the tribe of Manasseh with Gamaliel, the son of Pedahzur, as their chief.

²¹The number of his army was thirty-two thousand, two hundred.

²²Then the tribe of Benjamin, with Abidan, the son of Gideoni, as their chief.

²³The number of his army was thirty-five thousand, four hundred.

²⁴The number of all the armies of Ephraim was a hundred and eight thousand, one hundred. They go forward third.

²⁵On the north side will be the flag of the children of Dan, with Ahiezer, the son of Ammishaddai, as their chief.

²⁶The number of his army was sixty-two thousand, seven hundred.

²⁷Nearest to him will be the tribe of Asher, with Pagiel, the son of Ochran, as their chief.

²⁸The number of his army was forty-one thousand, five hundred;

²⁹Then the tribe of Naphtali, with Ahira, the son of Enan, as their chief.

³⁰The number of his army was fifty-three thousand, four hundred.

³¹The number of all the armies in the tents of Dan was a hundred and fifty-seven thousand, six hundred. They will go forward last, by their flags.

³²These are all who were numbered of the children of Israel, in the order of their fathers' families: all the armies in their tents together came to six hundred and three thousand, five hundred and fifty.

³³But the Levites were not numbered among the children of Israel, as the Lord said to Moses.

³⁴So the children of Israel did as the Lord said to Moses, so they put up their tents by their flags, and they went forward in the same order, by their families, and by their fathers' houses.

3Now these are the generations of Aaron and Moses, in the day when the word of the Lord came to Moses on Mount Sinai.

²These are the names of the sons of Aaron: Nadab the oldest, and Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar.

³These are the names of the sons of Aaron, the priests, on whom the holy oil was put, who were marked out as priests.

⁴And Nadab and Abihu were put to death before the Lord when they made an offering of strange fire before the Lord, in the waste land of Sinai, and they had no children: and Eleazar and Ithamar did the work of priests before Aaron their father.

⁵And the Lord said to Moses,

⁶Make the tribe of Levi come near, and put them before Aaron the priest, to be his helpers,

⁷In order that they may be responsible to him and to all Israel for the care of the Tent of meeting, and to do the work of the House;

⁸And they will have the care of all the vessels of the Tent of meeting, and will do for the children of Israel all the necessary work of the House.

⁹Give the Levites to Aaron and his sons; so that they may be his without question from among the children of Israel.

¹⁰And give orders that Aaron and his sons are to keep their place as priests; any strange person who comes near is to be put to death.

¹¹And the Lord said to Moses,

¹²See, I have taken the Levites out of the children of Israel to be mine in place of the first sons of the children of Israel;

¹³For all the first sons are mine; on the day when I put to death all the first sons in the land of Egypt, I took for myself every first male birth of man and beast. They are mine; I am the Lord.

¹⁴And the Lord said to Moses in the waste land of Sinai,

¹⁵Let all the children of Levi be numbered by their families and their fathers' houses; let every male of a month old and over be numbered.

¹⁶So Moses did as the Lord said, numbering them as he had been ordered.

¹⁷These were the sons of Levi by name: Gershon and Kohath and Merari.

¹⁸And these are the names of the sons of Gershon, by their families: Libni and Shimei.

¹⁹And the sons of Kohath, by their families: Amram and Izhar and Hebron and Uzziel.

²⁰And the sons of Merari by their families: Mahli and Mushi. These are the families of the Levites in the order of their fathers' houses.

²¹From Gershon come the Libnites and the Shimeites; these are the families of the Gershonites.

²²Those who were numbered of them, the males from one month old and over, were seven thousand, five hundred.

²³The tents of the Gershonites are to be placed at the back of the House, to the west.

²⁴The chief of the Gershonites is Eliasaph, the son of Lael.

²⁵In the Tent of meeting, the Gershonites are to have the care of the House, and the Tent with its cover, and the veil for the door of the Tent of meeting,

²⁶And the hangings for the open space round the House and the altar, and the curtain for its doorway, and all the cords needed for its use.

²⁷From Kohath come the Amramites and the Izharites and the Hebronites and the Uzzielites; these are the families of the Kohathites.

²⁸Those who were numbered of them, the males from one month old and over, were eight thousand, six hundred, who were responsible for the care of the holy place.

²⁹The tents of the Kohathites are to be placed on the south side of the House.

³⁰Their chief is Elizaphan, the son of Uzziel.

³¹In their care are the ark, and the table, and the lights, and the altars, and all the vessels used in the holy place, and the veil, and all they are used for.

³²Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, will be head over all the Levites and overseer of those responsible for the care of the holy place.

³³From Merari come the Mahlites and the Mushites; these are the families of Merari.

³⁴Those who were numbered of them, the males of a month old and over, were six thousand, two hundred.

³⁵The chief of the families of Merari was Zuriel, the son of Abihail: their tents are to be placed on the north side of the House.

³⁶And in their care are to be all the boards of the Tent, with their rods and pillars and bases, and all the instruments, and all they are used for,

³⁷And the pillars of the open space round it, with their bases and nails and cords.

³⁸And those whose tents are to be placed on the east side of the House in front of the Tent of meeting, looking to the dawn, are Moses and Aaron and his sons, who will do the work of the holy place for the children of Israel; and any strange person who comes near will be put to death.

³⁹All the Levites numbered by Moses and Aaron at the order of the Lord, all the males of one month old and over numbered in the order of their families, were twenty-two thousand.

⁴⁰And the Lord said to Moses, Let all the first male children be numbered, and take the number of their names.

⁴¹And give to me the Levites (I am the Lord) in place of the first sons of the children of Israel; and the cattle of the Levites in place of the first births among the cattle of the children of Israel.

⁴²So Moses had all the first sons among the children of Israel numbered, as the Lord said to him.

⁴³Every first son from a month old and over was numbered by name, and the number came to twenty-two thousand, two hundred and seventy-three.

⁴⁴And the Lord said to Moses,

⁴⁵Take the Levites in place of all the first sons of the children of Israel, and the cattle of the Levites in place of their cattle; the Levites are to be mine; I am the Lord.

⁴⁶And the price you have to give for the two hundred and seventy-three first sons of the children of Israel which are in addition to the number of the Levites,

⁴⁷Will be five shekels for every one, by the scale of the holy place (the shekel is twenty gerahs);

⁴⁸And this money, the price of those over the number of the Levites, is to be given to Aaron and his sons.

⁴⁹So Moses took the money, the price of those whose place had not been taken by the Levites;

⁵⁰From the first sons of Israel he took it, a thousand, three hundred and sixty-five shekels, by the scale of the holy place;

⁵¹And he gave the money to Aaron and his sons, as the Lord had said.

4And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron,

²Let the sons of Kohath, from among the sons of Levi, be numbered by their families, in the order of their fathers' houses;

³All those from thirty to fifty years old who are able to do the work of the Tent of meeting.

⁴And this is to be the work of the sons of Kohath in connection with the most holy things.

⁵When all the people go forward, Aaron is to go in with his sons, and take down the veil of the curtain, covering the ark of witness with it;

⁶And putting over it the leather cover and over that a blue cloth; and putting its rods in place.

⁷And on the table of the holy bread they are to put a blue cloth, and on it all the vessels, the spoons and the basins and the cups; and the holy bread with them;

⁸And over them they are to put a red cloth, covering it with a leather cover, and putting its rods in their places.

⁹And they are to take a blue cloth, covering with it the light-support with its lights and its instruments and its trays and all the oil vessels which are used for it:

¹⁰All these they are to put in a leather cover, and put it on the frame.

¹¹On the gold altar they are to put a blue cloth, covering it with a leather cover; and they are to put its rods in their places.

¹²All the vessels which are used in the holy place they are to put in a blue cloth, covering them with a leather cover, and put them on the frame.

¹³And they are to take away the burned waste from the altar, and put a purple cloth on it;

¹⁴Placing on the cloth all its vessels, the fire-baskets, the meat-hooks, the spades, and the basins; all the vessels of the altar; they are to put a leather cover over all these, and put its rods in their places.

¹⁵And after the holy place and all its vessels have been covered up by Aaron and his sons, when the tents of the people go forward, the sons of Kohath are to come and take it up; but the holy things may not be touched by them for fear of death.

¹⁶And Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, is to be responsible for the oil for the light, and the sweet perfumes for burning, and the regular meal offering, and the holy oil; the House and the holy place and everything in it will be in his care.

¹⁷And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron,

¹⁸Do not let the family of the Kohathites be cut off from among the Levites;

¹⁹But do this to them, so that life and not death may be theirs when they come near the most holy things; let Aaron and his sons go in and give to every one his work and that which he is to take up;

²⁰But they themselves are not to go in to see the holy place, even for a minute, for fear of death.

²¹And the Lord said to Moses,

²²Let the sons of Gershon be numbered by families, in the order of their fathers' houses;

²³All those from thirty to fifty years old who are able to do the work of the Tent of meeting.

²⁴This is to be the work of the Gershonites, the things they are to do and take up.

²⁵They are to take up the curtains of the House, and the Tent of meeting with its cover and the leather cover over it, and the hangings for the door of the Tent of meeting;

²⁶And the hangings for the open space round the House and the altar, and the curtain for its doorway, with the cords and all the things used for them; whatever is necessary for these, they are to do.

²⁷From the mouth of Aaron and his sons the Gershonites will have word about all the things they are to do and take up; you are to give them their orders.

²⁸This is the work of the family of the Gershonites in the Tent of meeting, and they will be under the direction of Ithamar, the son of Aaron the priest.

²⁹The sons of Merari are to be numbered by families, in the order of their fathers' houses;

³⁰Every one from thirty to fifty years old who is able to do the work of the Tent of meeting.

³¹And this is their part in the work of the Tent of meeting: the transport of the boards and the rods of the Tent, with the pillars and their bases;

³²And the pillars of the open space outside it, with their bases and their nails and cords and all the instruments used, and everything which has to be done there; all the instruments for which they are responsible are to be numbered by name.

³³This is the work which the sons of Merari are to do in connection with the Tent of meeting, under the direction of Ithamar, the son of Aaron the priest.

³⁴So Moses and Aaron and the chiefs of the people took in hand the numbering of the sons of the Kohathites, by families, in the order of their fathers' houses;

³⁵Numbering all those from thirty to fifty years old who were able to do the work in the Tent of meeting;

³⁶And the number of all these was two thousand, seven hundred and fifty.

³⁷This is the number of those of the Kohathites who did the work in the Tent of meeting, as they were numbered by Moses and Aaron at the order of the Lord.

³⁸And those of the sons of Gershon who were numbered by families,

³⁹All those from thirty to fifty years old who were able to do the work in the Tent of meeting,

⁴⁰Who were numbered by families in the order of their fathers' houses, were two thousand, six hundred and thirty.

⁴¹This is the number of the sons of Gershon who did the work in the Tent of meeting, as they were numbered by Moses and Aaron at the order of the Lord.

⁴²And those of the sons of Merari who were numbered by families, in the order of their fathers' houses,

⁴³All those from thirty to fifty years old who did the work in the Tent of meeting,

⁴⁴Who were numbered by families, were three thousand, two hundred.

⁴⁵This is the number of the sons of Merari, numbered by Moses and Aaron at the order of the Lord.

⁴⁶And all the Levites who were numbered by Moses and Aaron and the chiefs of the people, by families, in the order of their fathers' houses,

⁴⁷Those from thirty to fifty years old who were able to do the work of the Tent of meeting and of its transport,

⁴⁸Came to eight thousand, five hundred and eighty.

⁴⁹At the order of the Lord they were numbered by Moses, every one in relation to his work and to his part in the transport; so they were numbered by Moses at the order of the Lord.

5And the Lord said to Moses,

²Give orders to the children of Israel to put outside the tent-circle every leper, and anyone who has any sort of flow from his body, and anyone who is unclean from the touch of the dead;

³Male or female they are to be put outside the tent-circle, so that they may not make unclean my resting-place among them.

⁴So the children of Israel did as the Lord had said to Moses, and put them outside the tent-circle.

⁵And the Lord said to Moses,

⁶Say to the children of Israel, If a man or a woman does any of the sins of men, going against the word of the Lord, and is in the wrong;

⁷Let them say openly what they have done; and make payment for the wrong done, with the addition of a fifth part, and give it to him to whom the wrong was done.

⁸But if the man has no relation to whom the payment may be made, then the payment for sin made to the Lord will be the priest's, in addition to the sheep offered to take away his sin.

⁹And every offering lifted up of all the holy things which the children of Israel give to the priest, will be his.

¹⁰And every man's holy things will be his: whatever a man gives to the priest will be his.

¹¹And the Lord said to Moses,

¹²Say to the children of Israel, If any man's wife does wrong, sinning against him

¹³By taking as her lover another man, and keeps it secret so that her husband has no knowledge of it, and there is no witness against her, and she is not taken in the act;

¹⁴If the spirit of doubt comes into her husband's heart, and he has doubts of his wife, with good cause; or if he has doubts of her without cause:

¹⁵Then let him take her to the priest, offering for her the tenth part of an ephah of barley meal, without oil or perfume; for it is a meal offering of a bitter spirit, a meal offering keeping wrongdoing in mind.

¹⁶And the priest will make her come near and put her before the Lord;

¹⁷And the priest will take holy water in a pot and put in it dust from the floor of the House;

¹⁸And he will make the woman come before the Lord with her hair loose, and will put the meal offering, the offering of a bitter spirit, in her hands; and the priest will take in his hand the bitter water causing the curse;

¹⁹And he will make her take an oath, and say to her, If no man has been your lover and you have not been with another in place of your husband, you are free from this bitter water causing the curse;

²⁰But if you have been with another in place of your husband and have made yourself unclean with a lover:

²¹Then the priest will put the oath of the curse on the woman, and say to her, May the Lord make you a curse and an oath among your people, sending on you wasting of the legs and disease of the stomach;

²²And this water of the curse will go into your body, causing disease of your stomach and wasting of your legs: and the woman will say, So be it.

²³And the priest will put these curses in a book, washing out the writing with the bitter water;

²⁴And he will give to the woman the bitter water for drink; and the bitter water causing the curse will go into her.

²⁵And the priest will take from her hand the meal offering of doubt, waving it before the Lord, and will take it to the altar;

²⁶And he will take some of it in his hand, burning it on the altar as a sign, and then he will give the woman the bitter water.

²⁷And it will be that if the woman has become unclean, sinning against her husband, when she has taken the bitter water it will go into her body, causing disease of the stomach and wasting of the legs, and she will be a curse among her people.

²⁸But if she is clean she will be free and will have offspring.

²⁹This is the law for testing a wife who goes with another in place of her husband and becomes unclean;

³⁰Or for a husband who, in a bitter spirit, has doubts in his heart about his wife; let him take her to the priest, who will put in force this law.

³¹Then the man will be free from all wrong, and the woman's sin will be on her.

6And the Lord said to Moses,

²Say to the children of Israel, If a man or a woman takes an oath to keep himself separate and give himself to the Lord;

³He is to keep himself from wine and strong drink, and take no mixed wine or strong drink or any drink made from grapes, or any grapes, green or dry.

⁴All the time he is separate he may take nothing made from the grape-vine, from its seeds to its skin.

⁵All the time he is under his oath let no blade come near his head; till the days while he is separate are ended he is holy and his hair may not be cut.

⁶All the time he is separate he may not come near any dead body.

⁷He may not make himself unclean for his father or his mother, his sister or his brother, if death comes to them; because he is under an oath to keep himself separate for God.

⁸All the time he is separate he is holy to the Lord.

⁹If death comes suddenly to a man at his side, so that he becomes unclean, let his hair be cut off on the day when he is made clean, on the seventh day.

¹⁰And on the eighth day let him take to the priest, at the door of the Tent of meeting, two doves or two young pigeons;

¹¹And the priest will give one for a sin-offering and the other for a burned offering to take away the sin which came on him on account of the dead, and he will make his head holy that same day.

¹²And he will give to the Lord his days of being separate, offering a he-lamb of the first year as an offering for error: but the earlier days will be a loss, because he became unclean.

¹³And this is the law for him who is separate, when the necessary days are ended: he is to come to the door of the Tent of meeting,

¹⁴And make his offering to the Lord; one he-lamb of the first year, without a mark, for a burned offering, and one female lamb of the first year, without a mark, for a sin-offering, and one male sheep, without a mark, for peace-offerings,

¹⁵And a basket of unleavened bread, cakes of the best meal mixed with oil, and thin unleavened cakes covered with oil, with their meal offering and drink offerings.

¹⁶And the priest will take them before the Lord, and make his sin-offering and his burned offering;

¹⁷Giving the sheep of the peace-offerings, with the basket of unleavened bread; and at the same time, the priest will make his meal offering and his drink offering.

¹⁸Then let his long hair, the sign of his oath, be cut off at the door of the Tent of meeting, and let him put it on the fire on which the peace-offerings are burning.

¹⁹And the priest will take the cooked leg of the sheep and one unleavened cake and one thin cake out of the basket, and put them on the hands of the separate one after his hair has been cut,

²⁰Waving them for a wave offering before the Lord; this is holy for the priest, together with the waved breast and the leg which is lifted up; after that, the man may take wine.

²¹This is the law for him who takes an oath to keep himself separate, and for his offering to the Lord on that account, in addition to what he may be able to get; this is the law of his oath, which he will have to keep.

²²And the Lord said to Moses,

²³Say to Aaron and his sons, These are the words of blessing which are to be used by you in blessing the children of Israel; say to them,

²⁴May the Lord send his blessing on you and keep you:

²⁵May the light of the Lord's face be shining on you in grace:

²⁶May the Lord's approval be resting on you and may he give you peace.

²⁷So they will put my name on the children of Israel, and I will give them my blessing.

7And when Moses had put up the House completely, and had put oil on it and made it holy, with all the things in it, and had made the altar and all its vessels holy with oil;

²Then the chiefs of Israel, the heads of their fathers' houses, made offerings; these were the chiefs of the tribes, who were over those who were numbered.

³And they came with their offerings before the Lord, six covered carts and twelve oxen; a cart for every two of the chiefs, and for every one an ox.

⁴And the Lord said to Moses,

⁵Take the things from them, to be used for the work of the Tent of meeting; and give them to the Levites, to every man what is needed for his work.

⁶So Moses took the carts and the oxen and gave them to the Levites.

⁷Two carts and four oxen he gave to the sons of Gershon for their work;

⁸And four carts and eight oxen he gave to the sons of Merari for their work, under the direction of Ithamar, the son of Aaron the priest.

⁹But to the sons of Kohath he gave nothing; because they had the care of the holy place, taking it about on their backs.

¹⁰And the chiefs gave an offering for the altar on the day when the holy oil was put on it; they made their offering before the altar.

¹¹And the Lord said to Moses, Let every chief on his day give his offering to make the altar holy.

¹²And he who made his offering on the first day was Nahshon, the son of Amminadab, of the tribe of Judah:

¹³And his offering was one silver plate, a hundred and thirty shekels in weight, one silver basin of seventy shekels, by the scale of the holy place; the two of them full of the best meal mixed with oil for a meal offering;

¹⁴One gold spoon of ten shekels, full of spice for burning;

¹⁵One young ox, one male sheep, one he-lamb of the first year, for a burned offering;

¹⁶One male of the goats for a sin-offering;

¹⁷And for the peace-offerings, two oxen, five male sheep, five he-goats, five he-lambs of the first year: this was the offering of Nahshon, the son of Amminadab.

¹⁸On the second day Nethanel, the son of Zuar, chief of Issachar, made his offering:

¹⁹He gave one silver plate, a hundred and thirty shekels in weight, one silver basin of seventy shekels, by the scale of the holy place; the two of them full of the best meal mixed with oil for a meal offering;

²⁰One gold spoon of ten shekels, full of spice;

²¹One young ox, one male sheep, one he-lamb of the first year, for a burned offering;

²²One male of the goats for a sin-offering;

²³And for the peace-offerings, two oxen, five male sheep, five he-goats, five he-lambs of the first year: this was the offering of Nethanel, the son of Zuar.

²⁴On the third day Eliab, the son of Helon, chief of the children of Zebulun:

²⁵His offering was one silver plate, a hundred and thirty shekels in weight, one silver basin of seventy shekels, by the scale of the holy place; the two of them full of the best meal mixed with oil for a meal offering;

²⁶One gold spoon of ten shekels, full of spice;

²⁷One young ox, one male sheep, one he-lamb of the first year, for a burned offering;

²⁸One male of the goats for a sin-offering;

²⁹And for the peace-offerings, two oxen, five male sheep, five he-goats, five he-lambs of the first year: this was the offering of Eliab, the son of Helon.

³⁰On the fourth day Elizur, the son of Shedeur, chief of the children of Reuben:

³¹His offering was one silver plate, a hundred and thirty shekels in weight, one silver basin of seventy shekels, by the scale of the holy place; the two of them full of the best meal mixed with oil for a meal offering;

³²One gold spoon of ten shekels, full of spice;

³³One young ox, one male sheep, one he-lamb of the first year, for a burned offering;

³⁴One male of the goats for a sin-offering;

³⁵And for the peace-offerings, two oxen, five male sheep, five he-goats, five he-lambs of the first year: this was the offering of Elizur, the son of Shedeur.

³⁶On the fifth day Shelumiel, the son of Zurishaddai, chief of the children of Simeon:

³⁷His offering was one silver plate, a hundred and thirty shekels in weight, one silver basin of seventy shekels, by the scale of the holy place; the two of them full of the best meal mixed with oil for a meal offering;

³⁸One gold spoon of ten shekels, full of spice;

³⁹One young ox, one male sheep, one he-lamb of the first year, for a burned offering;

⁴⁰One male of the goats for a sin-offering;

⁴¹And for the peace-offerings, two oxen, five male sheep, five he-goats, five he-lambs of the first year: this was the offering of Shelumiel, the son of Zurishaddai.

⁴²On the sixth day Eliasaph, the son of Reuel, chief of the children of Gad:

⁴³His offering was one silver plate, a hundred and thirty shekels in weight, one silver basin of seventy shekels, by the scale of the holy place; the two of them full of the best meal mixed with oil for a meal offering;

⁴⁴One gold spoon of ten shekels, full of spice;

⁴⁵One young ox, one male sheep, one he-lamb of the first year, for a burned offering;

⁴⁶One male of the goats for a sin-offering;

⁴⁷And for the peace-offerings, two oxen, five male sheep, five he-goats, five he-lambs of the first year: this was the offering of Eliasaph, the son of Reuel

⁴⁸On the seventh day Elishama, the son of Ammihud, chief of the children of Ephraim:

⁴⁹His offering was one silver plate, a hundred and thirty shekels in weight, one silver basin of seventy shekels, by the scale of the holy place; the two of them full of the best meal mixed with oil for a meal offering;

⁵⁰One gold spoon of ten shekels, full of spice;

⁵¹One young ox, one male sheep, one he-lamb of the first year, for a burned offering;

⁵²One male of the goats for a sin-offering;

⁵³And for the peace-offerings, two oxen, five male sheep, five he-goats, five he-lambs of the first year: this was the offering of Elishama, the son of Ammihud.

⁵⁴On the eighth day Gamaliel, the son of Pedahzur, chief of the children of Manasseh:

⁵⁵His offering was one silver plate, a hundred and thirty shekels in weight, one silver basin of seventy shekels, by the scale of the holy place; the two of them full of the best meal mixed with oil for a meal offering;

⁵⁶One gold spoon of ten shekels, full of spice;

⁵⁷One young ox, one male sheep, one he-lamb of the first year, for a burned offering;

⁵⁸One male of the goats for a sin-offering;

⁵⁹And for the peace-offerings, two oxen, five male sheep, five he-goats, five he-lambs of the first year: this was the offering of Gamaliel, the son of Pedahzur.

⁶⁰On the ninth day Abidan, the son of Gideoni, chief of the children of Benjamin:

⁶¹His offering was one silver plate, a hundred and thirty shekels in weight, one silver basin of seventy shekels, by the scale of the holy place; the two of them full of the best meal mixed with oil for a meal offering;

⁶²One gold spoon of ten shekels, full of spice;

⁶³One young ox, one male sheep, one he-lamb of the first year for a burned offering;

⁶⁴One male of the goats for a sin-offering;

⁶⁵And for the peace-offerings, two oxen, five male sheep, five he-goats, five he-lambs of the first year: this was the offering of Abidan, the son of Gideoni.

⁶⁶On the tenth day Ahiezer; the son of Ammishaddai, chief of the children of Dan:

⁶⁷His offering was one silver plate, a hundred and thirty shekels in weight, one silver basin of seventy shekels, by the scale of the holy place; the two of them full of the best meal mixed with oil for a meal offering;

⁶⁸One gold spoon of ten shekels, full of spice;

⁶⁹One young ox, one male sheep, one he-lamb of the first year, for a burned offering;

⁷⁰One male of the goats for a sin-offering;

⁷¹And for the peace-offerings, two oxen, five male sheep, five he-goats, five he-lambs of the first year: this was the offering of Ahiezer, the son of Ammishaddai.

⁷²On the eleventh day Pagiel, the son of Ochran, chief of the children of Asher:

⁷³His offering was one silver plate; a hundred and thirty shekels in weight, one silver basin of seventy shekels, by the scale of the holy place; the two of them full of the best meal mixed with oil for a meal offering;

⁷⁴One gold spoon of ten shekels, full of spice;

⁷⁵One young ox, one male sheep, one he-lamb of the first year, for a burned offering;

⁷⁶One male of the goats for a sin-offering;

⁷⁷And for the peace-offerings, two oxen, five male sheep, five he-goats, five he-lambs of the first year: this was the offering of Pagiel, the son of Ochran.

⁷⁸On the twelfth day Ahira, the son of Enan, chief of the children of Naphtali:

⁷⁹His offering was one silver plate, a hundred and thirty shekels in weight, one silver basin of seventy shekels, by the scale of the holy place; the two of them full of the best meal mixed with oil for a meal offering;

⁸⁰One gold spoon of ten shekels, full of spice;

⁸¹One young ox, one male sheep, one he-lamb of the first year, for a burned offering;

⁸²One male of the goats for a sin-offering;

⁸³And for the peace-offerings, two oxen, five male sheep, five he-goats, five he-lambs of the first year: this was the offering of Ahira, the son of Enan.

⁸⁴These were the offerings given for the altar by the chiefs of Israel, when the holy oil was put on it: twelve silver plates, twelve silver basins, twelve gold spoons;

⁸⁵The weight of every silver plate was a hundred and thirty shekels, and of every basin seventy; the weight of all the silver of the vessels was two thousand and four hundred shekels, by the scale of the holy place;

⁸⁶The weight of the twelve gold spoons of spice for burning was ten shekels for every one, by the scale of the holy place; all the gold of the spoons was a hundred and twenty shekels;

⁸⁷All the oxen, for the burned offering were twelve, the male sheep twelve, the he-lambs of the first year twelve, with their meal offering; and the males of the goats for sin-offering twelve;

⁸⁸And all the oxen for the peace-offerings, twenty-four oxen, the male sheep sixty, and the he-goats sixty, the he-lambs of the first year sixty. This was given for the altar after the holy oil was put on it.

⁸⁹And when Moses went into the Tent of meeting to have talk with him, then the Voice came to his ears from over the cover which was on the ark of witness, from between the two winged ones. And he had talk with him.

8And the Lord said to Moses,

²Say to Aaron, When you put the lights in their places, the seven lights will give light in front of the support.

³And Aaron did so; he put the lights in their places so that they gave light in front of the support, as the Lord gave orders to Moses.

⁴The support for the lights was of hammered gold work, from its base to its flowers it was of hammered work; from the design which the Lord had given to Moses, he made the support for the lights.

⁵And the Lord said to Moses,

⁶Take the Levites out from among the children of Israel and make them clean.

⁷And this is how you are to make them clean: let the holy water which takes away sin be put on them, and let the hair all over their bodies be cut off with a sharp blade, and let their clothing be washed and their bodies made clean.

⁸Then let them take a young ox and its meal offering, crushed grain mixed with oil, and take another ox for a sin-offering.

⁹And make the Levites come forward in front of the Tent of meeting, and let all the children of Israel come together:

¹⁰And you are to take the Levites before the Lord: and the children of Israel are to put their hands on them:

¹¹And Aaron is to give the Levites to the Lord as a wave offering from the children of Israel, so that they may do the Lord's work.

¹²And the Levites are to put their hands on the heads of the oxen, and one of the oxen is to be offered for a sin-offering and the other for a burned offering to the Lord to take away the sin of the Levites.

¹³Then the Levites are to be put before Aaron and his sons, to be offered as a wave offering to the Lord.

¹⁴So you are to make the Levites separate from the children of Israel, and the Levites will be mine.

¹⁵After that, the Levites will go in to do whatever has to be done in the Tent of meeting; you are to make them clean and give them as a wave offering.

¹⁶For they have been given to me from among the children of Israel; in place of every mother's first son, the first to come to birth in Israel, I have taken them for myself.

¹⁷For every mother's first son among the children of Israel is mine, the first male birth of man or beast: on the day when I sent death on all the first sons in the land of Egypt, I made them mine.

¹⁸And in place of the first sons among the children of Israel, I have taken the Levites.

¹⁹And I have given them to Aaron and to his sons, from among the children of Israel, to undertake for them all the work of the Tent of meeting, and to take away sin from the children of Israel so that no evil may come on them when they come near the holy place.

²⁰All these things Moses and Aaron and the children of Israel did to the Levites; as the Lord gave orders to Moses about the Levites, so the children of Israel did.

²¹And the Levites were made clean from sin, and their clothing was washed, and Aaron gave them for a wave offering before the Lord; and Aaron took away their sin and made them clean.

²²And then the Levites went in to do their work in the Tent of meeting before Aaron and his sons: all the orders which the Lord had given Moses about the Levites were put into effect.

²³And the Lord said to Moses,

²⁴This is the rule for the Levites: those of twenty-five years old and over are to go in and do the work of the Tent of meeting;

²⁵But after they are fifty years old, they are to give up their work and do no more;

²⁶But be with their brothers in the Tent of meeting, taking care of it but doing no work. This is what you are to do in connection with the Levites and their work.

9And the Lord said to Moses, in the waste land of Sinai, in the first month of the second year after they had come out of the land of Egypt,

²Let the children of Israel keep the Passover at its regular time.

³In the fourteenth day of this month, at evening, you are to keep it at the regular time, and in the way ordered in the law.

⁴And Moses gave orders to the children of Israel to keep the Passover.

⁵So they kept the Passover in the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, at evening, in the waste land of Sinai: as the Lord gave orders to Moses, so the children of Israel did.

⁶And there were certain men who were unclean because of a dead body, so that they were not able to keep the Passover on that day; and they came before Moses and before Aaron on that day:

⁷And these men said to him, We have been made unclean by the dead body of a man; why may we not make the offering of the Lord at the regular time among the children of Israel?

⁸And Moses said to them, Do nothing till the Lord gives me directions about you.

⁹And the Lord said to Moses,

¹⁰Say to the children of Israel, If any one of you or of your families is unclean because of a dead body, or is on a journey far away, still he is to keep the Passover to the Lord:

¹¹In the second month, on the fourteenth day, in the evening, they are to keep it, taking it with unleavened bread and bitter-tasting plants;

¹²Nothing of it is to be kept till the morning, and no bone of it is to be broken: they are to keep it by the rules of the Passover.

¹³But the man who, not being unclean or on a journey, does not keep the Passover, will be cut off from his people: because he did not make the offering of the Lord at the regular time, his sin will be on him.

¹⁴And if a man from another country is among you and has a desire to keep the Passover to the Lord, let him do as is ordered in the law of the Passover: there is to be the same rule for the man from another nation and for him who had his birth in the land.

¹⁵And on the day when the House was put up, the cloud came down on it, on the Tent of witness; and in the evening there was a light like fire over the House till the morning.

¹⁶And so it was at all times: it was covered by the cloud, and by a light as of fire by night.

¹⁷And whenever the cloud was taken up from over the House, then the children of Israel went journeying on; and in the place where the cloud came to rest, there the children of Israel put up their tents.

¹⁸At the order of the Lord the children of Israel went forward, and at the order of the Lord they put up their tents: as long as the cloud was resting on the House, they did not go away from that place.

¹⁹When the cloud was resting on the House for a long time the children of Israel, waiting for the order of the Lord, did not go on.

²⁰Sometimes the cloud was resting on the House for two or three days; then, by the order of the Lord, they kept their tents in that place, and when the Lord gave the order they went on.

²¹And sometimes the cloud was there only from evening to morning; and when the cloud was taken up in the morning they went on their journey again: or if it was resting there by day and by night, whenever the cloud was taken up they went forward.

²²Or if the cloud came to rest on the House for two days or a month or a year without moving, the children of Israel went on waiting there and did not go on; but whenever it was taken up they went forward on their journey.

²³At the word of the Lord they put up their tents, and at the word of the Lord they went forward on their journey: they kept the orders of the Lord as he gave them by Moses.

10And the Lord said to Moses,

²Make two silver horns of hammered work, to be used for getting the people together and to give the sign for the moving of the tents.

³When they are sounded, all the people are to come together to you at the door of the Tent of meeting.

⁴If only one of them is sounded, then the chiefs, the heads of the thousands of Israel, are to come to you.

⁵When a loud note is sounded, the tents placed on the east side are to go forward.

⁶At the sound of a second loud note, the tents on the south side are to go forward: the loud note will be the sign to go forward.

⁷But when all the people are to come together, the horn is to be sounded but not loudly.

⁸The horns are to be sounded by the sons of Aaron, the priests; this is to be a law for you for ever, from generation to generation.

⁹And if you go to war in your land against any who do you wrong, then let the loud note of the horn be sounded; and the Lord your God will keep you in mind and give you salvation from those who are against you.

¹⁰And on days of joy and on your regular feasts and on the first day of every month, let the horns be sounded over your burned offerings and your peace-offerings; and they will put the Lord in mind of you: I am the Lord your God.

¹¹Now in the second year, on the twentieth day of the second month, the cloud was taken up from over the Tent of witness.

¹²And the children of Israel went on their journey out of the waste land of Sinai; and the cloud came to rest in the waste land of Paran.

¹³They went forward for the first time on their journey as the Lord had given orders by the hand of Moses.

¹⁴First the flag of the children of Judah went forward with their armies: and at the head of his army was Nahshon, the son of Amminadab.

¹⁵And at the head of the army of the children of Issachar was Nethanel, the son of Zuar.

¹⁶And at the head of the army of the children of Zebulun was Eliab, the son of Helon.

¹⁷Then the House was taken down; and the sons of Gershon and the sons of Merari, who were responsible for moving the House, went forward.

¹⁸Then the flag of the children of Reuben went forward with their armies: and at the head of his army was Elizur, the son of Shedeur.

¹⁹And at the head of the army of the children of Simeon was Shelumiel, the son of Zurishaddai.

²⁰At the head of the army of the children of Gad was Eliasaph, the son of Reuel.

²¹Then the Kohathites went forward with the holy place; the others put up the House ready for their coming.

²²Then the flag of the children of Ephraim went forward with their armies: and at the head of his army was Elishama, the son of Ammihud.

²³At the head of the army of the children of Manasseh was Gamaliel, the son of Pedahzur.

²⁴At the head of the army of the children of Benjamin was Abidan, the son of Gideoni.

²⁵And the flag of the children of Dan, whose tents were moved last of all, went forward with their armies: and at the head of his army was Ahiezer, the son of Ammishaddai.

²⁶At the head of the army of the children of Asher was Pagiel, the son of Ochran.

²⁷And at the head of the army of the children of Naphtali was Ahira, the son of Enan.

²⁸This was the order in which the children of Israel were journeying by armies; so they went forward.

²⁹Then Moses said to Hobab, the son of his father-in-law Reuel the Midianite, We are journeying to that place of which the Lord has said, I will give it to you: so come with us, and it will be for your profit: for the Lord has good things in store for Israel.

³⁰But he said, I will not go with you, I will go back to the land of my birth and to my relations.

³¹And he said, Do not go from us; for you will be eyes for us, guiding us to the right places in the waste land to put up our tents.

³²And if you come with us, we will give you a part in whatever good the Lord does for us.

³³So they went forward three days' journey from the mountain of the Lord; and the ark of the Lord's agreement went three days' journey before them, looking for a resting-place for them;

³⁴And by day the cloud of the Lord went over them, when they went forward from the place where they had put up their tents.

³⁵And when the ark went forward Moses said, Come up, O Lord, and let the armies of those who are against you be broken, and let your haters go in flight before you.

³⁶And when it came to rest, he said, Take rest, O Lord, and give a blessing to the families of Israel.

11Now the people were saying evil against the Lord; and the Lord, hearing it, was angry and sent fire on them, burning the outer parts of the tent-circle.

²And the people made an outcry to Moses, and Moses made prayer to the Lord, and the fire was stopped.

³So that place was named Taberah, because of the fire of the Lord which had been burning among them.

⁴And the mixed band of people who went with them were overcome by desire: and the children of Israel, weeping again, said, Who will give us flesh for our food?

⁵Sweet is the memory of the fish we had in Egypt for nothing, and the fruit and green plants of every sort, sharp and pleasing to the taste:

⁶But now our soul is wasted away; there is nothing at all: we have nothing but this manna before our eyes.

⁷Now the manna was like a seed of grain, like small clear drops.

⁸The people went about taking it up from the earth, crushing it between stones or hammering it to powder, and boiling it in pots, and they made cakes of it: its taste was like the taste of cakes cooked with oil.

⁹When the dew came down on the tents at night, the manna came down with it.

¹⁰And at the sound of the people weeping, every man at his tent-door, the wrath of the Lord was great, and Moses was very angry.

¹¹And Moses said to the Lord, Why have you done me this evil? and why have I not grace in your eyes, that you have put on me the care of all this people?

¹²Am I the father of all this people? have I given them birth, that you say to me, Take them in your arms, like a child at the breast, to the land which you gave by an oath to their fathers?

¹³Where am I to get flesh to give to all this people? For they are weeping to me and saying, Give us flesh for our food.

¹⁴I am not able by myself to take the weight of all this people, for it is more than my strength.

¹⁵If this is to be my fate, put me to death now in answer to my prayer, if I have grace in your eyes; and let me not see my shame.

¹⁶And the Lord said to Moses, Send for seventy of the responsible men of Israel, who are in your opinion men of weight and authority over the people; make them come to the Tent of meeting and be there with you.

¹⁷And I will come down and have talk with you there: and I will take some of the spirit which is on you and put it on them, and they will take part of the weight of the people off you, so that you do not have to take it by yourself.

¹⁸And say to the people, Make yourselves clean before tomorrow and you will have flesh for your food: for in the ears of the Lord you have been weeping and saying, Who will give us flesh for food? for we were well off in Egypt: and so the Lord will give you flesh, and it will be your food;

¹⁹Not for one day only, or even for five or ten or twenty days;

²⁰But every day for a month, till you are tired of it, turning from it in disgust: because you have gone against the Lord who is with you, and have been weeping before him saying, Why did we come out of Egypt?

²¹Then Moses said, The people, among whom I am, are six hundred thousand men on foot; and you have said, I will give them flesh to be their food for a month.

²²Are flocks and herds to be put to death for them? or are all the fish in the sea to be got together so that they may be full?

²³And the Lord said to Moses, Has the Lord's hand become short? Now you will see if my word comes true for you or not.

²⁴And Moses went out and gave the people the words of the Lord: and he took seventy of the responsible men of the people, placing them round the Tent.

²⁵Then the Lord came down in the cloud and had talk with him, and put on the seventy men some of the spirit which was on him: now when the spirit came to rest on them, they were like prophets, but only at that time.

²⁶But two men were still in the tent-circle one of them named Eldad and the other Medad: and the spirit came to rest on them; they were among those who had been sent for, but they had not gone out to the Tent: and the prophet's power came on them in the tent-circle.

²⁷And a young man went running to Moses and said, Eldad and Medad are acting as prophets in the tent-circle.

²⁸Then Joshua, the son of Nun, who had been Moses' servant from the time when he was a child, said, My lord Moses, let them be stopped.

²⁹And Moses said to him, Are you moved by envy on my account? If only all the Lord's people were prophets, and the Lord might put his spirit on them!

³⁰Then Moses, with the responsible men of Israel, went back to the tent-circle.

³¹Then the Lord sent a wind, driving little birds from the sea, so that they came down on the tents, and all round the tent-circle, about a day's journey on this side and on that, in masses about two cubits high over the face of the earth.

³²And all that day and all night and the day after, the people were taking up the birds; the smallest amount which anyone got was ten homers: and they put them out all round the tents.

³³But while the meat was still between their teeth, before it was tasted, the wrath of the Lord was moved against the people and he sent a great outburst of disease on them.

³⁴So that place was named Kibroth-hattaavah; because there they put in the earth the bodies of the people who had given way to their desires.

³⁵From Kibroth-hattaavah the people went on to Hazeroth; and there they put up their tents.

12Now Miriam and Aaron said evil against Moses, because of the Cushite woman to whom he was married, for he had taken a Cushite woman as his wife.

²And they said, Have the words of the Lord been given to Moses only? have they not come to us? And the Lord took note of it.

³Now the man Moses was more gentle than any other man on earth.

⁴And suddenly the Lord said to Moses and Aaron and Miriam, Come out, you three, to the Tent of meeting. And the three of them went out.

⁵And the Lord came down in a pillar of cloud, taking his place at the door of the Tent, and made Aaron and Miriam come before him.

⁶And he said, Now give ear to my words: if there is a prophet among you I will give him knowledge of myself in a vision and will let my words come to him in a dream.

⁷My servant Moses is not so; he is true to me in all my house:

⁸With him I will have talk mouth to mouth, openly and not in dark sayings; and with his eyes he will see the form of the Lord: why then had you no fear of saying evil against my servant Moses?

⁹And burning with wrath against them, the Lord went away.

¹⁰And the cloud was moved from over the Tent; and straight away Miriam became a leper, as white as snow: and Aaron, looking at Miriam, saw that she was a leper.

¹¹Then Aaron said to Moses, O my lord, let not our sin be on our heads, for we have done foolishly and are sinners.

¹²Let her not be as one dead, whose flesh is half wasted when he comes out from the body of his mother.

¹³And Moses, crying to the Lord, said, Let my prayer come before you, O God, and make her well.

¹⁴And the Lord said to Moses, If her father had put a mark of shame on her, would she not be shamed for seven days? Let her be shut up outside the tent-circle for seven days, and after that she may come in again.

¹⁵So Miriam was shut up outside the tent-circle for seven days: and the people did not go forward on their journey till Miriam had come in again.

¹⁶After that, the people went on from Hazeroth and put up their tents in the waste land of Paran.

13And the Lord said to Moses,

²Send men to get knowledge about the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the children of Israel; from every tribe of their fathers you are to send a man, every one a chief among them.

³And Moses sent them from the waste land of Paran as the Lord gave orders, all of them men who were heads of the children of Israel.

⁴And these were their names: of the tribe of Reuben, Shammua, the son of Zaccur.

⁵Of the tribe of Simeon, Shaphat, the son of Hori.

⁶Of the tribe of Judah, Caleb, the son of Jephunneh.

⁷Of the tribe of Issachar, Igal, the son of Joseph.

⁸Of the tribe of Ephraim, Hoshea, the son of Nun.

⁹Of the tribe of Benjamin, Palti, the son of Raphu.

¹⁰Of the tribe of Zebulun, Gaddiel, the son of Sodi.

¹¹Of the tribe of Joseph, that is of the family of Manasseh, Gaddi, the son of Susi.

¹²Of the tribe of Dan, Ammiel, the son of Gemalli.

¹³Of the tribe of Asher, Sethur, the son of Michael

¹⁴Of the tribe of Naphtali, Nahbi, the son of Vophsi.

¹⁵Of the tribe of Gad, Gevel, the son of Machi.

¹⁶These are the names of the men whom Moses sent to get knowledge about the land. And Moses gave to Hoshea, the son of Nun, the name of Joshua.

¹⁷So Moses sent them to have a look at the land of Canaan, and said to them, Go up into the South and into the hill-country;

¹⁸And see what the land is like; and if the people living in it are strong or feeble, small or great in number;

¹⁹And what sort of land they are living in, if it is good or bad; and what their living-places are, tent-circles or walled towns;

²⁰And if the land is fertile or poor, and if there is wood in it or not. And be of good heart, and come back with some of the produce of the land. Now it was the time when the first grapes were ready.

²¹So they went up and got a view of the land, from the waste land of Zin to Rehob, on the way to Hamath.

²²They went up into the South and came to Hebron; and Ahiman and Sheshai and Talmai, the children of Anak, were living there. (Now the building of Hebron took place seven years before that of Zoan in Egypt.)

²³And they came to the valley of Eshcol, and cutting down a vine-branch with its grapes, two of them took it on a rod between them; and they took some pomegranates and figs.

²⁴That place was named the valley of Eshcol because of the grapes which the children of Israel took from there.

²⁵At the end of forty days they came back from viewing the land.

²⁶And they came back to Moses and Aaron and all the children of Israel, to Kadesh in the waste land of Paran; and gave an account to them and to all the people and let them see the produce of the land.

²⁷And they said, We came to the land where you sent us, and truly it is flowing with milk and honey: and here is some of the produce of it.

²⁸But the people living in the land are strong, and the towns are walled and very great; further, we saw the children of Anak there.

²⁹And the Amalekites are in the South; and the Hittites and the Jebusites and the Amorites are living in the hill-country; and the Canaanites by the sea and by the side of Jordan.

³⁰Then Caleb made signs to the people to keep quiet, and said to Moses, Let us go up straight away and take this land; for we are well able to overcome it.

³¹But the men who had gone up with him said, We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we.

³²And they gave the children of Israel a bad account of the land they had been to see, saying, This land through which we went is a land causing destruction to those living in it; and all the people we saw there are men of more than common size.

³³There we saw those great men, the sons of Anak, offspring of the Nephilim: and we seemed to ourselves no more than insects, and so we seemed to them.

14Then all the people gave load cries of grief, and all that night they gave themselves up to weeping.

²And all the children of Israel, crying out against Moses and Aaron, said, If only we had come to our death in the land of Egypt, or even in this waste land!

³Why is the Lord taking us into this land to come to our death by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will get into strange hands: would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?

⁴And they said to one another, Let us make a captain over us, and go back to Egypt.

⁵Then Moses and Aaron went down on their faces before the meeting of the people.

⁶And Joshua, the son of Nun, and Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, two of those who had been to see the land, giving signs of grief,

⁷Said to all the children of Israel, This land which we went through to see is a very good land.

⁸And if the Lord has delight in us, he will take us into this land and give it to us, a land flowing with milk and honey.

⁹Only, do not go against the Lord or go in fear of the people of the land, for they will be our food; their strength has been taken from them and the Lord is with us: have no fear of them.

¹⁰But all the people said they were to be stoned. Then the glory of the Lord was seen in the Tent of meeting, before the eyes of all the children of Israel.

¹¹And the Lord said to Moses, How long will this people have no respect for me? how long will they be without faith, in the face of all the signs I have done among them?

¹²I will send disease on them for their destruction, and take away their heritage, and I will make of you a nation greater and stronger than they.

¹³And Moses said to the Lord, Then it will come to the ears of the Egyptians; for by your power you took this people out from among them;

¹⁴And they will give the news to the people of this land: they have had word that you, Lord, are present with this people, letting yourself be seen face to face, and that your cloud is resting over them, and that you go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night.

¹⁵Now if you put to death all this people as one man, then the nations who have had word of your glory will say,

¹⁶Because the Lord was not able to take this people into the land which he made an oath to give them, he sent destruction on them in the waste land.

¹⁷So now, may my prayer come before you, and let the power of the Lord be great, as you said:

¹⁸The Lord is slow to wrath and great in mercy, overlooking wrongdoing and evil, and will not let wrongdoers go free; sending punishment on children for the sins of their fathers, to the third and fourth generation.

¹⁹May the sin of this people have forgiveness, in the measure of your great mercy, as you have had mercy on them from Egypt up till now.

²⁰And the Lord said, I have had mercy, as you say:

²¹But truly, as I am living, and as all the earth will be full of the glory of the Lord;

²²Because all these men, having seen my glory and the signs which I have done in Egypt and in the waste land, still have put me to the test ten times, and have not given ear to my voice;

²³They will not see the land about which I made an oath to their fathers; not one of these by whom I have not been honoured will see it.

²⁴But my servant Caleb, because he had a different spirit in him, and has been true to me with all his heart, him I will take into that land into which he went, and his seed will have it for their heritage.

²⁵Now the Amalekites and the Canaanites are in the valley; tomorrow, turning round, go into the waste land by the way to the Red Sea.

²⁶Then the Lord said to Moses and Aaron,

²⁷How long am I to put up with this evil people and their outcries against me? The words which they say against me have come to my ears.

²⁸Say to them, By my life, says the Lord, as certainly as your words have come to my ears, so certainly will I do this to you:

²⁹Your dead bodies will be stretched out in this waste land; and of all your number, all those of twenty years old and over who have been crying out against me,

³⁰Not one will come into the land which I gave my word you would have for your resting-place, but only Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua, the son of Nun.

³¹And your little ones, whom you said would come into strange hands, I will take in, and they will see the land which you would not have.

³²But as for you, your dead bodies will be stretched in this waste land.

³³And your children will be wanderers in the waste land for forty years, undergoing punishment for your false ways, till your bodies become dust in the waste land.

³⁴And as you went through the land viewing it for forty days, so for forty years, a year for every day, you will undergo punishment for your wrongdoing, and you will see that I am against you.

³⁵I the Lord have said it, and this I will certainly do to all this evil people who have come together against me: in this waste land destruction will come on them, and death will be their fate.

³⁶And the men whom Moses sent to see the land, and who, by the bad account they gave of the land, were the cause of the outcry the people made against Moses,

³⁷Those same men who said evil of the land, came to their death by disease before the Lord.

³⁸But Joshua, the son of Nun, and Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, of those who went to see the land, were not touched by disease.

³⁹And when Moses put these words before the children of Israel, the people were full of grief.

⁴⁰And early in the morning they got up and went to the top of the mountain, saying, We are here and we will go up to the place which the Lord said he would give us: for we have done wrong.

⁴¹And Moses said, Why are you now acting against the Lord's order, seeing that no good will come of it?

⁴²Go not up, for the Lord is not with you, and you will be overcome by those who are fighting against you.

⁴³For the Amalekites and the Canaanites are there before you, and you will be put to death by their swords: because you have gone back from the way of the Lord, the Lord will not be with you.

⁴⁴But they gave no attention to his words and went to the top of the mountain, though Moses and the ark of the Lord's agreement did not go out of the tent-circle.

⁴⁵Then the Amalekites came down, and the Canaanites who were living in the hill-country, and overcame them completely, driving them back as far as Hormah.

15And the Lord said to Moses,

²Say to the children of Israel, When you have come into the land which I am giving to you for your resting-place,

³And are going to make an offering by fire to the Lord, a burned offering or an offering in connection with an oath, or an offering freely given, or at your regular feasts, an offering for a sweet smell to the Lord, from the herd or the flock:

⁴Then let him who is making his offering, give to the Lord a meal offering of a tenth part of a measure of the best meal mixed with a fourth part of a hin of oil:

⁵And for the drink offering, you are to give with the burned offering or other offering, the fourth part of a hin of wine for every lamb.

⁶Or for a male sheep, give as a meal offering two tenth parts of a measure of the best meal mixed with a third part of a hin of oil:

⁷And for the drink offering give a third part of a hin of wine, for a sweet smell to the Lord.

⁸And when you make ready a young ox for a burned or other offering, or for the effecting of an oath, or for peace-offerings to the Lord:

⁹Then with the ox give a meal offering of three tenth parts of a measure of the best meal mixed with half a hin of oil.

¹⁰And for the drink offering: give half a hin of wine, for an offering made by fire for a sweet smell to the Lord.

¹¹This is to be done for every young ox and for every male sheep or he-lamb or young goat.

¹²Whatever number you make ready, so you are to do for every one.

¹³All those who are Israelites by birth are to do these things in this way, when giving an offering made by fire of a sweet smell to the Lord.

¹⁴And if a man from another country or any other person living among you, through all your generations, has the desire to give an offering made by fire of a sweet smell to the Lord, let him do as you do.

¹⁵There is to be one law for you and for the man of another country living with you, one law for ever from generation to generation; as you are, so is he to be before the Lord.

¹⁶The law and the rule are to be the same for you and for those from other lands living with you.

¹⁷And the Lord said to Moses,

¹⁸Say to the children of Israel, When you come into the land where I am guiding you,

¹⁹Then, when you take for your food the produce of the land, you are to give an offering lifted up before the Lord.

²⁰Of the first of your rough meal you are to give a cake for a lifted offering, lifting it up before the Lord as the offering of the grain-floor is lifted up.

²¹From generation to generation you are to give to the Lord a lifted offering from the first of your rough meal.

²²And if in error you go against any of these laws which the Lord has given to Moses,

²³All the laws which the Lord has given you by the hand of Moses, from the day when the Lord gave them, and ever after from generation to generation;

²⁴Then, if the wrong is done in error, without the knowledge of the meeting of the people, let all the meeting give a young ox as a burned offering, a sweet smell to the Lord, with its meal offering and its drink offering, as is ordered in the law, together with a he-goat for a sin-offering.

²⁵So the priest will make the people free from sin, and they will have forgiveness; for it was an error, and they have given their offering made by fire to the Lord, and their sin-offering before the Lord, on account of their error:

²⁶And all the meeting of the children of Israel, as well as those from other lands living among them, will have forgiveness; for it was an error on the part of the people.

²⁷And if one person does wrong, without being conscious of it, then let him give a she-goat of the first year for a sin-offering.

²⁸And the priest will take away the sin of the person who has done wrong, if the wrong was done unconsciously, and he will have forgiveness.

²⁹The law in connection with wrong done unconsciously is to be the same for him who is an Israelite by birth and for the man from another country who is living among them.

³⁰But the person who does wrong in the pride of his heart, if he is one of you or of another nation by birth, is acting without respect for the Lord, and will be cut off from his people.

³¹Because he had no respect for the word of the Lord, and did not keep his law, that man will be cut off without mercy and his sin will be on him.

³²Now while the children of Israel were in the waste land, they saw a man who was getting sticks on the Sabbath day.

³³And those who saw him getting sticks took him before Moses and Aaron and all the people.

³⁴And they had him shut up, because they had no directions about what was to be done with him.

³⁵Then the Lord said to Moses, Certainly the man is to be put to death: let him be stoned by all the people outside the tent-circle.

³⁶So all the people took him outside the tent-circle and he was stoned to death there, as the Lord gave orders to Moses.

³⁷And the Lord said to Moses,

³⁸Say to the children of Israel that through all their generations they are to put on the edges of their robes an ornament of twisted threads, and in every ornament a blue cord;

³⁹So that, looking on these ornaments, you may keep in mind the orders of the Lord and do them; and not be guided by the desires of your hearts and eyes, through which you have been untrue to me:

⁴⁰And that you may keep in mind all my orders and do them and be holy to your God.

⁴¹I am the Lord your God, who took you out of the land of Egypt, so that I might be your God: I am the Lord your God.

16Now Korah, the son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, with Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, and On, the son of Pallu, the son of Reuben, made themselves ready,

²And came before Moses, with certain of the children of Israel, two hundred and fifty chiefs of the people, men of good name who had a place in the meeting of the people.

³They came together against Moses and against Aaron, and said to them, You take overmuch on yourselves, seeing that all the people are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them; why then have you put yourselves in authority over the people of the Lord?

⁴And Moses, hearing this, went down on his face;

⁵And he said to Korah and his band, In the morning the Lord will make clear who are his, and who is holy, and who may come near him: the man of his selection will be caused to come near him.

⁶So do this: let Korah and all his band take vessels for burning perfumes;

⁷And put spices on the fire in them before the Lord tomorrow; then the man marked out by the Lord will be holy: you take overmuch on yourselves, you sons of Levi.

⁸And Moses said to Korah, Give ear now, you sons of Levi:

⁹Does it seem only a small thing to you that the God of Israel has made you separate from the rest of Israel, letting you come near himself to do the work of the House of the Lord, and to take your place before the people to do what has to be done for them;

¹⁰Letting you, and all your brothers the sons of Levi, come near to him? and would you now be priests?

¹¹So you and all your band have come together against the Lord; and Aaron, who is he, that you are crying out against him?

¹²Then Moses sent for Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab: and they said, We will not come up:

¹³Is it not enough that you have taken us from a land flowing with milk and honey, to put us to death in the waste land, but now you are desiring to make yourself a chief over us?

¹⁴And more than this, you have not taken us into a land flowing with milk and honey, or given us a heritage of fields and vine-gardens: will you put out the eyes of these men? We will not come up.

¹⁵Then Moses was very angry, and said to the Lord, Give no attention to their offering: not one of their asses have I taken, or done wrong to any of them.

¹⁶And Moses said to Korah, You and all your band are to come before the Lord tomorrow, you and they and Aaron:

¹⁷And let every man take a vessel for burning perfumes, and put sweet spices in them; let every man take his vessel before the Lord, two hundred and fifty vessels; you and Aaron and everyone with his vessel.

¹⁸So every man took his vessel and they put fire in them, with spices, and came to the door of the Tent of meeting with Moses and Aaron.

¹⁹And Korah made all the people come together against them to the door of the Tent of meeting: and the glory of the Lord was seen by all the people.

²⁰And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron,

²¹Come out from among this people, so that I may send sudden destruction on them.

²²Then falling down on their faces they said, O God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, because of one man's sin will your wrath be moved against all the people?

²³And the Lord said to Moses,

²⁴Say to the people, Come away from the tent of Korah Dathan, and Abiram.

²⁵So Moses got up and went to Dathan and Abiram, and the responsible men of Israel went with him.

²⁶And he said to the people, Come away now from the tents of these evil men, without touching anything of theirs, or you may be taken in the punishment of their sins.

²⁷So on every side they went away from the tent of Korah Dathan, and Abiram: and Dathan and Abiram came out to the door of their tents, with their wives and their sons and their little ones.

²⁸And Moses said, Now you will see that the Lord has sent me to do all these works, and I have not done them of myself.

²⁹If these men have the common death of men, or if the natural fate of all men overtakes them, then the Lord has not sent me.

³⁰But if the Lord does something new, opening the earth to take them in, with everything which is theirs, and they go down living into the underworld, then it will be clear to you that the Lord has not been honoured by these men.

³¹And while these words were on his lips, the earth under them was parted in two;

³²And the earth, opening her mouth, took them in, with their families, and all the men who were joined to Korah, and their goods.

³³So they and all theirs went down living into the underworld, and the earth was shut over them, and they were cut off from among the meeting of the people.

³⁴And all Israel round about them went in flight at their cry, For fear, said they, that we go down into the heart of the earth.

³⁵Then fire came out from the Lord, burning up the two hundred and fifty men who were offering the perfume.

³⁶And the Lord said to Moses,

³⁷Say to Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, that he is to take out of the flames the vessels with the perfumes in them, turning the fire out of them, for they are holy;

³⁸And let the vessels of those men, who with their lives have made payment for their sin, be hammered out into plates as a cover for the altar; for they have been offered before the Lord and are holy; so that they may be a sign to the children of Israel.

³⁹So Eleazar the priest took the brass vessels which had been offered by those who were burned up, and they were hammered out to make a cover for the altar:

⁴⁰To be a sign, kept in memory for ever by the children of Israel, that no man who is not of the seed of Aaron has the right of burning spices before the Lord, so that he may not be like Korah and his band: as the Lord said to him by the mouth of Moses.

⁴¹But on the day after, all the children of Israel made an outcry against Moses and against Aaron, saying, You have put to death the Lord's people.

⁴²Now when the people had come together against Moses and Aaron, looking in the direction of the Tent of meeting, they saw the cloud covering it, and the glory of the Lord came before their eyes.

⁴³Then Moses and Aaron came to the front of the Tent of meeting.

⁴⁴And the Lord said to Moses,

⁴⁵Come out from among this people, so that I may send sudden destruction on them. And they went down on their faces.

⁴⁶And Moses said to Aaron, Take your vessel and put in it fire from the altar, and sweet spices, and take it quickly into the meeting of the people, and make them free from sin: for wrath has gone out from the Lord, and the disease is starting.

⁴⁷And at the words of Moses, Aaron took his vessel, and went running among the people; and even then the disease had made a start among them; and he put spices in his vessel to take away the sin of the people.

⁴⁸And he took his place between the dead and the living: and the disease was stopped.

⁴⁹Now fourteen thousand, seven hundred deaths were caused by that disease, in addition to those who came to their end because of what Korah had done.

⁵⁰Then Aaron went back to Moses to the door of the Tent of meeting: and the disease came to a stop.

17And the Lord said to Moses,

²Say to the children of Israel that they are to give you rods, one for every family, for every chief, the head of his father's house, making twelve rods; let every man's name be placed on his rod.

³And let Aaron's name be placed on the rod of Levi: for there is to be one rod for the head of every family.

⁴And let them be stored up in the Tent of meeting, in front of the ark of witness where I come to you.

⁵And the rod of that man who is marked out by me for myself will have buds on it; so I will put a stop to the outcries which the children of Israel make to me against you.

⁶So Moses gave these orders to the children of Israel, and all their chiefs gave him rods, one for the head of every family, making twelve rods: and Aaron's rod was among them.

⁷And Moses put the rods before the Lord in the Tent of witness.

⁸Now on the day after, Moses went into the Tent of witness; and he saw that Aaron's rod, the rod of the house of Levi, had put out buds, and was covered with buds and flowers and fruit.

⁹Then Moses took out all the rods from before the Lord, and gave them back to the children of Israel: and they saw them, and every man took his rod.

¹⁰And the Lord said to Moses, Put Aaron's rod back in front of the ark of witness, to be kept for a sign against this false-hearted people, so that you may put a stop to their outcries against me, and death may not overtake them.

¹¹This Moses did: as the Lord gave orders, so he did.

¹²And the children of Israel said to Moses, Truly, destruction has come on us; an evil fate has overtaken us all.

¹³Death will overtake everyone who comes near, who comes near the House of the Lord: are we all to come to destruction?

18And the Lord said to Aaron, You and your sons and your father's family are to be responsible for all wrongdoing in relation to the holy place: and you and your sons are to be responsible for the errors which come about in your work as priests.

²Let your brothers, the family of Levi, come near with you, so that they may be joined with you and be your servants: but you and your sons with you are to go in before the ark of witness.

³They are to do your orders and be responsible for the work of the Tent; but they may not come near the vessels of the holy place or the altar, so that death may not overtake them or you.

⁴They are to be joined with you in the care of the Tent of meeting, doing whatever is needed for the Tent: and no one of any other family may come near you.

⁵You are to be responsible for the holy place and the altar, so that wrath may never again come on the children of Israel.

⁶Now, see, I have taken your brothers the Levites from among the children of Israel: they are given to you and to the Lord, to do the work of the Tent of meeting.

⁷And you and your sons with you are to be responsible as priests for the altar and everything on it, and everything inside the veil; you are to do the work of priests; I have given you your position as priests; and any other man who comes near will be put to death.

⁸And the Lord said to Aaron, See, I have given into your care my lifted offerings; even all the holy things of the children of Israel I have given to you and to your sons as your right for ever, because you have been marked with the holy oil.

⁹This is to be yours of the most holy things, out of the fire offerings; every offering of theirs, every meal offering and sin-offering, and every offering which they make on account of error, is to be most holy for you and your sons.

¹⁰As most holy things they are to be your food: let every male have them for food; it is to be holy to you.

¹¹And this is yours: the lifted offering which they give and all the wave offerings of the children of Israel I have given to you and to your sons and to your daughters as your right for ever: everyone in your house who is clean may have them for food.

¹²All the best of the oil and the wine and the grain, the first-fruits of them which they give to the Lord, to you have I given them.

¹³The earliest produce from their land which they take to the Lord is to be yours; everyone in your house who is clean may have it for his food.

¹⁴Everything given by oath to the Lord in Israel is to be yours.

¹⁵The first birth of every living thing which is offered to the Lord, of man or beast, is to be yours; but for the first sons of man payment is to be made, and for the first young of unclean beasts.

¹⁶Payment is to be made for these when they are a month old, at the value fixed by you, a price of five shekels by the scale of the holy place, that is, twenty gerahs to the shekel.

¹⁷But no such payment may be made for the first birth of an ox or a sheep or a goat; these are holy: their blood is to be dropped on the altar, and their fat burned for an offering made by fire, a sweet smell to the Lord.

¹⁸Their flesh is to be yours; like the breast of the wave offering and the right leg, it is to be yours.

¹⁹All the lifted offerings of the holy things which the children of Israel give to the Lord, I have given to you and to your sons and to your daughters as a right for ever. This is an agreement made with salt before the Lord, to you and to your seed for ever.

²⁰And the Lord said to Aaron, You will have no heritage in their land, or any part among them; I am your part and your heritage among the children of Israel.

²¹And to the children of Levi I have given as their heritage all the tenths offered in Israel, as payment for the work they do, the work of the Tent of meeting.

²²In future the children of Israel are not to come near the Tent of meeting, so that death may not come to them because of sin.

²³But the Levites are to do the work of the Tent of meeting, and be responsible for errors in connection with it: this is a law for ever through all your generations; and among the children of Israel they will have no heritage.

²⁴For the tenths which the children of Israel give as a lifted offering to the Lord I have given to the Levites as their heritage. and so I have said to them, Among the children of Israel they will have no heritage.

²⁵And the Lord said to Moses,

²⁶Say to the Levites, When you take from the children of Israel the tenth which I have given to you from them as your heritage, a tenth part of that tenth is to be offered as an offering lifted up before the Lord.

²⁷And this lifted offering is to be put to your credit as if it was grain from the grain-floor and wine from the vines.

²⁸So you are to make an offering lifted up to the Lord from all the tenths which you get from the children of Israel, giving out of it the Lord's lifted offering to Aaron the priest.

²⁹From everything given to you, let the best of it, the holy part of it, be offered as a lifted offering to the Lord.

³⁰Say to them, then, When the best of it is lifted up on high, it is to be put to the account of the Levites as the increase of the grain-floor and of the place where the grapes are crushed.

³¹It is to be your food, for you and your families in every place: it is your reward for your work in the Tent of meeting.

³²And no sin will be yours on account of it, when the best of it has been lifted up on high; you are not to make a wrong use of the holy things of the children of Israel, so that death may not overtake you.

19And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron,

²This is the rule of the law which the Lord has made, saying, Give orders to the children of Israel to give you a red cow without any mark on her, and on which the yoke has never been put:

³Give her to Eleazar the priest and let him take her outside the tent-circle and have her put to death before him.

⁴Then let Eleazar the priest take some of her blood on his finger, shaking the blood seven times in the direction of the front of the Tent of meeting:

⁵And the cow is to be burned before him, her skin and her flesh and her blood and her waste are to be burned:

⁶Then let the priest take cedar-wood and hyssop and red thread, and put them into the fire where the cow is burning.

⁷And the priest, after washing his clothing and bathing his body in water, may come back to the tent-circle, and will be unclean till evening.

⁸And he who does the burning is to have his clothing washed and his body bathed in water and be unclean till evening.

⁹Then let a man who is clean take the dust of the burned cow and put it outside the tent-circle in a clean place, where it is to be kept for the children of Israel and used in making the water which takes away what is unclean: it is a sin-offering.

¹⁰And he who takes up the dust of the burned cow is to have his clothing washed with water and be unclean till evening: this is to be a law for ever, for the children of Israel as well as for the man from another country who is living among them.

¹¹Anyone touching a dead body will be unclean for seven days:

¹²On the third day and on the seventh day he is to make himself clean with the water, and so he will be clean: but if he does not do this on the third day and on the seventh day, he will not be clean.

¹³Anyone touching the body of a dead man without making himself clean in this way, makes the House of the Lord unclean; and that man will be cut off from Israel: because the water was not put on him, he will be unclean; his unclean condition is unchanged.

¹⁴This is the law when death comes to a man in his tent: everyone who comes into the tent, and everyone who is in the tent, will be unclean for seven days.

¹⁵And every open vessel without a cover fixed on it will be unclean.

¹⁶And anyone touching one who has been put to death with the sword in the open country, or the body of one who has come to his end by a natural death, or a man's bone, or the resting-place of a dead body, will be unclean for seven days.

¹⁷And for the unclean, they are to take the dust of the burning of the sin-offering, and put flowing water on it in a vessel:

¹⁸And a clean person is to take hyssop and put it in the water, shaking it over the tent, and all the vessels, and the people who were there, and over him by whom the bone, or the body of one who has been put to death with the sword, or the body of one who has come to his end by a natural death, or the resting-place was touched.

¹⁹Let the clean person do this to the unclean on the third day and on the seventh day: and on the seventh day he is to make him clean; and after washing his clothing and bathing himself in water, he will be clean in the evening.

²⁰But the man who, being unclean, does not make himself clean in this way, will be cut off from the meeting of the people, because he has made the holy place of the Lord unclean: the water has not been put on him, he is unclean.

²¹This is to be a law for them for ever: he who puts the water on the unclean person is to have his clothing washed; and anyone touching the water will be unclean till evening.

²²Anything touched by the unclean person will be unclean; and any person touching it will be unclean till evening.

20In the first month all the children of Israel came into the waste land of Zin, and put up their tents in Kadesh; there death came to Miriam, and they put her body to rest in the earth.

²And there was no water for the people: and they came together against Moses and against Aaron.

³And the people were angry with Moses and said, If only death had overtaken us when our brothers came to their death before the Lord!

⁴Why have you taken the Lord's people into this waste, for death to come to us and to our cattle there?

⁵Why have you made us come out of Egypt into this evil place? This is no place of seed or figs or vines or other fruits, and there is no water for drinking.

⁶Then Moses and Aaron went away from the people to the door of the Tent of meeting; and, falling on their faces there, they saw the glory of the Lord.

⁷And the Lord said to Moses,

⁸Take the rod, you and Aaron, your brother, and make all the people come together, and before their eyes give orders to the rock to give out its water; and so make water come out of the rock for them, and give the people and their cattle drink.

⁹And Moses took the rod from before the Lord as he gave him orders.

¹⁰Then Moses and Aaron made the people come together in front of the rock, and he said to them, Give ear now, you people whose hearts are turned from the Lord; are we to get water for you out of the rock?

¹¹And lifting up his hand, Moses gave the rock two blows with his rod: and water came streaming out, and the people and their cattle had drink enough.

¹²Then the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, Because you had not enough faith in me to keep my name holy before the children of Israel, you will not take this people into the land which I have given them.

¹³These are the waters of Meribah; because the children of Israel went against the Lord, and they saw that he was holy among them.

¹⁴Then Moses sent men from Kadesh to the king of Edom to say to him, Your brother Israel says, You have knowledge of all the things we have been through;

¹⁵How our fathers went down into Egypt, and we were living in Egypt for a long time; and the Egyptians were cruel to us and to our fathers:

¹⁶And the Lord gave ear to the voice of our cry, and sent an angel and took us out of Egypt: and now we are in Kadesh, a town on the edge of your land;

¹⁷Let us now go through your land: we will not go into field or vine-garden, or take the water of the springs; we will go by the highway, not turning to the right or to the left, till we have gone past the limits of your land.

¹⁸And Edom said, You are not to go through my land, for if you do I will come out against you with the sword.

¹⁹And the children of Israel said to him, We will go up by the highway: and if we or our cattle take of your water, we will give you a price for it: only let us go through on our feet, nothing more.

²⁰But he said, You are not to go through. And Edom came out against them in his strength, with a great army.

²¹So Edom would not let Israel go through his land; and Israel went in another direction.

²²And they went on from Kadesh, and came, with all their people, to Mount Hor.

²³And at Mount Hor, at the edge of the land of Edom, the Lord said to Moses and Aaron,

²⁴Aaron will be put to rest with his people; he will not go into the land which I have given to the children of Israel, because you went against my word at the waters of Meribah.

²⁵So take Aaron and Eleazar, his son, up into Mount Hor;

²⁶And take Aaron's robes off him and put them on Eleazar, his son: and death will come to Aaron there, and he will be put to rest with his people.

²⁷So Moses did as the Lord had said, and before the eyes of all the people they went up Mount Hor.

²⁸And Moses took off Aaron's robes, and put them on Eleazar, his son; and there on the top of the mountain death came to Aaron: then Moses and Eleazar came down from the mountain.

²⁹And when the people saw that Aaron was dead, all the children of Israel gave themselves up to weeping for him for thirty days.

21And it came to the ears of the Canaanite, the king of Arad, living in the South, that Israel was coming by the way of Atharim, and he came out against them and took some of them prisoners.

²Then Israel made an oath to the Lord, and said, If you will give up this people into my hands, then I will send complete destruction on all their towns.

³And the Lord, in answer to the voice of Israel, gave the Canaanites up to them; and they put them and their towns completely to destruction: and that place was named Hormah.

⁴Then they went on from Mount Hor by the way to the Red Sea, going round the land of Edom: and the spirit of the people was overcome with weariness on the way.

⁵And crying out against God and against Moses, they said, Why have you taken us out of Egypt to come to our death in the waste land? For there is no bread and no water, and this poor bread is disgusting to us.

⁶Then the Lord sent poison-snakes among the people; and their bites were a cause of death to numbers of the people of Israel.

⁷Then the people came to Moses and said, We have done wrong in crying out against the Lord and against you: make prayer to the Lord to take away the snakes from us. So Moses made prayer for the people.

⁸And the Lord said to Moses, Make an image of a snake and put it on a rod, and anyone who has been wounded by the snakes, looking on it will be made well.

⁹So Moses made a snake of brass and put it on a rod; and anyone who had a snakebite, after looking on the snake of brass, was made well.

¹⁰Then the children of Israel went on and put up their tents in Oboth.

¹¹And journeying on again from Oboth, they put up their tents in Iye-abarim, in the waste land before Moab looking east.

¹²And moving on from there, they put up their tents in the valley of Zered.

¹³From there they went on and put up their tents on the other side of the Arnon, which is on the waste land at the edge of the land of the Amorites; for the Arnon is the line of division between Moab and the Amorites:

¹⁴As it says in the book of the Wars of the Lord, Vaheb in Suphah, and the valley of the Amon;

¹⁵The slope of the valleys going down to the tents of Ar and touching the edge of Moab.

¹⁶From there they went on to Beer, the water-spring of which the Lord said to Moses, Make the people come together and I will give them water.

¹⁷Then Israel gave voice to this song: Come up, O water-spring, let us make a song to it:

¹⁸The fountain made by the chiefs, made deep by the great ones of the people, with the law-givers' rod, and with their sticks. Then from the waste land they went on to Mattanah:

¹⁹And from Mattanah to Nahaliel: and from Nahaliel to Bamoth:

²⁰And from Bamoth to the valley in the open country of Moab, and to the top of Pisgah looking over Jeshimon.

²¹And Israel sent men to Sihon, king of the Amorites, saying,

²²Let me go through your land: we will not go into field or vine-garden, or take the water of the springs; we will go by the highway till we have gone past the limits of your land.

²³And Sihon would not let Israel go through his land; but got all his people together and went out against Israel into the waste land, as far as Jahaz, to make war on Israel.

²⁴But Israel overcame him, and took all his land from the Arnon to the Jabbok, as far as the country of the children of Ammon, for the country of the children of Ammon was strongly armed.

²⁵And Israel took all their towns, living in Heshbon and all the towns and small places of the Amorites.

²⁶For Heshbon was the town of Sihon, king of the Amorites, who had made war against an earlier king of Moab and taken from him all his land as far as the Arnon.

²⁷So the makers of wise sayings say, Come to Heshbon, building up the town of Sihon and making it strong:

²⁸For a fire has gone out of Heshbon, a flame from the town of Sihon: for the destruction of Ar in Moab, and the lords of the high places of the Arnon.

²⁹Sorrow is yours, O Moab! Destruction is your fate, O people of Chemosh: his sons have gone in flight, and his daughters are prisoners, in the hands of Sihon, king of the Amorites.

³⁰They are wounded with our arrows; destruction has come on Heshbon, even to Dibon; and we have made the land waste as far as Nophah, stretching out to Medeba.

³¹So Israel put up their tents in the land of the Amorites.

³²And Moses sent men secretly to Jazer, and they took its towns, driving out the Amorites who were living there.

³³Then turning they went up by the way of Bashan; and Og, king of Bashan, went out against them with all his people, to the fight at Edrei.

³⁴And the Lord said to Moses, Have no fear of him: for I have given him up into your hands, with all his people and his land; do to him as you did to Sihon, king of the Amorites, at Heshbon.

³⁵So they overcame him and his sons and his people, driving them all out: and they took his land for their heritage.

22Then the children of Israel, journeying on, put up their tents in the lowlands of Moab, on the other side of Jordan at Jericho.

²Now Balak, the son of Zippor, saw what Israel had done to the Amorites.

³And in Moab there was great fear of the people, because their numbers were so great: and the feeling of Moab was bitter against the children of Israel.

⁴Then Moab said to the responsible men of Midian, It is clear that this great people will be the destruction of everything round us, making a meal of us as the ox does of the grass of the field. At that time Balak, the son of Zippor, was king of Moab.

⁵So he sent men to Balaam, son of Beor, at Pethor by the River in the land of the children of his people, saying to him, See, a people has come out of Egypt, covering all the face of the earth, and they have put up their tents opposite to me:

⁶Come now, in answer to my prayer, and put a curse on this people, for they are greater than I: and then I may be strong enough to overcome them and send them out of the land: for it is clear that good comes to him who has your blessing, but he on whom you put your curse is cursed.

⁷So the responsible men of Moab and Midian went away, taking in their hands rewards for the prophet; and they came to Balaam and said to him what Balak had given them orders to say.

⁸And he said to them, Take your rest here tonight, and I will give you an answer after hearing what the Lord says; so the chiefs of Moab kept there with Balaam that night.

⁹And God came to Balaam and said, Who are these men with you?

¹⁰And Balaam said to God, Balak, the son of Zippor, king of Moab, has sent them to me, saying,

¹¹See, the people who have come out of Egypt are covering all the earth: now, put a curse on this people for me, so that I may be able to make war on them, driving them out of the land.

¹²And God said to Balaam, You are not to go with them, or put a curse on this people, for they have my blessing.

¹³In the morning Balaam got up and said to the chiefs of Balak, Go back to your land, for the Lord will not let me go with you.

¹⁴So the chiefs of Moab went back to Balak and said, Balaam will not come with us.

¹⁵So Balak sent more chiefs, greater in number and of higher position than the others.

¹⁶And they came to Balaam and said, Balak, son of Zippor, says, Let nothing keep you from coming to me:

¹⁷For I will give you a place of very great honour, and whatever you say to me I will do; so come, in answer to my prayer, and put a curse on this people.

¹⁸But Balaam, in answer; said to the servants of Balak, Even if Balak gave me his house full of silver and gold, it would not be possible for me to do anything more or less than the orders of the Lord my God.

¹⁹So take your rest here this night, till I have knowledge what more the Lord has to say to me.

²⁰And that night God came to Balaam and said to him, If these men have come for you, go with them: but do only what I say to you.

²¹So in the morning Balaam got up and, making his ass ready, went with the chiefs of Moab.

²²But God was moved to wrath because he went: and the angel of the Lord took up a position in the road to keep him from his purpose. Now he was seated on his ass, and his two servants were with him.

²³And the ass saw the angel of the Lord waiting in the road with his sword in his hand; and turning from the road, the ass went into the field; and Balaam gave the ass blows, to get her back on to the road.

²⁴Then the angel of the Lord took up his position in a narrow road through the vine-gardens, with a wall on this side and on that.

²⁵And the ass saw the angel of the Lord, and went near the wall, crushing Balaam's foot against the wall; and he gave her more blows.

²⁶Then the angel of the Lord went further, stopping in a narrow place where there was no room for turning to the right or to the left.

²⁷And the ass saw the angel of the Lord and went down on the earth under Balaam; and full of wrath, Balaam gave her hard blows with his stick.

²⁸Then the Lord gave the ass the power of talking, and opening her mouth she said to Balaam, What have I done to you that you have given me blows these three times?

²⁹And Balaam said to the ass, You have made me seem foolish: if only I had a sword in my hand I would put you to death.

³⁰And the ass said to Balaam, Am I not your ass upon which you have gone all your life till this day? and have I ever done this to you before? And he said, No.

³¹Then the Lord made Balaam's eyes open, and he saw the angel of the Lord in the way with his sword in his hand: and he went down on his face to the earth.

³²And the angel of the Lord said to him, Why have you given your ass blows these three times? See, I have come out against you to keep you back, because your purpose is not pleasing to me.

³³And the ass saw me, turning to one side from me three times: if she had not gone to one side, I would certainly have put you to death and kept her safe.

³⁴And Balaam said to the angel of the Lord, I have done wrong, for I did not see that you were in the way against me: but now, if it is evil in your eyes, I will go back again.

³⁵And the angel of the Lord said to Balaam, Go with the men; but say only what I give you to say. Then Balaam went on with the chiefs of Balak.

³⁶Now Balak, hearing that Balaam had come, went to the chief town of Moab, on the edge of the Arnon, in the farthest part of the land, for the purpose of meeting him.

³⁷And Balak said to Balaam, Did I not send to you, requesting you with all my heart to come to me? why did you not come? am I not able to give you a place of honour?

³⁸Then Balaam said to Balak, Now I have come to you; but have I power to say anything? Only what God puts into my mouth may I say.

³⁹And Balaam went with Balak to Kiriath-huzoth.

⁴⁰And Balak made offerings of oxen and sheep, and sent to Balaam and the chiefs who were with him.

⁴¹And in the morning Balak took Balaam up to the high places of Baal, and from there he was able to see the outer limits of the people.

23And Balaam said to Balak, Make me here seven altars and get ready seven oxen and seven male sheep.

²And Balak did as Balaam had said; and Balak and Balaam made an offering on every altar of an ox and a male sheep.

³Then Balaam said to Balak, Take your place by your burned offering, and I will go and see if the Lord comes to me: and I will give you word of whatever he says to me. And he went to an open place on a hill.

⁴And God came to Balaam, and Balaam said to him, I have made ready seven altars, offering an ox and a male sheep on every altar.

⁵And the Lord put words in Balaam's mouth, and said, Go back to Balak, and this is what you are to say.

⁶So he went back to him where he was waiting by his burned offering with all the chiefs of Moab.

⁷And in the words which the Lord had given him he said, From Aram Balak has sent for me, the king of Moab from the mountains of the East: come, put curses on Jacob for me and be angry with Israel.

⁸How may I put curses on him who is not cursed by God? how may I be angry with him with whom the Lord is not angry?

⁹From the top of the rocks I see him, looking down on him from the hills: it is a people made separate, not to be numbered among the nations.

¹⁰Who is able to take the measure of the dust of Jacob or the number of the thousands of Israel? May my death be the death of the upright and my last end like his!

¹¹Then Balak said to Balaam, What have you done to me? I sent for you so that my haters might be cursed, and see, you have given them a blessing.

¹²And in answer he said, Am I not ordered to say only what the Lord puts into my mouth?

¹³And Balak said to him, Come with me now into another place from which you will not be able to see them all, but only the outskirts of them; and you will send curses on them from there.

¹⁴So he took him into the country of Zophim, to the top of Pisgah, and there they made seven altars, offering an ox and a male sheep on every altar.

¹⁵Then he said to Balak, Take your place here by your burned offering, while I go over there to the Lord.

¹⁶And the Lord came to Balaam, and put words in his mouth, and said, Go back to Balak, and this is what you are to say.

¹⁷So he came to him where he was waiting by his burned offering with the chiefs of Moab by his side. And Balak said to him, What has the Lord said?

¹⁸And in the words which the Lord had given him he said, Up! Balak, and give ear; give attention to me, O son of Zippor:

¹⁹God is not a man, to say what is false; or the son of man, that his purpose may be changed: what he has said, will he not do? and will he not give effect to the words of his mouth?

²⁰See, I have had orders to give blessing: and he has given a blessing which I have no power to take away.

²¹He has seen no evil in Jacob or wrongdoing in Israel: the Lord his God is with him, and the glad cry of a king is among them.

²²It is God who has taken them out of Egypt; his horns are like those of the mountain ox.

²³No evil power has effect against Jacob, no secret arts against Israel; at the right time it will be said of Jacob and of Israel, See what God has done!

²⁴See, Israel comes up like a she-lion, lifting himself up like a lion: he will take no rest till he has made a meal of those he has overcome, drinking the blood of those he has put to death.

²⁵Then Balak said to Balaam, If you will not put a curse on them, at all events do not give them a blessing.

²⁶But Balaam in answer said to Balak, Did I not say to you, I may only do what the Lord says?

²⁷Then Balak said to Balaam, Come now, I will take you to another place; it may be that God will let you put a curse on them from there.

²⁸So Balak took Balaam to the top of Peor, looking down over the waste land.

²⁹And Balaam said to Balak, Make me seven altars here and get seven oxen and seven male sheep ready for me.

³⁰And Balak did as Balaam said, offering an ox and a male sheep on every altar.

24Now when Balaam saw that it was the Lord's pleasure to give his blessing to Israel, he did not, as at other times, make use of secret arts, but turning his face to the waste land,

²And lifting up his eyes, he saw Israel there, with their tents in the order of their tribes: and the spirit of God came on him.

³And moved by the spirit, he said, These are the words of Balaam, son of Beor, the words of the man whose eyes are open:

⁴He says, whose ears are open to the words of God, who has seen the vision of the Ruler of all, falling down, but having his eyes open:

⁵How fair are your tents, O Jacob, your houses, O Israel!

⁶They are stretched out like valleys, like gardens by the riverside, like flowering trees planted by the Lord, like cedar-trees by the waters.

⁷Peoples will be in fear before his strength, his arm will be on great nations: his king will be higher than Agag, and his kingdom made great in honour.

⁸It is God who has taken him out of Egypt; his horns are like those of the mountain ox; the nations warring against him will be his food, their bones will be broken, they will be wounded with his arrows.

⁹He took his sleep stretched out like a lion, and like a she-lion: by whom will his rest be broken? May a blessing be on everyone who gives you blessing, and a curse on everyone by whom you are cursed.

¹⁰Then Balak was full of wrath against Balaam, and angrily waving his hands he said to Balaam, I sent for you so that those who are against me might be cursed, but now, see, three times you have given them a blessing.

¹¹Go back quickly to the place you came from: it was my purpose to give you a place of honour, but now the Lord has kept you back from honour.

¹²Then Balaam said to Balak, Did I not say to the men you sent to me,

¹³Even if Balak gave me his house full of silver and gold, it would not be possible for me to go outside the orders of the Lord, doing good or evil at the impulse of my mind; whatever the Lord says I will say?

¹⁴So now I will go back to my people: but first let me make clear to you what this people will do to your people in days to come.

¹⁵Then he went on with his story and said, These are the words of Balaam, the son of Beor, the words of him whose eyes are open:

¹⁶He says, whose ear is open to the words of God, who has knowledge of the Most High, who has seen the vision of the Ruler of all, falling down and having his eyes open:

¹⁷I see him, but not now: looking on him, but not near: a star will come out of Jacob, and a rod of authority out of Israel, sending destruction to the farthest limits of Moab and on the head of all the sons of Sheth.

¹⁸Edom will be his heritage, and he will put an end to the last of the people of Seir.

¹⁹And Israel will go on in strength, and Jacob will have rule over his haters.

²⁰Then, turning his eyes to Amalek, he went on with his story and said, Amalek was the first of the nations, but his part will be destruction for ever.

²¹And looking on the Kenites he went on with his story and said, Strong is your living-place, and your secret place is safe in the rock.

²²But still the Kenites will be wasted, till Asshur takes you away prisoner.

²³Then he went on with his story and said, But who may keep his life when God does this?

²⁴But ships will come from the direction of Kittim, troubling Asshur and troubling Eber, and like the others their fate will be destruction.

²⁵Then Balaam got up and went back to his place: and Balak went away.

25Now when Israel was living in Shittim the people became false to the Lord, doing evil with the daughters of Moab:

²For they sent for the people to be present at the offerings made to their gods; and the people took part in their feasts and gave honour to their gods.

³So Israel had relations with the women of Moab in honour of the Baal of Peor: and the Lord was moved to wrath against Israel.

⁴Then the Lord said to Moses, Take all the chiefs of the people, hanging them up in the sun before the Lord, so that the wrath of the Lord may be turned from Israel.

⁵So Moses said to the judges of Israel, Let everyone put to death those of his men who have had relations with the women of Moab in honour of the Baal of Peor.

⁶Then one of the children of Israel came to his brothers, taking with him a woman of Midian, before the eyes of Moses and all the meeting of the people, while they were weeping at the door of the Tent of meeting.

⁷And Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, seeing it, got up from among the people and took a spear in his hand,

⁸And went after the man of Israel into the tent, driving the spear through the two of them, through the man of Israel and through the stomach of the woman. So the disease was stopped among the children of Israel.

⁹But twenty-four thousand of them had come to their death by the disease.

¹⁰And the Lord said to Moses,

¹¹Through Phinehas, and because of his passion for my honour, my wrath has been turned away from the children of Israel, so that I have not sent destruction on them all in my wrath.

¹²So say to them that I will make with him an agreement of peace:

¹³And by this agreement, he and his sons after him have the right to be priests for ever; because, by his care for the honour of his God, he took away the sin of the children of Israel.

¹⁴Now the man of Israel who was put to death with the woman of Midian was Zimri, the son of Salu, a chief of one of the families of the Simeonites.

¹⁵And the woman of Midian who was put to death was Cozbi, the daughter of Zur; he was the head of a family in Midian.

¹⁶Then the Lord said to Moses,

¹⁷Take up arms against the Midianites and overcome them;

¹⁸For they are a danger to you with their false ways, causing sin to come on you in the question of Peor, and because of Cozbi, their sister, the daughter of the chief of Midian, who was put to death at the time of the disease which came on you because of Peor.

26Now after the disease was over, the Lord said to Moses and Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest,

²Let all the children of Israel be numbered, by the names of their fathers' families, all those of twenty years old and over who are able to go to war in Israel.

³So Moses and Eleazar the priest gave them the order in the lowlands of Moab by Jordan at Jericho, saying,

⁴Let all the people of twenty years old and over be numbered, as the Lord has given orders to Moses and the children of Israel who have come out of Egypt.

⁵Reuben, the first son of Israel: the sons of Reuben by their families: of Hanoch, the family of the Hanochites: of Pallu, the family of the Palluites:

⁶Of Hezron, the family of the Hezronites: of Carmi, the family of the Carmites.

⁷These are the families of the Reubenites: their number was forty-three thousand, seven hundred and thirty.

⁸And the sons of Pallu, Eliab

⁹And the sons of Eliab: Nemuel and Dathan and Abiram. These are the same Dathan and Abiram who had a place in the meeting of the people, who together with Korah made an outcry against Moses and Aaron and against the Lord:

¹⁰And they went down into the open mouth of the earth, together with Korah, when death overtook him and all his band; at the time when two hundred and fifty men were burned in the fire, and they became a sign.

¹¹But death did not overtake the sons of Korah.

¹²The sons of Simeon by their families: of Nemuel, the family of the Nemuelites: of Jamin, the family of the Jaminites: of Jachin, the family of the Jachinites:

¹³Of Zerah, the family of the Zerahites: of Shaul, the family of the Shaulites.

¹⁴These are the families of the Simeonites, twenty-two thousand, two hundred.

¹⁵The sons of Gad by their families: of Zephon, the family of the Zephonites: of Haggi, the family of the Haggites: of Shuni, the family of the Shunites:

¹⁶Of Ozni, the family of the Oznites: of Eri, the family of the Erites:

¹⁷Of Arod, the family of the Arodites: of Areli, the family of the Arelites.

¹⁸These are the families of the sons of Gad as they were numbered, forty thousand, five hundred.

¹⁹The sons of Judah, Er and Onan: and Er and Onan had come to their death in the land of Canaan.

²⁰And the sons of Judah by their families were: of Shelah, the family of the Shelahites: of Perez, the family of the Perezites: of Zerah, the family of the Zerahites.

²¹And the sons of Perez were: of Hezron, the family of the Hezronites: of Hamul, the family of the Hamulites.

²²These are the families of Judah as they were numbered, seventy-six thousand, five hundred.

²³The sons of Issachar by their families: of Tola, the family of the Tolaites: of Puvah, the family of the Punites:

²⁴Of Jashub, the family of the Jashubites: of Shimron, the family of the Shimronites.

²⁵These are the families of Issachar, as they were numbered, sixty-four thousand, three hundred.

²⁶The sons of Zebulun by their families: of Sered, the family of the Seredites: of Elon, the family of the Elonites: of Jahleel, the family of the Jahleelites.

²⁷These are the families of the Zebulunites as they were numbered, sixty thousand, five hundred.

²⁸The sons of Joseph by their families: Manasseh and Ephraim.

²⁹The sons of Manasseh: of Machir, the family of the Machirites: and Machir was the father of Gilead: of Gilead, the family of the Gileadites.

³⁰These are the sons of Gilead: of Iezer, the family of the Iezerites: of Helek, the family of the Helekites:

³¹And of Asriel, the family of the Asrielites: and of Shechem, the family of the Shechemites:

³²And of Shemida, the family of the Shemidaites: and of Hepher, the family of the Hepherites.

³³And Zelophehad, the son of Hepher, had no sons, but only daughters, and the names of the daughters of Zelophehad were Mahlah, and Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah.

³⁴These are the families of Manasseh; and those who were numbered of them were fifty-two thousand, seven hundred.

³⁵These are the sons of Ephraim by their families: of Shuthelah, the family of the Shuthelahites: of Becher, the family of the Becherites: of Tahan, the family of the Tahanites.

³⁶And these are the sons of Shuthelah: of Eran, the family of the Eranites:

³⁷These are the families of Ephraim as they were numbered, thirty-two thousand, five hundred. These are the sons of Joseph by their families.

³⁸The sons of Benjamin by their families: of Bela, the family of the Belaites: of Ashbel, the family of the Ashbelites: of Ahiram, the family of the Ahiramites:

³⁹Of Shephupham, the family of the Shuphamites: and of Hupham, the family of the Huphamites.

⁴⁰And the sons of Bela were Ard and Naaman: of Ard, the family of the Ardites: of Naaman, the family of the Naamites.

⁴¹These are the sons of Benjamin by their families: and those who were numbered of them were forty-five thousand, six hundred.

⁴²These are the sons of Dan by their families: of Shuham, the family of the Shuhamites. These are the families of Dan by their families.

⁴³All the families of the Shuhamites, as they were numbered, were sixty-four thousand, four hundred.

⁴⁴The sons of Asher by their families: of Imnah, the family of the Imnites: of Ishvi, the family of the Ishvites: of Beriah, the family of the Beriites.

⁴⁵Of the sons of Beriah: of Heber, the family of the Heberites: of Malchiel, the family of the Malchielites:

⁴⁶And the name of the daughter of Asher was Serah.

⁴⁷These are the families of the sons of Asher as they were numbered, fifty-three thousand, four hundred.

⁴⁸The sons of Naphtali by their families: of Jahzeel, the family of the Jahzeelites: of Guni, the family of the Gunites:

⁴⁹Of Jezer, the family of the Jezerites: of Shillem, the family of the Shillemites.

⁵⁰These are the families of Naphtali by their families: and those who were numbered of them were forty-five thousand, four hundred.

⁵¹Those who were numbered of the children of Israel were six hundred and one thousand, seven hundred and thirty.

⁵²And the Lord said to Moses,

⁵³Let there be a division of the land among these, for their heritage, in relation to the number of names.

⁵⁴To those families who are more in number, give a greater heritage; to those who are less in number, a smaller part: to every one let the heritage be given in relation to the number in his family.

⁵⁵But let the distribution of the land be made by the decision of the Lord: by the names of the tribes of their fathers let their heritage be given them.

⁵⁶As it is ordered by the decision of the Lord, let distribution be made between those who are more in number and those who are less.

⁵⁷These were those of the Levites who were numbered by their families: of Gershon, the family of the Gershonites: of Kohath, the family of the Kohathites: of Merari, the family of the Merarites.

⁵⁸These are the families of Levi: the family of the Libnites, the family of the Hebronites, the family of the Mahlites, the family of the Mushites, the family of the Korahites. And Kohath was the father of Amram.

⁵⁹Amram's wife was Jochebed, the daughter of Levi, whom he had in Egypt: by Amram she had Moses and Aaron and their sister Miriam.

⁶⁰Aaron's sons were Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar.

⁶¹Death overtook Nadab and Abihu when they made an offering of strange fire before the Lord.

⁶²Of these, twenty-three thousand males, from one month old and over, were numbered: they were not numbered with the rest of the children of Israel, for they had no heritage among the children of Israel.

⁶³All these were numbered by Moses and Eleazar the priest when the children of Israel were numbered in the lowlands of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho.

⁶⁴But among all these was not one of those numbered by Moses and Aaron the priest when the children of Israel were numbered in the waste land of Sinai.

⁶⁵For the Lord had said of them, Death will certainly overtake them in the waste land. And of them all, only Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua, the son of Nun, were still living.

27Then the daughters of Zelophehad, the son of Hepher, the son of Gilead, the son of Machir, the son of Manasseh, of the families of Manasseh, the son of Joseph, came forward: their names are Mahlah, Noah, and Hoglah, and Milcah, and Tirzah.

²They came before Moses and Eleazar the priest and the chiefs and all the people at the door of the Tent of meeting, and said,

³Death overtook our father in the waste land; he was not among those who were banded together with Korah against the Lord; but death came to him in his sin; and he had no sons.

⁴Why is the name of our father to be taken away from among his family, because he had no son? Give us a heritage among our father's brothers.

⁵So Moses put their cause before the Lord.

⁶And the Lord said to Moses,

⁷What the daughters of Zelophehad say is right: certainly you are to give them a heritage among their father's brothers: and let the property which would have been their father's go to them.

⁸And say to the children of Israel, If a man has no son at the time of his death, let his heritage go to his daughter.

⁹And if he has no daughter, then give his heritage to his brothers.

¹⁰And if he has no brothers, then give his heritage to his father's brothers.

¹¹And if his father has no brothers, then give it to his nearest relation in the family, as his heritage: this is to be a decision made by law for the children of Israel, as the Lord gave orders to Moses.

¹²And the Lord said to Moses, Go up into this mountain of Abarim so that you may see the land which I have given to the children of Israel.

¹³And when you have seen it, you will be put to rest with your people, as your brother Aaron was:

¹⁴Because in the waste land of Zin, when the people were angry, you and he went against my word and did not keep my name holy before their eyes, at the waters. (These are the waters of Meribah in Kadesh in the waste land of Zin.)

¹⁵Then Moses said to the Lord,

¹⁶Let the Lord, the God of the spirits of all flesh, put a man at the head of this people,

¹⁷To go out and come in before them and be their guide; so that the people of the Lord may not be like sheep without a keeper.

¹⁸And the Lord said to Moses, Take Joshua, the son of Nun, a man in whom is the spirit, and put your hand on him;

¹⁹And take him before Eleazar the priest and all the meeting of the people, and give him his orders before their eyes.

²⁰And put your honour on him, so that all the children of Israel may be under his authority.

²¹He will take his place before Eleazar the priest, so that he may get directions from the Lord for him, with the Urim: at his word they will go out, and at his word they will come in, he and all the children of Israel.

²²So Moses did as the Lord said: he took Joshua and put him before Eleazar the priest and the meeting of the people:

²³And he put his hands on him and gave him his orders, as the Lord had said by Moses.

28And the Lord said to Moses,

²Give orders to the children of Israel and say to them, Let it be your care to give me my offerings at their regular times, the food of the offerings made by fire to me for a sweet smell.

³Say to them, This is the offering made by fire which you are to give to the Lord; he-lambs of the first year without any mark, two every day as a regular burned offering.

⁴Let one be offered in the morning, and the other at evening;

⁵And the tenth part of an ephah of the best meal for a meal offering mixed with the fourth part of a hin of clear oil.

⁶It is a regular burned offering, as it was ordered in Mount Sinai, for a sweet smell, an offering made by fire to the Lord.

⁷And for its drink offering take the fourth part of a hin for one lamb: in the holy place let the wine be drained out for a drink offering for the Lord.

⁸Let the other lamb be offered at evening; like the meal offering of the morning and its drink offering, let it be offered as an offering made by fire for a sweet smell to the Lord.

⁹And on the Sabbath day, two he-lambs of the first year, without any mark, and two tenth parts of the best meal for a meal offering mixed with oil, and its drink offering:

¹⁰This is the burned offering for every Sabbath day, in addition to the regular burned offering, and its drink offering.

¹¹And on the first day of every month you are to give a burned offering to the Lord; two oxen, one male sheep, and seven he-lambs of the first year, without any mark;

¹²And three tenth parts of the best meal for a meal offering mixed with oil, for every ox; and two tenth parts of the best meal for a meal offering mixed with oil, for the one sheep;

¹³And a separate tenth part of the best meal mixed with oil for a meal offering for every lamb; for a burned offering of a sweet smell, an offering made by fire to the Lord.

¹⁴And their drink offerings are to be half a hin of wine for an ox, and the third part of a hin for a male sheep, and the fourth part of a hin for a lamb: this is the burned offering for every month through all the months of the year.

¹⁵And one he-goat for a sin-offering to the Lord; it is to be offered in addition to the regular burned offering and its drink offering.

¹⁶And in the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, is the Lord's Passover.

¹⁷On the fifteenth day of this month there is to be a feast; for seven days let your food be unleavened cakes.

¹⁸On the first day there is to be a holy meeting: you may do no sort of field-work:

¹⁹And you are to give an offering made by fire, a burned offering to the Lord; two oxen, one male sheep, and seven he-lambs of the first year, without any mark:

²⁰And their meal offering, the best meal mixed with oil: let three tenth parts of an ephah be offered for an ox and two tenth parts for a male sheep;

²¹And a separate tenth part for every one of the seven lambs;

²²And one he-goat for a sin-offering to take away your sin.

²³These are to be offered in addition to the morning burned offering, which is a regular burned offering at all times.

²⁴In this way, every day for seven days, give the food of the offering made by fire, a sweet smell to the Lord: it is to be offered in addition to the regular burned offering, and its drink offering.

²⁵Then on the seventh day there will be a holy meeting; you may do no field-work.

²⁶And at the time of the first-fruits, when you give an offering of new meal to the Lord at your feast of weeks, there is to be a holy meeting: you may do no field-work:

²⁷And give a burned offering for a sweet smell to the Lord; two oxen, one male sheep, and seven he-lambs of the first year;

²⁸And their meal offering, the best meal mixed with oil, three tenth parts for an ox, two tenth parts for a male sheep,

²⁹And a separate tenth part for every one of the seven lambs;

³⁰And one he-goat to take away your sin.

³¹These are in addition to the regular burned offering and its meal offering; take care that they are without any mark, and let them be offered with their drink offerings.

29In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, let there be a holy meeting; on it you may do no field-work; let the day be marked by the blowing of horns;

²And give to the Lord a burned offering for a sweet smell; one ox, one male sheep, seven he-lambs of the first year, without any mark on them:

³And their meal offering, the best meal mixed with oil, three tenth parts for an ox, two tenth parts for a male sheep,

⁴And a separate tenth part for every one of the seven lambs;

⁵And one he-goat for a sin-offering, to take away your sin:

⁶In addition to the burned offering of the new moon, and its meal offering, and the regular burned offering and its meal offering, and their drink offerings, as they are ordered, for a sweet smell, an offering made by fire to the Lord.

⁷And on the tenth day of this seventh month there will be a holy meeting; keep yourselves from pleasure, and do no sort of work;

⁸And give to the Lord a burned offering for a sweet smell; one ox, one male sheep, seven he-lambs of the first year: only those without any mark on them may be used:

⁹And their meal offering, the best meal mixed with oil, three tenth parts for an ox, two tenth parts for a male sheep,

¹⁰A separate tenth part for every one of the seven lambs;

¹¹One he-goat for a sin-offering; in addition to the offering for taking away your sin, and the regular burned offering and its meal offering, and their drink offerings.

¹²And on the fifteenth day of the seventh month let there be a holy meeting; do no field-work, and keep a feast to the Lord for seven days;

¹³And give a burned offering, an offering made by fire of a sweet smell to the Lord, thirteen oxen, two male sheep, fourteen he-lambs of the first year, all without any mark on them;

¹⁴And their meal offering, the best meal mixed with oil, three tenth parts for every one of the thirteen oxen, two tenth parts for every male sheep,

¹⁵And a separate tenth part for every one of the fourteen lambs;

¹⁶And one he-goat for a sin-offering; in addition to the regular burned offering, and its meal offering, and its drink offering.

¹⁷On the second day of the feast give an offering of twelve oxen, two male sheep, fourteen he-lambs of the first year, without any mark on them;

¹⁸And their meal offering and their drink offerings for the oxen and the sheep and the lambs, in relation to their number, as it is ordered:

¹⁹And one he-goat for a sin-offering in addition to the regular burned offering, and its meal offering, and their drink offerings.

²⁰And on the third day eleven oxen, two male sheep, fourteen he-lambs of the first year, without any mark;

²¹And their meal offering and drink offerings for the oxen, for the male sheep, and for the lambs, in relation to their number, as it is ordered:

²²And one he-goat for a sin-offering; in addition to the regular burned offering, and its meal offering, and its drink offering.

²³And on the fourth day ten oxen, two male sheep, fourteen he-lambs of the first year, without any mark:

²⁴And their meal offering and their drink offerings for the oxen, for the male sheep, and for the lambs, in relation to their number, as it is ordered.

²⁵And one he-goat for a sin-offering; in addition to the regular burned offering, and its meal offering, and its drink offering.

²⁶And on the fifth day nine oxen, two male sheep, fourteen he-lambs of the first year, without any mark:

²⁷And their meal offering and their drink offerings for the oxen, for the male sheep, and for the lambs, in relation to their number, as it is ordered:

²⁸And one he-goat for a sin-offering; in addition to the regular burned offering, and its meal offering, and its drink offering.

²⁹And on the sixth day eight oxen, two male sheep, fourteen he-lambs of the first year, without any mark:

³⁰And their meal offering and their drink offerings for the oxen, for the male sheep, and for the lambs, in relation to their number, as it is ordered:

³¹And one he-goat for a sin-offering; in addition to the regular burned offering, its meal offering, and its drink offerings.

³²And on the seventh day seven oxen, two male sheep, fourteen he-lambs of the first year, without any mark:

³³And their meal offering and their drink offerings for the oxen, for the male sheep, and for the lambs, in relation to their number, as it is ordered:

³⁴And one he-goat for a sin-offering; in addition to the regular burned offering, its meal offering, and its drink offering.

³⁵On the eighth day let there be a holy meeting: you may do no field-work;

³⁶And give a burned offering, an offering made by fire of a sweet smell to the Lord: one ox, one male sheep, seven he-lambs of the first year, without any mark:

³⁷With the meal offering and the drink offerings for the ox, the male sheep, and the lambs, in relation to their number, as it is ordered:

³⁸And one he-goat for a sin-offering; in addition to the regular burned offering, and its meal offering, and its drink offering.

³⁹These are the offerings which you are to give to the Lord at your regular feasts, in addition to the offerings for an oath, and the free offerings you give, for your burned offerings and your drink offerings and your peace-offerings.

⁴⁰So Moses gave the children of Israel all these directions as the Lord had given him orders.

30And Moses said to the heads of the tribes of the children of Israel, This is the order of the Lord.

²When a man takes an oath to the Lord, or gives an undertaking having the force of an oath, let him not go back from his word, but let him do whatever he has said he will do.

³If a woman, being young and under the authority of her father, takes an oath to the Lord or gives an undertaking;

⁴If her father, hearing of her oath or the undertaking she has given, says nothing to her, then all her oaths and every undertaking she has given will have force.

⁵But if her father, hearing of it, makes her take back her word, then the oaths or the undertakings she has given will have no force; and she will have forgiveness from the Lord, because her oath was broken by her father.

⁶And if she is married to a husband at the time when she is under an oath or an undertaking given without thought;

⁷If her husband, hearing of it, says nothing to her at the time, then the oaths she made and the undertakings she gave will have force.

⁸But if her husband, hearing of it, makes her take it back, then the oath she made and the undertaking she gave without thought will have no force or effect, and she will have the Lord's forgiveness.

⁹But an oath made by a widow or one who is no longer married to her husband, and every undertaking she has given, will have force.

¹⁰If she made an oath while she was under the authority of her husband,

¹¹And her husband, hearing of it, said nothing to her and did not put a stop to it, then all her oaths and every undertaking she gave will have force.

¹²But if her husband, on hearing of it, made them without force or effect, then whatever she has said about her oaths or her undertaking has no force: her husband has made them without effect, and she will have the Lord's forgiveness.

¹³Every oath, and every undertaking which she gives, to keep herself from pleasure, may be supported or broken by her husband.

¹⁴But if the days go on, and her husband says nothing whatever to her, then he is giving the support of his authority to her oaths and undertakings, because at the time of hearing them he said nothing to her.

¹⁵But if at some time after hearing of them, he makes them without force, then he is responsible for her wrongdoing.

¹⁶These are the laws which the Lord gave Moses in relation to a man and his wife, or a father and a young daughter who is under his authority.

31Then the Lord said to Moses,

²Give the Midianites punishment for the wrong they did to the children of Israel: and after that you will go to rest with your people.

³So Moses said to the people, Let men from among you be armed for war to put into effect against Midian the Lord's punishment on them.

⁴From every tribe of Israel send a thousand to the war.

⁵So from the thousands of Israel a thousand were taken from every tribe, twelve thousand men armed for war.

⁶And Moses sent them out to war, a thousand from every tribe, and with them Phinehas, the son of Eleazar the priest, taking in his hands the vessels of the holy place and the horns for sounding the note of war.

⁷And they made war on Midian, as the Lord gave orders to Moses; and they put to death every male.

⁸They put the kings of Midian to death with the rest, Evi and Reken and Zur and Hur and Reba, the five kings of Midian: and Balaam, the son of Beor, they put to death with the sword.

⁹The women of Midian with their little ones the children of Israel took prisoner; and all their cattle and flocks and all their goods they took for themselves;

¹⁰And after burning all their towns and all their tent-circles,

¹¹They went away with the goods they had taken, man and beast.

¹²And the prisoners and the goods and everything they had taken, they took to Moses and Eleazar the priest and the people of Israel, to the tent-circle in the lowlands of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho.

¹³Then Moses and Eleazar the priest and the chiefs of the people went out to them before they had come into the tent-circle.

¹⁴And Moses was angry with the chiefs of the army, the captains of thousands and the captains of hundreds who had come back from the war.

¹⁵And Moses said to them, Why have you kept all the women safe?

¹⁶It was these who, moved by Balaam, were the cause of Israel's sin against the Lord in the question of Peor, because of which disease came on the people of the Lord.

¹⁷So now put every male child to death, and every woman who has had sex relations with a man.

¹⁸But all the female children who have had no sex relations with men, you may keep for yourselves.

¹⁹You yourselves will have to keep outside the tent-circle for seven days, anyone of you who has put any person to death or come near a dead body; and on the third day and on the seventh day make yourselves and your prisoners clean.

²⁰And every bit of clothing, and anything made of leather or goats' hair or wood, you are to make clean.

²¹Then Eleazar the priest said to the men of war who had been to the fight, This is the rule of the law which the Lord has given to Moses:

²²But gold and silver and brass and iron and tin and lead,

²³And anything which may be heated, is to go through the fire and be made clean; but in addition it is to be put in the water of cleaning: and anything which may not go through the fire is to be put in the water.

²⁴And on the seventh day, after washing your clothing, you will be clean, and then you may come into the tent-circle.

²⁵And the Lord said to Moses,

²⁶Get an account of everything which was taken in the war, of man and of beast, you and Eleazar the priest and the heads of families of the people:

²⁷And let division be made of it into two parts, one for the men of war who went out to the fight, and one for all the people:

²⁸And from the men of war who went out let there be offered to the Lord one out of every five hundred, from the persons, and from the oxen and asses and sheep:

²⁹Take this from their part and give it to Eleazar the priest as an offering to be lifted up to the Lord.

³⁰And from the part given to the children of Israel, take one out of every fifty, from the persons, and from the oxen and asses and sheep, and give it to the Levites who have the care of the House of the Lord.

³¹So Eleazar and Moses did as the Lord had given orders to Moses.

³²Now the beasts taken, in addition to what the fighting-men took for themselves, were six hundred and seventy-five thousand sheep,

³³And seventy-two thousand oxen,

³⁴And sixty-one thousand asses;

³⁵And thirty-two thousand persons, that is, women who had never had sex relations with a man.

³⁶And the half given as their part to the men who went to the war, was three hundred and thirty-seven thousand, five hundred sheep,

³⁷Of which the Lord's part was six hundred and seventy-five.

³⁸The number of oxen was thirty-six thousand, of which the Lord's part was seventy-two;

³⁹The number of asses was thirty thousand, five hundred, of which the Lord's part was sixty-one.

⁴⁰And the number of persons was sixteen thousand, of which the Lord's part was thirty-two persons.

⁴¹And Moses gave the Lord's part, lifted up as an offering, to Eleazar the priest, as the Lord had given orders to Moses.

⁴²And from the half given to the children of Israel, which Moses had kept separate from that given to the fighting-men,

⁴³(Now the people's half was three hundred and thirty-seven thousand, five hundred sheep,

⁴⁴And thirty-six thousand oxen,

⁴⁵And thirty thousand, five hundred asses,

⁴⁶And sixteen thousand persons;)

⁴⁷Even from the children of Israel's half, Moses took one out of every fifty, men and beasts, and gave them to the Levites who had the care of the House of the Lord; as the Lord gave orders to Moses.

⁴⁸Then the men in authority over the thousands of the army, the captains of thousands and captains of hundreds, came to Moses,

⁴⁹And said to him, Your servants have taken note of the number of all the fighting-men under our orders, and every one is present;

⁵⁰And we have here an offering for the Lord from what every man took in the war, ornaments of gold, leg-chains and arm-rings, finger-rings, ear-rings, and neck-ornaments, to make our souls free from sin before the Lord.

⁵¹So Moses and Eleazar the priest took the gold from them, even all the worked ornaments.

⁵²And the gold which the captains of thousands and captains of hundreds gave, as an offering to be lifted up before the Lord, came to sixteen thousand, seven hundred and fifty shekels.

⁵³(For every man of the army had taken goods for himself in the war.)

⁵⁴Then Moses and Eleazar the priest took the gold given by the captains of thousands and captains of hundreds, and took it into the Tent of meeting, to be a sign in memory of the children of Israel before the Lord.

32Now the children of Reuben and the children of Gad had a great number of cattle: and when they saw that the land of Jazer and the land of Gilead was a good place for cattle;

²The children of Gad and the children of Reuben came and said to Moses and to Eleazar the priest and to the chiefs of the meeting,

³Ataroth, and Dibon, and Jazer, and Nimrah, and Heshbon, and Elealeh, and Sebam, and Nebo, and Beon,

⁴The land which the Lord gave into the hands of the children of Israel, is a land for cattle, and your servants have cattle.

⁵And they said, With your approval, let this land be given to your servants as their heritage: do not take us over Jordan.

⁶And Moses said to the children of Gad and the children of Reuben, Are your brothers to go to the war, while you take your rest here?

⁷Why would you take from the children of Israel the desire to go over into the land which the Lord has given them?

⁸So did your fathers, when I sent them from Kadesh-barnea to see the land.

⁹For when they went up to the valley of Eshcol, and saw the land, they took from the children of Israel the desire to go into the land which the Lord had given them.

¹⁰And at that time the Lord was moved to wrath, and made an oath, saying,

¹¹Truly, not one of the men of twenty years old and over who came out of Egypt will see the land which I gave by oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; because they have not been true to me with all their heart;

¹²But only Caleb, the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite, and Joshua, the son of Nun: because they have been true to the Lord.

¹³Then the Lord was angry with Israel, and he made them wanderers in the waste land for forty years? till all that generation who had done evil in the eyes of the Lord was dead.

¹⁴And now you have come to take the place of your fathers, another generation of sinners, increasing the wrath of the Lord against Israel.

¹⁵For if you are turned away from him, he will send them wandering again in the waste land; and you will be the cause of the destruction of all this people.

¹⁶Then they came to him, and said, We will make safe places for our cattle here, and towns for our little ones;

¹⁷But we ourselves will be ready armed to go before the children of Israel till we have taken them to their place: but our little ones will be safe in the walled towns against the people of the land.

¹⁸We will not come back to our houses till every one of the children of Israel has come into his heritage.

¹⁹For we will not have our heritage with them on the other side of Jordan and forward; because our heritage has come to us on this side of Jordan to the east.

²⁰Then Moses said to them, If you will do this, arming yourselves to go before the Lord to the war,

²¹Every armed man of you going across Jordan before the Lord till he has overcome and sent in flight all who are against him,

²²And the land is under the rule of the Lord: then after that you may come back, having done no wrong to the Lord and to Israel; and this land will be yours for your heritage before the Lord.

²³But if you do not do this, then you are sinners against the Lord; and you may be certain that your sin will have its reward.

²⁴So get to work building your towns for your little ones, and safe places for your sheep; and do as you have said.

²⁵And the children of Gad and the children of Reuben said to Moses, Your servants will do as my lord says.

²⁶Our little ones, our wives, and our flocks, and all our cattle, will be there in the towns of Gilead;

²⁷But your servants will go over, every man armed for war, before the Lord to the fight, as my lord says.

²⁸So Moses gave orders about them to Eleazar the priest and to Joshua, the son of Nun, and to the heads of families of the tribes of the children of Israel.

²⁹And Moses said to them, If the children of Gad and the children of Reuben go with you over Jordan, every man armed for the fight before the Lord, and all the land is given into your hands, then let them have the land of Gilead for a heritage:

³⁰But if they do not go over with you armed, they will have to take their heritage with you in the land of Canaan.

³¹Then the children of Gad and the children of Reuben said, As the Lord has said to your servants, so will we do.

³²We will go over armed before the Lord into the land of Canaan, and you will give us our heritage on this side of Jordan.

³³So Moses gave to them, even to the children of Gad and the children of Reuben and to the half-tribe of Manasseh, the son of Joseph, the kingdom of Sihon, king of the Amorites and Og, king of Bashan, all the land with its towns and the country round them.

³⁴And the children of Gad were the builders of Dibon and Ataroth and Aroer;

³⁵And Atroth-shophan and Jazer and Jogbehah;

³⁶And Beth-nimrah and Beth-haran: walled towns and shut-in places for sheep.

³⁷And the children of Reuben were the builders of Heshbon and Elealeh and Kiriathaim;

³⁸And Nebo and Baal-meon, (their names being changed,) and Sibmah: and they gave other names to the towns they made.

³⁹And the children of Machir, the son of Manasseh, went to Gilead and took it, driving out the Amorites who were living there.

⁴⁰And Moses gave Gilead to Machir, the son of Manasseh; and he made it his living-place.

⁴¹And Jair, the son of Manasseh, went and took the towns of Gilead, naming them Havvoth-Jair.

⁴²And Nobah went and took Kenath and its small towns, naming it Nobah, after himself.

33These are the journeys of the children of Israel, when they went out of the land of Egypt in their armies, under the direction of Moses and Aaron.

²And the stages of their journey on their way out were put down in writing by Moses at the order of the Lord: these are the stages of their journey and the way they went.

³On the fifteenth day of the first month they went out from Rameses; on the day after the Passover the children of Israel went out by the power of the Lord before the eyes of all the Egyptians,

⁴While the Egyptians were placing in the earth the bodies of their sons on whom the Lord had sent destruction: and their gods had been judged by him.

⁵So the children of Israel went from Rameses and put up their tents in Succoth.

⁶And they went on from Succoth and put up their tents in Etham on the edge of the waste land.

⁷And from Etham, turning back to Pi-hahiroth which is before Baal-zephon, they put up their tents before Migdol.

⁸And journeying on from before Hahiroth, they went through the sea into the waste land: they went three days' journey through the waste land of Etham and put up their tents in Marah.

⁹And from Marah they went on to Elim: and in Elim there were twelve water-springs and seventy palm-trees; and they put up their tents there.

¹⁰And they went on from Elim and put up their tents by the Red Sea.

¹¹Then from the Red Sea they went on and put up their tents in the waste land of Sin.

¹²And they went on from the waste land of Sin, and put up their tents in Dophkah.

¹³And they went on from Dophkah, and put up their tents in Alush.

¹⁴And they went on from Alush, and put up their tents in Rephidim, where there was no drinking-water for the people.

¹⁵And they went on from Rephidim, and put up their tents in the waste land of Sinai.

¹⁶And they went on from the waste land of Sinai and put up their tents in Kibroth-hattaavah.

¹⁷And they went on from Kibroth-hattaavah, and put up their tents in Hazeroth.

¹⁸And they went on from Hazeroth, and put up their tents in Rithmah.

¹⁹And they went on from Rithmah, and put up their tents in Rimmon-perez.

²⁰And they went on from Rimmon-perez, and put up their tents in Libnah.

²¹And they went on from Libnah, and put up their tents in Rissah.

²²And they went on from Rissah, and put up their tents in Kehelathah.

²³And they went on from Kehelathah, and put up their tents in Mount Shepher.

²⁴And they went on from Mount Shepher, and put up their tents in Haradah.

²⁵And they went on from Haradah, and put up their tents in Makheloth.

²⁶And they went on from Makheloth, and put up their tents in Tahath.

²⁷And they went on from Tahath, and put up their tents in Terah.

²⁸And they went on from Terah, and put up their tents in Mithkah.

²⁹And they went on from Mithkah, and put up their tents in Hashmonah.

³⁰And they went on from Hashmonah, and put up their tents in Moseroth.

³¹And they went on from Moseroth, and put up their tents in Bene-jaakan.

³²And they went on from Bene-jaakan, and put up their tents in Hor-haggidgad.

³³And they went on from Hor-haggidgad, and put up their tents in Jotbathah.

³⁴And they went on from Jotbathah, and put up their tents in Abronah.

³⁵And they went on from Abronah, and put up their tents in Ezion-geber.

³⁶And they went on from Ezion-geber, and put up their tents in the waste land of Zin (which is Kadesh).

³⁷And they went on from Kadesh, and put up their tents in Mount Hor, on the edge of the land of Edom.

³⁸And Aaron the priest went up into the mountain at the order of the Lord, and came to his death there, in the fortieth year after the children of Israel had come out of the land of Egypt, in the fifth month, on the first day of the month.

³⁹Aaron was a hundred and twenty-three years old at the time of his death in Mount Hor.

⁴⁰And news of the coming of the children of Israel came to the king of Arad, the Canaanite, who was living in the South in the land of Canaan.

⁴¹And from Mount Hor they went on, and put up their tents in Zalmonah.

⁴²And they went on from Zalmonah, and put up their tents in Punon.

⁴³And they went on from Punon, and put up their tents in Oboth.

⁴⁴And they went on from Oboth, and put up their tents in Iye-abarim at the edge of Moab.

⁴⁵And they went on from Iyim, and put up their tents in Dibon-gad.

⁴⁶And from Dibon-gad they went on, and put up their tents in Almon-diblathaim.

⁴⁷And from Almon-diblathaim they went on, and put up their tents in the mountains of Abarim, before Nebo.

⁴⁸And they went on from the mountains of Abarim, and put up their tents in the lowlands of Moab by Jordan at Jericho;

⁴⁹Planting their tents by the side of Jordan from Beth-jeshimoth as far as Abel-shittim in the lowlands of Moab.

⁵⁰And in the lowlands of Moab by Jordan at Jericho, the Lord said to Moses,

⁵¹Say to the children of Israel, When you go over Jordan into the land of Canaan,

⁵²See that all the people of the land are forced out from before you, and put to destruction all their pictured stones, and all their metal images, and all their high places:

⁵³And take the land for yourselves, for your resting-place: for to you I have given the land as your heritage.

⁵⁴And you will take up your heritage in the land by the decision of the Lord, to every family its part; the greater the family the greater its heritage, and the smaller the family the smaller will be its heritage; wherever the decision of the Lord gives to any man his part, that will be his; distribution will be made to you by your fathers' tribes.

⁵⁵But if you are slow in driving out the people of the land, then those of them who are still there will be like pin-points in your eyes and like thorns in your sides, troubling you in the land where you are living.

⁵⁶And it will come about that as it was my purpose to do to them, so I will do to you.

34And the Lord said to Moses,

²Give orders to the children of Israel and say to them, When you come into the land of Canaan; (this is the land which is to be your heritage, the land of Canaan inside these limits,)

³Then your south quarter will be from the waste land of Zin by the side of Edom, and your limit on the south will be from the east end of the Salt Sea,

⁴And round to the south of the slope of Akrabbim, and on to Zin: and its direction will be south of Kadesh-barnea, and it will go as far as Hazar-addar and on to Azmon:

⁵And from Azmon it will go round to the stream of Egypt as far as the sea.

⁶And for your limit on the west you will have the Great Sea and its edge: this will be your limit on the west.

⁷And your limit on the north will be the line from the Great Sea to Mount Hor:

⁸And from Mount Hor the line will go in the direction of Hamath; the farthest point of it will be at Zedad:

⁹And the limit will go on to Ziphron, with its farthest point at Hazar-enan: this will be your limit on the north.

¹⁰And on the east, your limit will be marked out from Hazar-enan to Shepham,

¹¹Going down from Shepham to Riblah on the east side of Ain, and on as far as the east side of the sea of Chinnereth:

¹²And so down to Jordan, stretching to the Salt Sea: all the land inside these limits will be yours.

¹³And Moses gave orders to the children of Israel saying, This is the land which is to be your heritage, by the decision of the Lord, which by the Lord's order is to be given to the nine tribes and the half-tribe:

¹⁴For the tribe of the children of Reuben, by their fathers' families, and the tribe of the children of Gad, by their fathers' families, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, have been given their heritage:

¹⁵The two tribes and the half-tribe have been given their heritage on the other side of Jordan at Jericho, on the east looking to the dawn.

¹⁶And the Lord said to Moses,

¹⁷These are the names of the men who are to make the distribution of the land among you: Eleazar the priest and Joshua, the son of Nun.

¹⁸And you are to take one chief from every tribe to make the distribution of the land.

¹⁹And these are the names of the men: of the tribe of Judah, Caleb, the son of Jephunneh.

²⁰And of the tribe of the children of Simeon, Shemuel, the son of Ammihud.

²¹Of the tribe of Benjamin, Elidad, the son of Chislon.

²²And of the tribe of the children of Dan, a chief, Bukki, the son of Jogli.

²³Of the children of Joseph: of the tribe of the children of Manasseh, a chief, Hanniel, the son of Ephod:

²⁴And of the tribe of the children of Ephraim, a chief, Kemuel, the son of Shiphtan.

²⁵And of the tribe of the children of Zebulun, a chief, Elizaphan, the son of Parnach.

²⁶And of the tribe of the children of Issachar, a chief, Paltiel, the son of Azzan.

²⁷And of the tribe of the children of Asher, a chief, Ahihud, the son of Shelomi.

²⁸And of the tribe of the children of Naphtali, a chief, Pedahel, the son of Ammihud.

²⁹These are they to whom the Lord gave orders to make the distribution of the heritage among the children of Israel in the land of Canaan.

35And the Lord said to Moses in the lowlands of Moab by Jordan at Jericho,

²Give orders to the children of Israel to give to the Levites, from the heritage which is theirs, towns for themselves, with land on the outskirts of the towns.

³These towns are to be their living-places, with land round them for their cattle and their food and all their beasts,

⁴Stretching from the wall of the towns a distance of a thousand cubits all round.

⁵The measure of this space of land is to be two thousand cubits outside the town on the east, and two thousand cubits on the south and on the west and on the north, the town being in the middle. This space will be the outskirts of their towns.

⁶And the towns which you give the Levites are to be the six safe places to which the taker of life may go in flight; and in addition you are to give them forty-two towns.

⁷Forty-eight towns are to be given to the Levites, all with land round them.

⁸And these towns are to be given out of the heritage of the children of Israel, taking the greater number from those who have much, and a smaller number from those who have little: everyone, in the measure of his heritage, is to give of his property to the Levites.

⁹And the Lord said to Moses,

¹⁰Say to the children of Israel, when you have gone over Jordan into the land of Canaan;

¹¹Then let certain towns be marked out as safe places to which anyone who takes the life of another in error may go in flight.

¹²In these towns you may be safe from him who has the right of punishment; so that death may not overtake the taker of life till he has been judged by the meeting of the people.

¹³Six of the towns which you give will be such safe places;

¹⁴Three on the other side of Jordan and three in the land of Canaan, to be safe places for flight.

¹⁵For the children of Israel and for the man from another country who is living among them, these six towns are to be safe places, where anyone causing the death of another through error may go in flight.

¹⁶But if a man gives another man a blow with an iron instrument, causing his death, he is a taker of life and is certainly to be put to death.

¹⁷Or if he gives him a blow with a stone in his hand, causing his death, he is a taker of life and is certainly to be put to death.

¹⁸Or if he gave him blows with a wood instrument in his hands, causing his death, he is a taker of life and is certainly to be put to death.

¹⁹He whose right it is to give punishment for blood, may himself put to death the taker of life when he comes face to face with him.

²⁰If in his hate he put a sword through him, or waiting secretly for him sent a spear or stone at him, causing his death;

²¹Or in hate gave him blows with his hand, causing death; he who gave the death-blow is to be put to death; he is a taker of life: he whose right it is to give punishment for blood may put to death the taker of life when he comes face to face with him.

²²But if a man has given a wound to another suddenly and not in hate, or without design has sent something against him,

²³Or has given him a blow with a stone, without seeing him, so causing his death, though he had nothing against him and no desire to do him evil:

²⁴Then let the meeting of the people be judge between the man responsible for the death and him who has the right of punishment for blood, acting by these rules:

²⁵And let the people keep the man responsible for the death safe from the hands of him who has the right of punishment for blood, and send him back to his safe town where he had gone in flight: there let him be till the death of the high priest who was marked with the holy oil.

²⁶But if ever he goes outside the walls of the safe town where he had gone in flight,

²⁷And the giver of punishment, meeting him outside the walls of the town, puts him to death, he will not be responsible for his blood:

²⁸Because he had been ordered to keep inside the safe town till the death of the high priest: but after the death of the high priest the taker of life may come back to the place of his heritage.

²⁹These rules are to be your guide in judging through all your generations wherever you may be living.

³⁰Anyone causing the death of another is himself to be put to death on the word of witnesses: but the word of one witness is not enough.

³¹Further, no price may be given for the life of one who has taken life and whose right reward is death: he is certainly to be put to death.

³²And no price may be offered for one who has gone in flight to a safe town, for the purpose of letting him come back to his place before the death of the high priest.

³³So do not make the land where you are living unholy: for blood makes the land unholy: and there is no way of making the land free from the blood which has come on it, but only by the death of him who was the cause of it.

³⁴Do not make unclean the land where you are living and in which is my House: for I the Lord am present among the children of Israel.

36Now the heads of the families of the children of Gilead, the son of Machir, the son of Manasseh, of the families of the sons of Joseph, came to Moses, the chiefs and the heads of families of the children of Israel being present,

²And said, The Lord gave orders to my lord to make distribution of the land as their heritage to the children of Israel: and my lord was ordered by the Lord to give the heritage of Zelophehad, our brother, to his daughters.

³Now if they get married to any of the sons of other tribes of the children of Israel, then their property will be taken away from the heritage of our fathers, and become part of the heritage of the tribe into which they get married: and their heritage will be taken away from the heritage of our tribe.

⁴And at the time of the Jubilee of the children of Israel, their property will be joined to the heritage of the tribe of which they are part and will be taken away from the heritage of the tribe of our fathers.

⁵So by the direction of the Lord, Moses gave orders to the children of Israel, saying, What the tribe of the sons of Joseph have said is right.

⁶This is the order of the Lord about the daughters of Zelophehad: The Lord says, Let them take as their husbands whoever is most pleasing to them, but only among the family of their father's tribe.

⁷And so no property will be handed from tribe to tribe among the children of Israel; but every one of the children of Israel will keep the heritage of his father's tribe.

⁸And every daughter owning property in any tribe of the children of Israel is to be married to one of the family of her father's tribe, so that every man of the children of Israel may keep the heritage of his fathers.

⁹And no property will be handed from one tribe to another, but every tribe of the children of Israel will keep its heritage.

¹⁰So the daughters of Zelophehad did as the Lord gave orders to Moses:

¹¹For Mahlah, Tirzah, and Hoglah, and Milcah, and Noah, the daughters of Zelophehad, took as their husbands the sons of their father's brothers:

¹²And were married into the families of the sons of Manasseh, the son of Joseph, and their property was kept in the tribe of their father's family

¹³These are the laws and the orders which the Lord gave to the children of Israel by Moses, in the lowlands of Moab by Jordan at Jericho.

1These are the words which Moses said to all Israel on the far side of Jordan, in the waste land in the Arabah opposite Suph, between Paran on the one side, and Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Dizahab on the other.

²It is eleven days' journey from Horeb by the way of Mount Seir to Kadesh-barnea.

³Now in the fortieth year, on the first day of the eleventh month, Moses gave to the children of Israel all the orders which the Lord had given him for them;

⁴After he had overcome Sihon, king of the Amorites, ruling in Heshbon, and Og, king of Bashan, ruling in Ashtaroth, at Edrei:

⁵On the far side of Jordan in the land of Moab, Moses gave the people this law, saying,

⁶The Lord our God said to us in Horeb, You have been long enough in this mountain:

⁷Make a move now, and go on your way into the hill-country of the Amorites and the places near it, in the Arabah and the hill-country and in the lowlands and in the South and by the seaside, all the land of the Canaanites, and Lebanon, as far as the great river, the river Euphrates.

⁸See, all the land is before you: go in and take for yourselves the land which the Lord gave by an oath to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and to their seed after them.

⁹At that time I said to you, I am not able to undertake the care of you by myself;

¹⁰The Lord your God has given you increase, and now you are like the stars of heaven in number.

¹¹May the Lord, the God of your fathers, make you a thousand times greater in number than you are, and give you his blessing as he has said!

¹²How is it possible for me by myself to be responsible for you, and undertake the weight of all your troubles and your arguments?

¹³Take for yourselves men who are wise, far-seeing, and respected among you, from your tribes, and I will make them rulers over you.

¹⁴And you made answer and said to me, It is good for us to do as you say.

¹⁵So I took the heads of your tribes, wise men and respected, and made them rulers over you, captains of thousands and captains of hundreds and captains of fifties and captains of tens, and overseers of your tribes.

¹⁶And at that time I gave orders to your judges, saying, Let all questions between your brothers come before you for hearing, and give decisions uprightly between a man and his brother or one from another nation who is with him.

¹⁷In judging, do not let a man's position have any weight with you; give hearing equally to small and great; have no fear of any man, for it is God who is judge: and any cause in which you are not able to give a decision, you are to put before me and I will give it a hearing.

¹⁸And at that time I gave you all the orders which you were to do.

¹⁹Then we went on from Horeb, through all that great and cruel waste which you saw, on our way to the hill-country of the Amorites, as the Lord gave us orders; and we came to Kadesh-barnea.

²⁰And I said to you, You have come to the hill-country of the Amorites, which the Lord our God is giving us.

²¹See now, the Lord your God has put the land into your hands: go up and take it, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has said to you; have no fear and do not be troubled.

²²And you came near to me, every one of you, and said, Let us send men before us to go through the land with care and give us an account of the way we are to go and the towns to which we will come.

²³And what you said seemed good to me, and I took twelve men from among you, one from every tribe;

²⁴And they went up into the hill-country and came to the valley of Eshcol, and saw what was there.

²⁵And taking in their hands some of the fruit of the land, they came down again to us, and gave us their account, saying, It is a good land which the Lord our God is giving us.

²⁶But going against the order of the Lord your God, you would not go up:

²⁷And you made an angry outcry in your tents, and said, In his hate for us the Lord has taken us out of the land of Egypt, to give us up into the hands of the Amorites for our destruction.

²⁸Where are we going up? Our brothers have made our hearts feeble with fear by saying, The people are greater and taller than we are, and the towns are great and walled up to heaven; and more than this, we have seen the sons of the Anakim there.

²⁹Then I said to you, Have no fear of them.

³⁰The Lord your God who goes before you will be fighting for you, and will do such wonders as he did for you in Egypt before your eyes;

³¹And in the waste land, where you have seen how the Lord was supporting you, as a man does his son, in all your journeying till you came to this place.

³²But for all this, you had no faith in the Lord your God,

³³Who goes before you on your way, looking for a place where you may put up your tents, in fire by night, lighting up the way you are to go, and in a cloud by day.

³⁴And the Lord, hearing your words, was angry, and said with an oath,

³⁵Truly, not one of this evil generation will see that good land which I said I would give to your fathers,

³⁶But only Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, he will see it; and to him and to his children I will give the land over which his feet have gone, because he has been true to the Lord with all his heart.

³⁷And, in addition, the Lord was angry with me because of you, saying, You yourself will not go into it:

³⁸Joshua, the son of Nun, your servant, he will go into the land: say to him that he is to be strong, for he will be Israel's guide into their heritage.

³⁹And your little ones, who, you said, would come into strange hands, your children, who now have no knowledge of good or evil, they will go into that land, and to them I will give it and it will be theirs.

⁴⁰But as for you, go back, journeying into the waste land by the way of the Red Sea.

⁴¹Then you said to me, We have done evil against the Lord, we will go up to the attack, as the Lord our God has given us orders. And arming yourselves every one, you made ready to go up without care into the hill-country.

⁴²And the Lord said to me, Say to them, Do not go up to the attack; for I am not among you, and you will be overcome by those who are against you.

⁴³This I said to you, but you gave no attention and went against the orders of the Lord, and in your pride went up into the hill-country.

⁴⁴And the Amorites who were in the hill-country came out against you and put you to flight, rushing after you like bees, and overcame you in Seir, driving you even as far as Hormah.

⁴⁵And you came back, weeping before the Lord; but the Lord gave no attention to your cries and did not give ear to you.

⁴⁶So you were kept waiting in Kadesh for a long time.

2Then we went back, journeying into the waste land by the way to the Red Sea, as the Lord had said to me: and we were a long time going round Mount Seir.

²And the Lord said to me,

³You have been journeying round this mountain long enough: now go to the north;

⁴And give the people orders, saying, You are about to go through the land of your brothers, the children of Esau, who are living in Seir; and they will have fear of you; so take care what you do:

⁵Make no attack on them, for I will not give you any of their land, not even space enough for a man's foot: because I have given Mount Seir to Esau for his heritage.

⁶You may get food for your needs from them for a price, and water for drinking.

⁷For the blessing of the Lord your God has been on you in all the work of your hands: he has knowledge of your wanderings through this great waste: these forty years the Lord your God has been with you, and you have been short of nothing.

⁸So we went on past our brothers, the children of Esau, living in Seir, by the road through the Arabah, from Elath and Ezion-geber. And turning, we went by the road through the waste land of Moab.

⁹And the Lord said to me, Make no attack on Moab and do not go to war with them, for I will not give you any of his land: because I have given Ar to the children of Lot for their heritage.

¹⁰(In the past the Emim were living there; a great people, equal in numbers to the Anakim and as tall;

¹¹They are numbered among the Rephaim, like the Anakim; but are named Emim by the Moabites.

¹²And the Horites in earlier times were living in Seir, but the children of Esau took their place; they sent destruction on them and took their land for themselves, as Israel did to the land of his heritage which the Lord gave them.)

¹³Get up now, and go over the stream Zered. So we went over the stream Zered.

¹⁴Thirty-eight years had gone by from the time when we came away from Kadesh-barnea till we went over the stream Zered; by that time all the generation of the men of war among us were dead, as the Lord had said.

¹⁵For the hand of the Lord was against them, working their destruction, till all were dead.

¹⁶So when death had overtaken all the men of war among the people,

¹⁷The word of the Lord came to me, saying,

¹⁸You are about to go by Ar, the limit of the country of Moab;

¹⁹And when you come near the land of the children of Ammon, give them no cause of trouble and do not make war on them, for I will not give you any of the land of the children of Ammon for your heritage: because I have given it to the children of Lot.

²⁰(That land is said to have been a land of the Rephaim, for Rephaim had been living there in earlier times, but they were named Zamzummim by the Ammonites;

²¹They were a great people, tall as the Anakim, and equal to them in number; but the Lord sent destruction on them and the children of Ammon took their place, living in their land;

²²As he did for the children of Esau living in Seir, when he sent destruction on the Horites before them, and they took their land where they are living to this day:

²³And the Avvim, living in the small towns as far as Gaza, came to destruction by the hands of the Caphtorim who came out from Caphtor and took their land.)

²⁴Get up now, and go on your journey, crossing over the valley of the Arnon: see, I have given into your hands Sihon, the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and all his land: go forward to make it yours, and make war on him,

²⁵From now on I will put the fear of you in all peoples under heaven, who, hearing of you, will be shaking with fear and grief of heart because of you.

²⁶Then from the waste land of Kedemoth I sent representatives to Sihon, king of Heshbon, with words of peace, saying,

²⁷Let me go through your land: I will keep to the highway, not turning to the right or to the left;

²⁸Let me have food, at a price, for my needs, and water for drinking: only let me go through on foot;

²⁹As the children of Esau did for me in Seir and the Moabites in Ar; till I have gone over Jordan into the land which the Lord our God is giving us.

³⁰But Sihon, king of Heshbon, would not let us go through; for the Lord your God made his spirit hard and his heart strong, so that he might give him up into your hands as at this day.

³¹And the Lord said to me, See, from now on I have given Sihon and his land into your hands: go forward now to take his land and make it yours.

³²Then Sihon came out against us with all his people, to make an attack on us at Jahaz.

³³And the Lord our God gave him into our hands; and we overcame him and his sons and all his people.

³⁴At that time we took all his towns, and gave them over to complete destruction, together with men, women, and children; we had no mercy on any:

³⁵Only the cattle we took for ourselves, with the goods from the towns we had taken.

³⁶From Aroer on the edge of the valley of the Arnon and from the town in the valley as far as Gilead, no town was strong enough to keep us out; the Lord our God gave them all into our hands:

³⁷But you did not go near the land of the children of Ammon, that is, all the side of the river Jabbok or the towns of the hill-country, wherever the Lord our God had said we were not to go.

3Then turning we took the road to Bashan: and Og, king of Bashan, came out against us with all his people, and made an attack on us at Edrei.

²And the Lord said to me, Have no fear of him: for I have given him and all his people and his land into your hands; do to him as you did to Sihon, king of the Amorites, who was ruling in Heshbon.

³So the Lord our God gave up Og, king of Bashan, and all his people into our hands; and we overcame him so completely that all his people came to their end in the fight.

⁴At that time we took all his towns; there was not one town of the sixty towns, all the country of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan, which we did not take.

⁵All these towns had high walls round them with doors and locks; and in addition we took a great number of unwalled towns.

⁶And we put them to the curse, every town together with men, women, and children.

⁷But we took for ourselves all the cattle and the stored wealth of the towns.

⁸At that time we took their land from the two kings of the Amorites on the far side of Jordan, from the valley of the Arnon to Mount Hermon;

⁹(By the Sidonians, Hermon is named Sirion, and by the Amorites Shenir;)

¹⁰All the towns of the table-land and all Gilead and Bashan as far as Salecah and Edrei, towns of the kingdom of Og in Bashan.

¹¹(For Og, king of Bashan, was the last of all the Rephaim; his bed was made of iron; is it not in Rabbah, in the land of the children of Ammon? It was nine cubits long and four cubits wide, measured by the common cubit.)

¹²And this land which we took at that time, from Aroer by the valley of the Arnon, and half the hill-country of Gilead with its towns, I gave to the Reubenites and the Gadites.

¹³The rest of Gilead and all Bashan, the kingdom of Og, all the land of Argob, together with Bashan, I gave to the half-tribe of Manasseh. (This land is named the land of the Rephaim.

¹⁴Jair, the son of Manasseh, took all the land of Argob, as far as the country of the Geshurites and the Maacathites, naming it, Bashan, Havvoth-Jair after himself, as it is to this day.)

¹⁵And Gilead I gave to Machir.

¹⁶And the land from Gilead to the valley of the Arnon, with the middle of the valley as a limit, as far as the river Jabbok which is the limit of the country of the children of Ammon, I gave to the Reubenites and the Gadites;

¹⁷As well as the Arabah, with the river Jordan as their limit, from Chinnereth to the Salt Sea, under the slopes of Pisgah to the east.

¹⁸At that time I gave you orders, saying, The Lord has given you this land for your heritage: all the men of war are to go over armed before your brothers the children of Israel.

¹⁹But your wives and your little ones and your cattle (for it is clear that you have much cattle) may go on living in the towns I have given you;

²⁰Till the Lord has given rest to your brothers as to you, and till they have taken for themselves the land which the Lord your God is giving them on the other side of Jordan: then you may go back, every man of you, to the heritage which I have given you.

²¹And I gave orders to Joshua at that time, saying, Your eyes have seen what the Lord your God has done to these two kings: so will the Lord do to all the kingdoms into which you come.

²²Have no fear of them, for the Lord your God will be fighting for you.

²³And at that time I made request to the Lord, saying,

²⁴O Lord God, you have now for the first time let your servant see your great power and the strength of your hand; for what god is there in heaven or on earth able to do such great works and such acts of power?

²⁵Let me go over, O Lord, and see the good land on the other side of Jordan, and that fair mountain country, even Lebanon.

²⁶But the Lord was angry with me because of you and would not give ear to my prayer; and the Lord said to me, Let it be enough, say no more about this thing.

²⁷Go up to the top of Pisgah, and turning your eyes to the west and the north, to the south and the east, see the land with your eyes: for you are not to go over Jordan.

²⁸But give my orders to Joshua, comforting him and making him strong; for he is to go over Jordan at the head of this people, and he will give them this land which you will see for their heritage.

²⁹So we were waiting in the valley facing Beth-peor.

4And now give ear, O Israel, to the laws and the decisions which I am teaching you, and do them; so that life may be yours, and you may go in and take for yourselves the land which the Lord, the God of your fathers, is giving you.

²Make no addition to the orders which I give you, and take nothing from them, but keep the orders of the Lord your God which I give you.

³Your eyes have seen what the Lord did because of Baal-peor: for destruction came from the Lord on all those among you who went after Baal-peor.

⁴But you who kept faith with the Lord are living, every one of you, today.

⁵I have been teaching you laws and decisions, as I was ordered to do by the Lord my God, so that you might keep them in the land to which you are going to take it for your heritage.

⁶So keep these laws and do them; for so will your wisdom and good sense be clear in the eyes of the peoples, who hearing all these laws will say, Truly, this great nation is a wise and far-seeing people.

⁷For what great nation has a god so near to them as the Lord our God is, whenever we are turned to him in prayer?

⁸And what great nation has laws and decisions so right as all this law which I put before you today?

⁹Only take care, and keep watch on your soul, for fear that the things which your eyes have seen go from your memory and from your heart all the days of your life; but let the knowledge of them be given to your children and to your children's children;

¹⁰That day when you were waiting before the Lord your God in Horeb, and the Lord said to me, Make all the people come together, so that hearing my words they may go in fear of me all the days of their life on earth and give this teaching to their children.

¹¹And you came near, waiting at the foot of the mountain; and flames of fire went up from the mountain to the heart of heaven, with dark clouds, and all was black as night.

¹²And the voice of the Lord came to you out of the fire: the sound of his words came to your ears but you saw no form; there was nothing but a voice.

¹³And he gave you his agreement with you, the ten rules which you were to keep, which he put in writing on the two stones of the law.

¹⁴And the Lord gave me orders at that time to make clear to you these laws and decisions, so that you might do them in the land to which you are going, and which is to be your heritage.

¹⁵So keep watch on yourselves with care; for you saw no form of any sort on the day when the voice of the Lord came to you in Horeb out of the heart of the fire:

¹⁶So that you may not be turned to evil ways and make for yourselves an image in the form of any living thing, male or female,

¹⁷Or any beast of the earth, or winged bird of the air,

¹⁸Or of anything which goes flat on the earth, or any fish in the water under the earth.

¹⁹And when your eyes are lifted up to heaven, and you see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the army of heaven, do not let yourselves be moved to give them worship, or become the servants of what the Lord has given equally to all peoples under heaven.

²⁰But the Lord has taken you out of the flaming fire, out of Egypt, to be to him the people of his heritage, as you are today.

²¹And the Lord was angry with me because of you, and made an oath that I was not to go over Jordan into the good land which the Lord is giving you for your heritage:

²²But death is to come to me in this land, I may not go over Jordan: but you will go over and take that good land for your heritage.

²³Take care that you do not let the agreement of the Lord your God, which he has made with you, go out of your mind, or make for yourselves images of any sort, against the orders which the Lord your God has given you.

²⁴For the Lord your God is an all-burning fire, and he will not let the honour which is his be given to any other.

²⁵If, when you have had children and children's children, and have been living a long time in the land, you are turned to evil ways, and make an image of any sort, and do evil in the eyes of the Lord your God, moving him to wrath:

²⁶May heaven and earth be my witnesses against you today, that destruction will quickly overtake you, cutting you off from that land which you are going over Jordan to take; your days will not be long in that land, but you will come to a complete end.

²⁷And the Lord will send you wandering among the peoples; only a small band of you will be kept from death among the nations where the Lord will send you.

²⁸There you will be the servants of gods, made by men's hands, of wood and stone, having no power of seeing or hearing or taking food or smelling.

²⁹But if in those lands you are turned again to the Lord your God, searching for him with all your heart and soul, he will not keep himself from you.

³⁰When you are in trouble and all these things have come on you, if, in the future, you are turned again to the Lord your God, and give ear to his voice:

³¹Because the Lord your God is a God of mercy, he will not take away his help from you or let destruction overtake you, or be false to the agreement which he made by an oath with your fathers.

³²Give thought now to the days which are past, before your time, from the day when God first gave life to man on the earth, and searching from one end of heaven to the other, see if such a great thing as this has ever been, or if anything like it has been talked of in story.

³³Has any people ever gone on living after hearing the voice of God out of the heart of the fire as you did?

³⁴Has God ever before taken a nation for himself from out of another nation, by punishments and signs and wonders, by war and by a strong hand and a stretched-out arm and great acts of wonder and fear, as the Lord your God did for you in Egypt, before your very eyes?

³⁵All this he let you see, so that you might be certain that the Lord is God and there is no other.

³⁶Out of heaven itself his voice came to you, teaching you; and on earth he let you see his great fire; and his words came to your ears out of the heart of the fire.

³⁷And because of his love for your fathers, he took their seed and made it his, and he himself, present among you, took you out of Egypt by his great power;

³⁸Driving out before you nations greater and stronger than you, to take you into their land and give it to you for your heritage, as at this day.

³⁹So today be certain, and keep the knowledge deep in your hearts, that the Lord is God, in heaven on high and here on earth; there is no other God.

⁴⁰Then keep his laws and his orders which I give you today, so that it may be well for you and for your children after you, and that your lives may be long in the land which the Lord your God is giving you for ever.

⁴¹Then Moses had three towns marked out on the far side of Jordan looking to the east;

⁴²To which anyone causing the death of his neighbour in error and not through hate, might go in flight; so that in one of these towns he might be kept from death:

⁴³The names of the towns were Bezer in the waste land, in the table-land, for the Reubenites; and Ramoth in Gilead for the Gadites; and Golan in Bashan for Manasseh.

⁴⁴This is the law which Moses put before the children of Israel:

⁴⁵These are the rules and the laws and the decisions which Moses gave to the children of Israel after they came out of Egypt;

⁴⁶On the far side of Jordan, in the valley facing Beth-peor, in the land of Sihon, king of the Amorites, who was ruling in Heshbon, whom Moses and the children of Israel overcame after they had come out of Egypt:

⁴⁷And they took his land for a heritage, and the land of Og, king of Bashan, the two kings of the Amorites, whose lands were on the other side of Jordan to the east;

⁴⁸From Aroer on the edge of the valley of the Arnon as far as Mount Sion, which is Hermon,

⁴⁹And all the Arabah on the far side of Jordan to the east, as far as the sea of the Arabah under the slopes of Pisgah.

5And Moses sent for all Israel, and said to them, Give ear, O Israel, to the laws and the decisions which I give you today, and give attention to them so that you may keep and do them.

²The Lord our God made an agreement with us in Horeb.

³The Lord did not make this agreement with our fathers but with us, who are all living and present here today.

⁴The word of the Lord came to you face to face on the mountain, out of the heart of the fire,

⁵(I was between the Lord and you at that time, to make clear to you the word of the Lord: because, through fear of the fire, you did not go up the mountain;) saying,

⁶I am the Lord your God, who took you out of the land of Egypt, out of the prison-house.

⁷You are to have no other gods but me.

⁸You may not make for yourselves an image in the form of anything in heaven or on earth or in the waters under the earth:

⁹You may not go down on your faces before them or give them worship: for I, the Lord your God, am a God who will not give his honour to another; and I will send punishment on the children for the wrongdoing of their fathers, to the third and fourth generation of my haters;

¹⁰And I will have mercy through a thousand generations on those who have love for me and keep my laws.

¹¹You are not to make use of the name of the Lord your God for an evil purpose; whoever takes the Lord's name on his lips for an evil purpose will be judged as a sinner by the Lord.

¹²Keep the Sabbath day as a holy day, as you have been ordered by the Lord your God.

¹³On six days do all your work:

¹⁴But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; on that day do no work, you or your son or your daughter, or your man-servant or your woman-servant, or your ox or your ass or any of your cattle, or the man from a strange country who is living among you; so that your man-servant and your woman-servant may have rest as well as you.

¹⁵And keep in mind that you were a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord your God took you out of that land by his strong hand and his stretched-out arm: for this reason the Lord has given you orders to keep the Sabbath day.

¹⁶Give honour to your father and your mother, as you have been ordered by the Lord your God; so that your life may be long and all may be well for you in the land which the Lord your God is giving you.

¹⁷Do not put anyone to death without cause.

¹⁸Do not be false to the married relation.

¹⁹Do not take the property of another.

²⁰Do not give false witness against your neighbour;

²¹Or let your desire be turned to your neighbour's wife, or his house or his field or his man-servant or his woman-servant or his ox or his ass or anything which is your neighbour's.

²²These words the Lord said to all of you together on the mountain, out of the heart of the fire, out of the cloud and the dark, with a great voice: and he said no more; he put them in writing on the two stones of the law and gave them to me.

²³And after hearing the voice which came out of the dark while the mountain was burning with fire, all the heads of your tribes and your chiefs came to me,

²⁴And said, The Lord has let us see his glory and his power, and his voice has come to us out of the fire: today we have seen that a man may go on living even after hearing the voice of God.

²⁵Why then is death to be our fate? For if the voice of the Lord our God comes to us any more, death will overtake us, and we will be burned up in this great fire.

²⁶For what man is there in all the earth, who, hearing the voice of the living God as we have, out of the heart of the fire, has been kept from death?

²⁷Do you go near: and after hearing everything which the Lord our God has to say, give us an account of all he has said to you, and we will give ear, and do it.

²⁸Then the Lord, hearing your words to me, said to me, The words which this people have said to you have come to my ears: what they have said is well said.

²⁹If only they had such a heart in them at all times, so that they might go in fear of me and keep my orders and that it might be well for them and for their children for ever!

³⁰Now say to them, Go back to your tents.

³¹But as for you, keep your place here by me, and I will give you all the orders and the laws and the decisions which you are to make clear to them, so that they may do them in the land which I am giving them for their heritage.

³²Take care, then, to do whatever the Lord your God has given you orders to do; let there be no turning away to the right hand or to the left.

³³Go on walking in the way ordered for you by the Lord your God, so that life may be yours and it may be well for you, and your days may be long in the land of your heritage.

6Now these are the orders and the laws and the decisions which the Lord your God gave me for your teaching, so that you might do them in the land of your heritage to which you are going:

²So that living in the fear of the Lord your God, you may keep all his laws and his orders, which I give you: you and your son and your son's son, all the days of your life; and so that your life may be long.

³So give ear, O Israel, and take care to do this; so that it may be well for you, and you may be greatly increased, as the Lord the God of your fathers has given you his word, in a land flowing with milk and honey.

⁴Give ear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord:

⁵And the Lord your God is to be loved with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

⁶Keep these words, which I say to you this day, deep in your hearts;

⁷Teaching them to your children with all care, talking of them when you are at rest in your house or walking by the way, when you go to sleep and when you get up.

⁸Let them be fixed as a sign on your hand, and marked on your brow;

⁹Have them lettered on the pillars of your houses and over the doors of your towns.

¹⁰And when the Lord your God has taken you into the land which he gave his oath to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, that he would give you; with great and fair towns which were not of your building;

¹¹And houses full of good things not stored up by you, and places for storing water which you did not make, and vine-gardens and olive-trees not of your planting; and you have taken food and are full;

¹²Then take care that you keep your hearts true to the Lord, who took you out of the land of Egypt, out of the prison-house.

¹³Let the fear of the Lord your God be in your hearts, and be his servants, taking your oaths by his name.

¹⁴Do not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples round about you;

¹⁵For the Lord your God who is with you is a God who will not let his honour be given to another; or the wrath of the Lord will be burning against you, causing your destruction from the face of the earth.

¹⁶Do not put the Lord your God to the test as you did in Massah.

¹⁷Keep with care the orders of the Lord your God, and his rules and his laws which he has given you;

¹⁸And do what is upright and good in the eyes of the Lord your God, so that it may be well for you and you may go in and take for your heritage that good land from which the Lord undertook by an oath to your fathers,

¹⁹To send out from before you all those who are against you.

²⁰And when your son says to you in time to come, What is the reason for these rules and laws and decisions which the Lord our God has given you?

²¹Then you will say to your son, We were servants under Pharaoh's yoke in Egypt; and the Lord took us out of Egypt with a strong hand:

²²And the Lord did great signs and wonders against Egypt, and against Pharaoh and all his house, before our eyes:

²³And he took us out from that place, guiding us here to give us this land, as he said in his oath to our fathers.

²⁴And the Lord gave us orders to keep all these laws, in the fear of the Lord our God, so that it might be well for us for ever, and that he might keep us from death, as he has done to this day.

²⁵And it will be our righteousness if we take care to keep all this order before the Lord our God as he has given it to us.

7When the Lord your God takes you into the land where you are going, which is to be your heritage, and has sent out the nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and stronger than you;

²And when the Lord has given them up into your hands and you have overcome them, give them up to complete destruction: make no agreement with them, and have no mercy on them:

³Do not take wives or husbands from among them; do not give your daughters to their sons, or take their daughters for your sons.

⁴For through them your sons will be turned from me to the worship of other gods: and the Lord will be moved to wrath against you and send destruction on you quickly.

⁵But this is what you are to do to them: their altars are to be pulled down and their pillars broken, and their holy trees cut down and their images burned with fire.

⁶For you are a holy people to the Lord your God: marked out by the Lord your God to be his special people out of all the nations on the face of the earth.

⁷The Lord did not give you his love or take you for himself because you were more in number than any other people; for you were the smallest of the nations:

⁸But because of his love for you, and in order to keep his oath to your fathers, the Lord took you out with the strength of his hand, making you free from the prison-house and from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.

⁹Be certain, then, that the Lord your God is God; whose faith and mercy are unchanging, who keeps his word through a thousand generations to those who have love for him and keep his laws;

¹⁰Rewarding his haters to their face with destruction; he will have no mercy on his hater, but will give him open punishment.

¹¹So keep the orders and the laws and the decisions which I give you today and do them.

¹²And it will be, that if you give attention to these decisions and keep and do them, then the Lord will keep his agreement with you and his mercy, as he said in his oath to your fathers.

¹³And he will give you his love, blessing you and increasing you: he will send his blessing on the offspring of your body and the fruit of your land, your grain and your wine and your oil, the increase of your cattle and the young of your flock, in the land which by his oath to your fathers he undertook to give you.

¹⁴You will have greater blessings than any other people: no male or female among you or among your cattle will be without offspring.

¹⁵And the Lord will take away from you all disease, and will not put on you any of the evil diseases of Egypt which you have seen, but will put them on your haters.

¹⁶And you are to send destruction on all the peoples which the Lord your God gives into your hands; have no pity on them, and do not give worship to their gods; for that will be a cause of sin to you.

¹⁷If you say in your hearts, These nations are greater in number than we are: how are we to take their land from them?

¹⁸Have no fear of them, but keep well in mind what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt;

¹⁹The great punishments which your eyes saw, and the signs and the wonders and the strong hand and the stretched-out arm, by which the Lord your God took you out: so will the Lord your God do to all the peoples who are the cause of your fears.

²⁰And the Lord will send a hornet among them, till all the rest who have kept themselves safe from you in secret places have been cut off.

²¹Have no fear of them: for the Lord your God is with you, a great God greatly to be feared.

²²The Lord your God will send out the nations before you little by little; they are not to be rooted out quickly, for fear that the beasts of the field may be increased overmuch against you.

²³But the Lord your God will give them up into your hands, overpowering them till their destruction is complete.

²⁴He will give their kings into your hands, and you will put their names out of existence under heaven; there is not one of them who will not give way before you, till their destruction is complete.

²⁵The images of their gods are to be burned with fire: have no desire for the gold and silver on them, and do not take it for yourselves, for it will be a danger to you: it is a thing disgusting to the Lord your God:

²⁶And you may not take a disgusting thing into your house, and so become cursed with its curse: but keep yourselves from it, turning from it with fear and hate, for it is a cursed thing.

8Take care to keep all the orders which I give you today, so that you may have life and be increased and go in and take as a heritage the land which the Lord, by his oath to your fathers, undertook to give you.

²And keep in mind the way by which the Lord your God has taken you through the waste land these forty years, so that he might make low your pride and put you to the test, to see what was in your heart and if you would keep his orders or not.

³And he made low your pride and let you be without food and gave you manna for your food, a thing new to you, which your fathers never saw; so that he might make it clear to you that bread is not man's only need, but his life is in every word which comes out of the mouth of the Lord.

⁴Through all these forty years your clothing did not get old or your feet become tired.

⁵Keep in mind this thought, that as a son is trained by his father, so you have been trained by the Lord your God.

⁶Then keep the orders of the Lord your God, fearing him and walking in his ways.

⁷For the Lord your God is guiding you into a good land, a land of water-springs, of fountains, and deep streams flowing out from the valleys and the hills;

⁸A land of grain and vines and fig-trees and fair fruits; a land of oil-giving olive-trees and honey;

⁹Where there will be bread for you in full measure and you will be in need of nothing; a land where the very stones are iron and from whose hills you may get copper.

¹⁰And you will have food enough and be full, praising the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.

¹¹Then take care that you are not turned away from the Lord your God and from keeping his orders and decisions and laws which I give you this day:

¹²And when you have taken food and are full, and have made fair houses for yourselves and are living in them;

¹³And when your herds and your flocks are increased, and your stores of silver and gold, and you have wealth of every sort;

¹⁴Take care that your hearts are not lifted up in pride, giving no thought to the Lord your God who took you out of the land of Egypt, out of the prison-house;

¹⁵Who was your guide through that great and cruel waste, where there were poison-snakes and scorpions and a dry land without water; who made water come out of the hard rock for you;

¹⁶Who gave you manna for your food in the waste land, a food which your fathers had never seen; so that your pride might be broken and your hearts tested for your good in the end;

¹⁷Say not then, in your hearts, My power and the strength of my hands have got me this wealth.

¹⁸But keep in mind the Lord your God: for it is he who gives you the power to get wealth, so that he may give effect to the agreement which he made by his oath with your fathers, as at this day.

¹⁹And it is certain that if at any time you are turned away from the Lord your God, and go after other gods, to be their servants and to give them worship, destruction will overtake you.

²⁰Like the nations which the Lord is cutting off before you, so you will be cut off; because you would not give ear to the voice of the Lord your God.

9Give ear, O Israel: today you are to go over Jordan, to take the heritage of nations greater and stronger than yourselves, and towns of great size with walls as high as heaven;

²A people great and tall, the sons of the Anakim, of whom you have knowledge and of whom it has been said, All are forced to give way before the sons of Anak.

³Be certain then today that it is the Lord your God who goes over before you like an all-burning fire; he will send destruction on them, crushing them before you; and you will send them in flight, putting an end to them quickly, as the Lord has said.

⁴And after the Lord has sent them in flight from before you, say not in your heart, Because of my righteousness the Lord has given me this land; when it is because of their evil-doing that the Lord is driving these nations out before you.

⁵Not for your righteousness or because your hearts are upright are you going in to take their land; but because of the evil-doing of these nations the Lord your God is driving them out from before you, and to give effect to his oath to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

⁶Be certain then that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land as a reward for your righteousness; for you are a stiff-necked people.

⁷Keep well in mind how you made the Lord your God angry in the waste land; from the day when you went out of Egypt till you came to this place, you have gone against the orders of the Lord.

⁸Again in Horeb you made the Lord angry, and in his wrath he would have put an end to you.

⁹When I had gone up into the mountain to be given the stones on which was recorded the agreement which the Lord made with you, I was on the mountain for forty days and forty nights without taking food or drinking water.

¹⁰And the Lord gave me the two stones with writing on them done by the finger of God: on them were recorded all the words which the Lord said to you on the mountain out of the heart of the fire, on the day of the great meeting.

¹¹Then at the end of forty days and forty nights the Lord gave me those stones, the stones of the agreement.

¹²And the Lord said to me, Get up now, and go down quickly from this place; for the people you have taken out of Egypt have given themselves over to evil; they have quickly been turned from the way in which I gave them orders to go; they have made themselves a metal image.

¹³And then the Lord said to me, I have seen that this people is stiff-necked:

¹⁴Let me send destruction on them till their very name is cut off; and I will make of you a nation greater and stronger than they.

¹⁵So turning round I came down from the mountain, and the mountain was burning with fire; and the two stones of the agreement were in my hands.

¹⁶And I saw that you had done evil against the Lord, and had made for yourselves a metal image of a young ox: you had quickly been turned from the way in which the Lord had given you orders to go.

¹⁷And I let the stones go from my hands, and they were broken before your eyes.

¹⁸And I went down on my face before the Lord, as at the first, for forty days and forty nights, without taking food or drinking water, because of all your sin, in doing evil in the eyes of the Lord and moving him to wrath.

¹⁹For I was full of fear because of the wrath of the Lord which was burning against you, with your destruction in view. But again the Lord's ear was open to my prayer.

²⁰And the Lord, in his wrath, would have put Aaron to death: and I made prayer for Aaron at the same time.

²¹And I took your sin, the image which you had made, and put it in the fire and had it hammered and crushed very small till it was only dust: and the dust I put in the stream flowing down from the mountain.

²²Again at Taberah and at Massah and at Kibroth-hattaavah you made the Lord angry.

²³And when the Lord sent you from Kadesh-barnea, saying, Go up and take the land which I have given you; you went against the orders of the Lord your God, and had no faith in him, and would not give ear to his voice.

²⁴From the day when I first had knowledge of you, you have gone against the word of the Lord.

²⁵So I went down on my face in prayer before the Lord for forty days and forty nights as I did at first; because the Lord had said that he would put an end to you.

²⁶And I made prayer to the Lord and said, O Lord God, do not send destruction on your people and your heritage, to whom, by your great power, you have given salvation, whom you have taken out of Egypt by the strength of your hand.

²⁷Keep in mind your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, not looking at the hard heart of this people, or their evil-doing and their sin:

²⁸Or it may be said in the land from which you have taken them, Because the Lord was not able to take them into the land which he said he would give them, and because of his hate for them, he has taken them out to put them to death in the waste land.

²⁹But still they are your people and your heritage, whom you took out by your great power and by your stretched-out arm.

10At that time the Lord said to me, Make two other stones, cut like the first two, and come up to me on the mountain, and make an ark of wood.

²And I will put on the stones the words which were on the first stones which were broken by you, and you are to put them into the ark.

³So I made an ark of hard wood, and had two stones cut like the others, and went up the mountain with the stones in my hands.

⁴And he put on the stones, as in the first writing, the ten rules which the Lord gave you on the mountain out of the fire on the day of the great meeting: and the Lord gave the stones to me.

⁵And turning round I came down from the mountain and put the stones in the ark which I had made; and there they are as the Lord gave me orders.

⁶(And the children of Israel went on from Beeroth Bene-jaakan to Moserah: there death came to Aaron and he was put to rest in the earth; and Eleazar, his son, took his place as priest.

⁷From there they went on to Gudgodah, and from Gudgodah to Jotbathah, a land of streams of water.

⁸At that time the Lord had the tribe of Levi marked out to take up the ark of the Lord's agreement, to be before the Lord and to do his work and to give blessings in his name, to this day.

⁹For this reason Levi has no part or heritage for himself among his brothers: the Lord is his heritage, as the Lord your God said to him.)

¹⁰And I was in the mountain, as at the first time, for forty days and forty nights; and again the ears of the Lord were open to my prayer, and he did not send destruction on you.

¹¹Then the Lord said to me, Get up and go on your journey before the people, so that they may go in and take the land which I said in my oath to their fathers that I would give them.

¹²And now, Israel, what would the Lord your God have you do, but to go in the fear of the Lord your God, walking in all his ways and loving him and doing his pleasure with all your heart and all your soul,

¹³Doing the orders of the Lord and keeping his laws which I give you this day for your good?

¹⁴The Lord your God is ruler of heaven, of the heaven of heavens, and of the earth with everything in it.

¹⁵But the Lord had delight in your fathers and love for them, marking out for himself their seed after them, even you, from all peoples, as at this day.

¹⁶Let your circumcision be of the heart, and put away your pride.

¹⁷For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, strong in power and greatly to be feared, who has no respect for any man's position and takes no rewards:

¹⁸Judging uprightly in the cause of the widow and of the child who has no father, and giving food and clothing in his mercy to the man from a strange country.

¹⁹So be kind to the man from a strange country who is living among you, for you yourselves were living in a strange country in the land of Egypt.

²⁰Let the fear of the Lord your God be before you, give him worship and be true to him at all times, taking your oaths in his name.

²¹He is your God, the God of your praise, your God who has done for you all these works of power which your eyes have seen.

²²Your fathers went down into Egypt with seventy persons; and now the Lord your God has made you like the stars of heaven in number.

11So have love for the Lord your God, and give him worship, and keep his laws and his decisions and his orders at all times.

²And be certain in your minds this day; for these words are not said to your children, who have had no experience of the training of the Lord your God, and who have not seen his great power or his strong hand and his stretched-out arm,

³Or his signs and wonders which he did in Egypt, to Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and all his land;

⁴And what he did to the army of Egypt, to their horses and their war-carriages; how he made the waters of the Red Sea come up over them when they went after you, and how the Lord put an end to them even to this day;

⁵And what he did for you in the waste land, till you came to this place;

⁶And what he did to Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, the son of Reuben; when they went down into the open mouth of the earth, with their families and their tents and every living thing which was theirs, before the eyes of all Israel:

⁷But your eyes have seen all the great works of the Lord which he has done.

⁸So keep all the orders which I give you today, so that you may be strong, and go in and take the land which is to be your heritage;

⁹And that your days may be long in the land which the Lord gave by an oath to your fathers and to their seed after them, a land flowing with milk and honey.

¹⁰For the land where you are going is not like the land of Egypt from which you have come, where you put in your seeds, watering them with your foot, like a planted garden:

¹¹But the land where you are going is a land of hills and valleys, drinking in the rain of heaven:

¹²A land cared for by the Lord your God: the eyes of the Lord your God are on it at all times from one end of the year to the other.

¹³And it will be that if you truly give ear to the orders which I put before you this day, loving the Lord your God and worshipping him with all your heart and all your soul,

¹⁴Then I will send rain on your land at the right time, the early rains and the late rains, so that you may get in your grain and your wine and your oil.

¹⁵And I will give grass in your fields for your cattle, so that you may have food in full measure.

¹⁶But take care that your hearts are not turned to false ways so that you become servants and worshippers of other gods;

¹⁷For if you do so, the wrath of the Lord will be burning against you, and the heaven will be shut up so that there is no rain and the land will give no fruit; and in a very little time you will be cut off from the good land which the Lord is giving you.

¹⁸So keep these words deep in your heart and in your soul, and have them fixed on your hand for a sign and marked on your brow;

¹⁹Teaching them to your children, and talking of them when you are at rest in your house or walking by the way, when you go to sleep and when you get up:

²⁰Writing them on the pillars of your houses and over the doors of your towns:

²¹So that your days, and the days of your children, may be long in the land which the Lord by his oath to your fathers said he would give them, like the days of the eternal heavens.

²²For if you take care to keep all the orders which I give you, and to do them; loving the Lord your God and walking in all his ways and being true to him:

²³Then the Lord will send these nations in flight before you, and you will take the lands of nations greater and stronger than yourselves.

²⁴Every place where you put your foot will be yours: from the waste land and Lebanon, from the river, the river Euphrates as far as the Great Sea, will be the limits of your land.

²⁵All people will give way before you: for the Lord your God will put the fear of you on all the land through which you go, as he has said.

²⁶Today I put before you a blessing and a curse:

²⁷The blessing if you give ear to the orders of the Lord your God, which I give you this day:

²⁸And the curse if you do not give ear to the orders of the Lord your God, but let yourselves be turned from the way which I have put before you this day, and go after other gods which are not yours.

²⁹And when the Lord your God has taken you into the land of your heritage, you are to put the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal.

³⁰Are they not on the other side of Jordan, looking west, in the land of the Canaanites living in the Arabah, opposite Gilgal, by the holy tree of Moreh?

³¹For you are about to go over Jordan to take the heritage which the Lord your God is giving you, and it will be your resting-place.

³²And you are to take care to keep all the laws and the decisions which I put before you today.

12These are the laws and the decisions which you are to keep with care in the land which the Lord, the God of your fathers, has given you to be your heritage all the days of your life on earth.

²You are to give up to the curse all those places where the nations, whom you are driving out, gave worship to their gods, on the high mountains and the hills and under every green tree:

³Their altars and their pillars are to be broken down, and their holy trees burned with fire, and the images of their gods cut down; you are to take away their names out of that place.

⁴Do not so to the Lord your God.

⁵But let your hearts be turned to the place which will be marked out by the Lord your God, among your tribes, to put his name there;

⁶And there you are to take your burned offerings and other offerings, and the tenth part of your goods, and the offerings to be lifted up to the Lord, and the offerings of your oaths, and those which you give freely from the impulse of your hearts, and the first births among your herds and your flocks;

⁷There you and all your families are to make a feast before the Lord your God, with joy in everything to which you put your hand, because the Lord has given you his blessing.

⁸You are not to do things then in the way in which we now do them here, every man as it seems right to him:

⁹For you have not come to the rest and the heritage which the Lord your God is giving you.

¹⁰But when you have gone over Jordan and are living in the land which the Lord your God is giving you as your heritage, and when he has given you rest from all those on every side who are fighting against you, and you are living there safely;

¹¹Then there will be a place marked out by the Lord your God as the resting-place for his name, and there you will take all the things which I give you orders to take: your burned offerings and other offerings, and the tenth part of your goods, and the offerings to be lifted up, and the offerings of your oaths which you make to the Lord;

¹²And you will be glad before the Lord your God, you and your sons and your daughters, and your men-servants and your women-servants, and the Levite who is with you in your house, because he has no part or heritage among you.

¹³Take care that you do not make your burned offerings in any place you see:

¹⁴But in the place marked out by the Lord in one of your tribes, there let your burned offerings be offered, and there do what I have given you orders to do.

¹⁵Only you may put to death animals, such as the gazelle or the roe, for your food in any of your towns, at the desire of your soul, in keeping with the blessing of the Lord your God which he has given you: the unclean and the clean may take of it.

¹⁶But you may not take the blood for food, it is to be drained out on the earth like water.

¹⁷In your towns you are not to take as food the tenth part of your grain, or of your wine or your oil, or the first births of your herds or of your flocks, or anything offered under an oath, or freely offered to the Lord, or given as a lifted offering;

¹⁸But they will be your food before the Lord your God in the place of his selection, where you may make a feast of them, with your son and your daughter, and your man-servant and your woman-servant, and the Levite who is living with you: and you will have joy before the Lord your God in everything to which you put your hand.

¹⁹See that you do not give up caring for the Levite as long as you are living in your land.

²⁰When the Lord your God makes wide the limit of your land, as he has said, and you say, I will take flesh for my food, because you have a desire for it; then you may take whatever flesh you have a desire for.

²¹If the place marked out by the Lord your God as the resting-place for his name is far away from you, then take from your herds and from your flocks which the Lord has given you, as I have said, and have a meal of it in the towns where you may be living.

²²It will be your food, like the gazelle and the roe; the unclean and the clean may take of it.

²³But see that you do not take the blood for food; for the blood is the life; and you may not make use of the life as food with the flesh.

²⁴Do not take it for food but let it be drained out on the earth like water.

²⁵Do not take it for food; so that it may be well for you and for your children after you, while you do what is right in the eyes of the Lord.

²⁶But the holy things which you have, and the offerings of your oaths, you are to take to the place which will be marked out by the Lord:

²⁷Offering the flesh and the blood of your burned offerings on the altar of the Lord your God; and the blood of your offerings is to be drained out on the altar of the Lord your God, and the flesh will be your food.

²⁸Take note of all these orders I am giving you and give attention to them, so that it may be well for you and for your children after you for ever, while you do what is good and right in the eyes of the Lord your God.

²⁹When the people of the land where you are going have been cut off before you by the Lord your God, and you have taken their land and are living in it;

³⁰After their destruction take care that you do not go in their ways, and that you do not give thought to their gods, saying, How did these nations give worship to their gods? I will do as they did.

³¹Do not so to the Lord your God: for everything which is disgusting to the Lord and hated by him they have done in honour of their gods: even burning their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods.

³²You are to keep with care all the words I give you, making no addition to them and taking nothing from them.

13If ever you have among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams and he gives you a sign or a wonder,

²And the sign or the wonder takes place, and he says to you, Let us go after other gods, which are strange to you, and give them worship;

³Then give no attention to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams: for the Lord your God is testing you, to see if all the love of your heart and soul is given to him.

⁴But keep on in the ways of the Lord your God, fearing him and keeping his orders and hearing his voice, worshipping him and being true to him.

⁵And that prophet or that dreamer of dreams is to be put to death; for his words were said with the purpose of turning you away from the Lord your God, who took you out of the land of Egypt and made you free from the prison-house; and of forcing you out of the way in which the Lord your God has given you orders to go. So you are to put away the evil from among you.

⁶If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son or your daughter or the wife of your heart, or the friend who is as dear to you as your life, working on you secretly says to you, Let us go and give worship to other gods, strange to you and to your fathers;

⁷Gods of the peoples round about you, near or far, from one end of the earth to the other;

⁸Do not be guided by him or give attention to him; have no pity on him or mercy, and give him no cover;

⁹But put him to death without question; let your hand be the first stretched out against him to put him to death, and then the hands of all the people.

¹⁰Let him be stoned with stones till he is dead; because it was his purpose to make you false to the Lord your God, who took you out of the land of Egypt, out of the prison-house.

¹¹And all Israel, hearing of it, will be full of fear, and no one will again do such evil as this among you.

¹²And if word comes to you, in one of the towns which the Lord your God is giving you for your resting-place,

¹³That good-for-nothing persons have gone out from among you, turning the people of their town from the right way and saying, Let us go and give worship to other gods, of whom you have no knowledge;

¹⁴Then let a full search be made, and let questions be put with care; and if it is true and certain that such a disgusting thing has been done among you;

¹⁵Then take up arms against the people of that town and give it up to the curse, with all its cattle and everything in it.

¹⁶And take all the goods into the middle of its open space, burning the town and all its property with fire as an offering to the Lord your God; it is to be a waste for ever; there is to be no more building there.

¹⁷Keep not a thing of what is cursed for yourselves: so the Lord may be turned away from the heat of his wrath, and have mercy on you, and give you increase as he said in his oath to your fathers:

¹⁸So long as you give ear to the voice of the Lord your God, and keep all his orders which I give you today, and do what is right in the eyes of the Lord your God.

14You are the children of the Lord your God: you are not to make cuts on your bodies or take off the hair on your brows in honour of the dead;

²For you are a holy people to the Lord your God, and the Lord has taken you to be his special people out of all the nations on the face of the earth.

³No disgusting thing may be your food.

⁴These are the beasts which you may have for food: the ox, the sheep, and the goat;

⁵The hart, the gazelle, and the roe, the mountain goat and the pygarg and the antelope and the mountain sheep.

⁶Any beast which has a division in the horn of its foot and whose food comes back into its mouth to be crushed again, may be used for food.

⁷But even among these, there are some which may not be used for food: such as the camel, the hare, and the coney, which are unclean to you, because, though their food comes back, the horn of their feet is not parted in two.

⁸And the pig is unclean to you, because though it has a division in the horn of its foot, its food does not come back; their flesh may not be used for food or their dead bodies touched by you.

⁹And of the things living in the waters, you may take all those who have wings for swimming with and skins formed of thin plates.

¹⁰But any which have no skin-plates or wings for swimming, you may not take; they are unclean for you.

¹¹All clean birds may be used for food.

¹²But these birds you may not take: the eagle and the gier-eagle and the ospray;

¹³The falcon and the kite, and birds of that sort;

¹⁴Every raven, and all birds of that sort;

¹⁵And the ostrich and the night-hawk and the sea-hawk and birds of that sort;

¹⁶The little owl and the great owl and the water-hen;

¹⁷And the pelican and the vulture and the cormorant;

¹⁸The stork and the heron and birds of that sort, and the hoopoe and the bat.

¹⁹Every winged thing which goes flat on the earth is unclean to you and may not be used as food.

²⁰But all clean birds you may take.

²¹You may not have as food anything which has come to a natural death; the man from another country who is living with you may take it for food, or you may get a price for it from one of another nation; for you are a holy people to the Lord your God. The young goat is not to be cooked in its mother's milk.

²²Put on one side a tenth of all the increase of your seed, produced year by year.

²³And make a feast before the Lord your God, in the place which is to be marked out, where his name will be for ever, of the tenth part of your grain and your wine and your oil, and the first births of your herds and your flocks; so that you may have the fear of the Lord your God in your hearts at all times.

²⁴And if the way is so long that you are not able to take these things to the place marked out by the Lord your God for his name, when he has given you his blessing, because it is far away from you;

²⁵Then let these things be exchanged for money, and, taking the money in your hand, go to the place marked out by the Lord your God for himself;

²⁶And with the money get whatever you have a desire for, oxen or sheep or wine or strong drink, whatever your soul's desire may be: and make a feast there before the Lord your God, and be glad, you and all your house;

²⁷And give a thought to the Levite who is living among you, for he has no part or heritage in the land.

²⁸At the end of every three years take a tenth part of all your increase for that year, and put it in store inside your walls:

²⁹And the Levite, because he has no part or heritage in the land, and the man from a strange country, and the child who has no father, and the widow, who are living among you, will come and take food and have enough; and so the blessing of the Lord your God will be on you in everything you do.

15At the end of every seven years there is to be a general forgiveness of debt.

²This is how it is to be done: every creditor is to give up his right to whatever he has let his neighbour have; he is not to make his neighbour, his countryman, give it back; because a general forgiveness has been ordered by the Lord.

³A man of another nation may be forced to make payment of his debt, but if your brother has anything of yours, let it go;

⁴But there will be no poor among you; for the Lord will certainly give you his blessing in the land which the Lord your God is giving you for your heritage;

⁵If only you give ear to the voice of the Lord your God, and take care to keep all these orders which I give you today.

⁶For the Lord your God will give you his blessing as he has said: you will let other nations have the use of your money, but you will not make use of theirs; you will be rulers over a number of nations, but they will not be your rulers.

⁷If in any of your towns in the land which the Lord your God is giving you, there is a poor man, one of your countrymen, do not let your heart be hard or your hand shut to him;

⁸But let your hand be open to give him the use of whatever he is in need of.

⁹And see that there is no evil thought in your heart, moving you to say to yourself, The seventh year, the year of forgiveness is near; and so looking coldly on your poor countryman you give him nothing; and he will make an outcry to the Lord against you, and it will be judged as sin in you.

¹⁰But it is right for you to give to him, without grief of heart: for because of this, the blessing of the Lord your God will be on all your work and on everything to which you put your hand.

¹¹For there will never be a time when there are no poor in the land; and so I give orders to you, Let your hand be open to your countrymen, to those who are poor and in need in your land.

¹²If one of your countrymen, a Hebrew man or woman, becomes your servant for a price and does work for you six years, in the seventh year let him go free.

¹³And when you make him free, do not let him go away with nothing in his hands:

¹⁴But give him freely from your flock and from your grain and your wine: in the measure of the wealth which the Lord your God has given you, you are to give to him.

¹⁵And keep in mind that you yourself were a servant in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God made you free: so I give you this order today.

¹⁶But if he says to you, I have no desire to go away from you; because you and your family are dear to him and he is happy with you;

¹⁷Then take a sharp-pointed instrument, driving it through his ear into the door, and he will be your servant for ever. And you may do the same for your servant-girl.

¹⁸Let it not seem hard to you that you have to send him away free; for he has been working for you for six years, which is twice the regular time for a servant: and the blessing of the Lord your God will be on you in everything you do.

¹⁹All the first males to come to birth in your herd and your flock are to be holy to the Lord your God: the first birth of your ox is not to be used for work, the wool of your first lamb is not to be cut.

²⁰But year by year you and all your house are to take a meal of it before the Lord, in the place of his selection.

²¹But if it has any mark on it, if it is blind or has damaged legs, or if there is anything wrong with it, it may not be offered to the Lord your God.

²²It may be used for food in your houses: the unclean and the clean may take of it, as of the gazelle and the roe.

²³Only do not take its blood for food, but let it be drained out on the earth like water.

16Take note of the month of Abib and keep the Passover to the Lord your God: for in the month of Abib the Lord your God took you out of Egypt by night.

²The Passover offering, from your flock or your herd, is to be given to the Lord your God in the place marked out by him as the resting-place of his name.

³Take no leavened bread with it; for seven days let your food be unleavened bread, that is, the bread of sorrow; for you came out of the land of Egypt quickly: so the memory of that day, when you came out of the land of Egypt, will be with you all your life.

⁴For seven days let no leaven be used through all your land; and nothing of the flesh which is put to death in the evening of the first day is to be kept through the night till morning.

⁵The Passover offering is not to be put to death in any of the towns which the Lord your God gives you:

⁶But in the place marked out by the Lord your God as the resting-place of his name, there you are to put the Passover to death in the evening, at sundown, at that time of the year when you came out of Egypt.

⁷It is to be cooked and taken as food in the place marked out by the Lord: and in the morning you are to go back to your tents.

⁸For six days let your food be unleavened bread; and on the seventh day there is to be a holy meeting to the Lord your God; no work is to be done.

⁹Let seven weeks be numbered from the first day when the grain is cut.

¹⁰Then keep the feast of weeks to the Lord your God, with an offering freely given to him from the wealth he has given you:

¹¹Then you are to be glad before the Lord your God, you and your son and your daughter, your man-servant and your woman-servant, and the Levite who is with you, and the man from a strange country, and the child without a father, and the widow, who are living among you, in the place marked out by the Lord your God as a resting-place for his name.

¹²And you will keep in mind that you were a servant in the land of Egypt: and you will take care to keep all these laws.

¹³You are to keep the feast of tents for seven days after you have got in all your grain and made your wine:

¹⁴You are to keep the feast with joy, you and your son and your daughter, your man-servant and your woman-servant, and the Levite, and the man from a strange country, and the child without a father, and the widow, who are living among you.

¹⁵Keep the feast to the Lord your God for seven days, in the place marked out by the Lord: because the blessing of the Lord your God will be on all the produce of your land and all the work of your hands, and you will have nothing but joy.

¹⁶Three times in the year let all your males come before the Lord your God in the place named by him; at the feast of unleavened bread, the feast of weeks, and the feast of tents: and they are not to come before the Lord with nothing in their hands;

¹⁷Every man is to give as he is able, in the measure of the blessing which the Lord your God has given you.

¹⁸You are to make judges and overseers in all your towns which the Lord your God gives you, for every tribe: and they are to be upright men, judging the people in righteousness.

¹⁹You are not to be moved in your judging by a man's position, you are not to take rewards; for rewards make the eyes of the wise man blind, and the decisions of the upright false.

²⁰Let righteousness be your guide, so that you may have life, and take for your heritage the land which the Lord your God is giving you.

²¹Let no holy tree of any sort be planted by the altar of the Lord your God which you will make.

²²You are not to put up stone pillars, for they are hated by the Lord your God.

17No ox or sheep which has a mark on it or is damaged in any way may be offered to the Lord your God: for that is disgusting to the Lord your God.

²If there is any man or woman among you, in any of the towns which the Lord your God gives you, who does evil in the eyes of the Lord your God, sinning against his agreement,

³By becoming a servant of other gods and worshipping them or the sun or the moon or all the stars of heaven, against my orders;

⁴If word of this comes to your ears, then let this thing be looked into with care, and if there is no doubt that it is true, and such evil has been done in Israel;

⁵Then you are to take the man or woman who has done the evil to the public place of your town, and they are to be stoned with stones till they are dead.

⁶On the word of two or three witnesses, a man may be given the punishment of death; but he is not to be put to death on the word of one witness.

⁷The hands of the witnesses will be the first to put him to death, and after them the hands of all the people. So you are to put away the evil from among you.

⁸If you are not able to give a decision as to who is responsible for a death, or who is right in a cause, or who gave the first blow in a fight, and there is a division of opinion about it in your town: then go to the place marked out by the Lord your God;

⁹And come before the priests, the Levites, or before him who is judge at the time: and they will go into the question and give you a decision:

¹⁰And you are to be guided by the decision they give in the place named by the Lord, and do whatever they say:

¹¹Acting in agreement with their teaching and the decision they give: not turning to one side or the other from the word they have given you.

¹²And any man who, in his pride, will not give ear to the priest whose place is there before the Lord your God, or to the judge, is to be put to death: you are to put away the evil from Israel.

¹³And all the people, hearing of it, will be full of fear and put away their pride.

¹⁴When you have come into the land which the Lord your God is giving you, and have taken it for a heritage and are living in it, if it is your desire to have a king over you, like the other nations round about you;

¹⁵Then see that you take as your king the man named by the Lord your God: let your king be one of your countrymen, not a man of another nation who is not one of yourselves.

¹⁶And he is not to get together a great army of horses for himself, or make the people go back to Egypt to get horses for him: because the Lord has said, You will never again go back that way.

¹⁷And he is not to have a great number of wives, for fear that his heart may be turned away; or great wealth of silver and gold.

¹⁸And when he has taken his place on the seat of his kingdom, he is to make in a book a copy of this law, from that which the priests, the Levites, have in their care:

¹⁹And it is to be with him for his reading all the days of his life, so that he may be trained in the fear of the Lord his God to keep and do all the words of this teaching and these laws:

²⁰So that his heart may not be lifted up over his countrymen, and he may not be turned away from the orders, to one side or the other: but that his life and the lives of his children may be long in his kingdom in Israel.

18The priests, the Levites, that is, all the tribe of Levi, will have no part or heritage with Israel: their food and their heritage will be the offerings of the Lord made by fire.

²And they will have no heritage among their countrymen: the Lord is their heritage, as he has said to them.

³And this is to be the priests' right: those who make an offering of a sheep or an ox are to give to the priest the top part of the leg and the two sides of the head and the stomach.

⁴And in addition you are to give him the first of your grain and wine and oil, and the first wool cut from your sheep.

⁵For he, and his sons after him for ever, have been marked out by the Lord your God from all your tribes, to do the work of priests in the name of the Lord.

⁶And if a Levite, moved by a strong desire, comes from any town in all Israel where he is living to the place marked out by the Lord;

⁷Then he will do the work of a priest in the name of the Lord his God, with all his brothers the Levites who are there before the Lord.

⁸His food will be the same as theirs, in addition to what has come to him as the price of his property.

⁹When you have come into the land which the Lord your God is giving you, do not take as your example the disgusting ways of those nations.

¹⁰Let there not be seen among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter go through the fire, or anyone using secret arts, or a maker of strange sounds, or a reader of signs, or any wonder-worker,

¹¹Or anyone using secret force on people, or putting questions to a spirit, or having secret knowledge, or going to the dead for directions.

¹²For all who do such things are disgusting to the Lord; and because of these disgusting things the Lord your God is driving them out before you.

¹³You are to be upright in heart before the Lord your God.

¹⁴For these nations, whose land you are taking, give attention to readers of signs and to those using secret arts: but the Lord your God will not let you do so.

¹⁵The Lord your God will give you a prophet from among your people, like me; you will give ear to him;

¹⁶In answer to the request you made to the Lord your God in Horeb on the day of the great meeting, when you said, Let not the voice of the Lord my God come to my ears again, and let me not see this great fire any more, or death will overtake me.

¹⁷Then the Lord said to me, What they have said is well said.

¹⁸I will give them a prophet from among themselves, like you, and I will put my words in his mouth, and he will say to them whatever I give him orders to say.

¹⁹And whoever does not give ear to my words which he will say in my name, will be responsible to me.

²⁰But the prophet who takes it on himself to say words in my name which I have not given him orders to say, or who says anything in the name of other gods, will come to his death.

²¹And if you say in your hearts, How are we to be certain that the word does not come from the Lord?

²²When a prophet makes a statement in the name of the Lord, if what he says does not take place and his words do not come true, then his word is not the word of the Lord: the words of the prophet were said in the pride of his heart, and you are to have no fear of him.

19When the nations, whose land the Lord your God is giving you, have been cut off by him, and you have taken their place and are living in their towns and in their houses;

²You are to have three towns marked out in the land which the Lord your God is giving you for your heritage.

³You are to make ready a way, and see that the land which the Lord your God is giving you for your heritage, is marked out into three parts, to which any taker of life may go in flight.

⁴This is to be the rule for anyone who goes in flight there, after causing the death of his neighbour in error and not through hate;

⁵For example, if a man goes into the woods with his neighbour for the purpose of cutting down trees, and when he takes his axe to give a blow to the tree, the head of the axe comes off, and falling on to his neighbour gives him a wound causing his death; then the man may go in flight to one of these towns and be safe:

⁶For if not, he who has the right of punishment may go running after the taker of life in the heat of his wrath, and overtake him because the way is long, and give him a death-blow; though it is not right for him to be put to death because he was not moved by hate.

⁷And so I am ordering you to see that three towns are marked out for this purpose.

⁸And if the Lord your God makes wide the limits of your land, as he said in his oath to your fathers, and gives you all the land which he undertook to give to your fathers;

⁹If you keep and do all these orders which I give you today, loving the Lord your God and walking ever in his ways; then let three more towns, in addition to these three, be marked out for you:

¹⁰So that in all your land, which the Lord your God is giving you for your heritage, no man may be wrongly put to death, for which you will be responsible.

¹¹But if any man has hate for his neighbour, and waiting for him secretly makes an attack on him and gives him a blow causing his death, and then goes in flight to one of these towns;

¹²The responsible men of his town are to send and take him, and give him up to the one who has the right of punishment to be put to death.

¹³Have no pity on him, so that Israel may be clear from the crime of putting a man to death without cause, and it will be well for you.

¹⁴Your neighbour's landmark, which was put in its place by the men of old times, is not to be moved or taken away in the land of your heritage which the Lord your God is giving you.

¹⁵One witness may not make a statement against a man in relation to any sin or wrongdoing which he has done: on the word of two or three witnesses a question is to be judged.

¹⁶If a false witness makes a statement against a man, saying that he has done wrong,

¹⁷Then the two men, between whom the argument has taken place, are to come before the Lord, before the priests and judges who are then in power;

¹⁸And the judges will have the question looked into with care: and if the witness is seen to be false and to have made a false statement against his brother,

¹⁹Then do to him what it was his purpose to do to his brother: and so put away the evil from among you.

²⁰And the rest of the people, hearing of it, will be full of fear, and never again do such evil among you.

²¹Have no pity; let life be given for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.

20When you go out to war against other nations, and come face to face with horses and war-carriages and armies greater in number than yourselves, have no fear of them: for the Lord your God is with you, who took you up out of the land of Egypt.

²And when you are on the point of attacking, let the priest come forward and say to the people,

³Give ear, O Israel: today you are going forward to the fight; let your heart be strong; do not let uncontrolled fear overcome you because of those who are against you;

⁴For the Lord your God goes with you, fighting for you to give you salvation from those who are against you.

⁵And let the overseers say to the people, If there is any man who has made for himself a new house and has not gone into it, let him go back to his house, so that in the event of his death in the fight, another may not take his house for himself.

⁶Or if any man has made a vine-garden without taking the first-fruits of it, let him go back to his house, so that in the event of his death in the fight, another may not be the first to make use of the fruit.

⁷Or if any man is newly married and has had no sex relations with his wife, let him go back to his house, so that in the event of his death in the fight, another man may not take her.

⁸And let the overseers go on to say to the people, If there is any man whose heart is feeble with fear, let him go back to his house before he makes the hearts of his countrymen feeble.

⁹Then, after saying these words to the people, let the overseers put captains over the army.

¹⁰When you come to a town, before attacking it, make an offer of peace.

¹¹And if it gives you back an answer of peace, opening its doors to you, then all the people in it may be put to forced work as your servants.

¹²If however it will not make peace with you, but war, then let it be shut in on all sides:

¹³And when the Lord your God has given it into your hands, let every male in it be put to death without mercy.

¹⁴But the women and the children and the cattle and everything in the town and all its wealth, you may take for yourselves: the wealth of your haters, which the Lord your God has given you, will be your food.

¹⁵So you are to do to all the towns far away, which are not the towns of these nations.

¹⁶But in the towns of these peoples whose land the Lord your God is giving you for your heritage, let no living thing be kept from death:

¹⁷Give them up to the curse; the Hittite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, as the Lord your God has given you orders:

¹⁸So that you may not take them as your example and do all the disgusting things which they do in the worship of their gods, so sinning against the Lord your God.

¹⁹If in war a town is shut in by your armies for a long time, do not let its trees be cut down and made waste; for their fruit will be your food; are the trees of the countryside men for you to take up arms against them?

²⁰Only those trees which you are certain are not used for food may be cut down and put to destruction: and you are to make walls of attack against the town till it is taken.

21If, in the land which the Lord your God is giving you, you come across the dead body of a man in the open country, and you have no idea who has put him to death:

²Then your responsible men and your judges are to come out, and give orders for the distance from the dead body to the towns round about it to be measured;

³And whichever town is nearest to the body, the responsible men of that town are to take from the herd a young cow which has never been used for work or put under the yoke;

⁴And they are to take the cow into a valley where there is flowing water, and which is not ploughed or planted, and there the neck of the cow is to be broken:

⁵Then the priests, the sons of Levi, are to come near; for they have been marked out by the Lord your God to be his servants and to give blessings in the name of the Lord; and by their decision every argument and every blow is to be judged:

⁶And all the responsible men of that town which is nearest to the dead man, washing their hands over the cow whose neck was broken in the valley,

⁷Will say, This death is not the work of our hands and our eyes have not seen it.

⁸Have mercy, O Lord, on your people Israel whom you have made free, and take away from your people the crime of a death without cause. Then they will no longer be responsible for the man's death.

⁹So you will take away the crime of a death without cause from among you, when you do what is right in the eyes of the Lord.

¹⁰When you go out to war against other nations, and the Lord your God gives them up into your hands and you take them as prisoners;

¹¹If among the prisoners you see a beautiful woman and it is your desire to make her your wife;

¹²Then take her back to your house; and let her hair and her nails be cut;

¹³And let her take off the dress in which she was made prisoner and go on living in your house and weeping for her father and mother for a full month: and after that you may go in to her and be her husband and she will be your wife.

¹⁴But if you have no delight in her, you are to let her go wherever she will; you may not take a price for her as if she was your property, for you have made use of her for your pleasure.

¹⁵If a man has two wives, one greatly loved and the other hated, and the two of them have had children by him; and if the first son is the child of the hated wife:

¹⁶Then when he gives his property to his sons for their heritage, he is not to put the son of his loved one in the place of the first son, the son of the hated wife:

¹⁷But he is to give his first son his birthright, and twice as great a part of his property: for he is the first-fruits of his strength and the right of the first son is his.

¹⁸If a man has a son who is hard-hearted and uncontrolled, who gives no attention to the voice of his father and mother, and will not be ruled by them, though they give him punishment:

¹⁹Then let his father and mother take him to the responsible men of the town, to the public place;

²⁰And say to them, This son of ours is hard-hearted and uncontrolled, he will not give attention to us; he gives himself up to pleasure and strong drink.

²¹Then he is to be stoned to death by all the men of the town: so you are to put away the evil from among you; and all Israel, hearing of it, will be full of fear.

²²If a man does a crime for which the punishment is death, and he is put to death by hanging him on a tree;

²³Do not let his body be on the tree all night, but put it to rest in the earth the same day; for the man who undergoes hanging is cursed by God; so do not make unclean the land which the Lord your God is giving you for your heritage.

22If you see your brother's ox or his sheep wandering, do not go by without helping, but take them back to your brother.

²If their owner is not near, or if you are not certain who he is, then take the beast to your house and keep it till its owner comes in search of it, and then you are to give it back to him.

³Do the same with his ass or his robe or anything which has gone from your brother's keeping and which you have come across: do not keep it to yourself.

⁴If you see your brother's ox or his ass falling down on the road, do not go by without giving him help in lifting it up again.

⁵It is not right for a woman to be dressed in man's clothing, or for a man to put on a woman's robe: whoever does such things is disgusting to the Lord your God.

⁶If by chance you see a place which a bird has made for itself in a tree or on the earth, with young ones or eggs, and the mother bird seated on the young ones or on the eggs, do not take the mother bird with the young:

⁷See that you let the mother bird go, but the young ones you may take; so it will be well for you and your life will be long.

⁸If you are building a house, make a railing for the roof, so that the blood of any man falling from it will not come on your house.

⁹Do not have your vine-garden planted with two sorts of seed: or all of it may become a loss, the seed you have put in as well as the increase.

¹⁰Do not do your ploughing with an ox and an ass yoked together.

¹¹Do not have clothing made of two sorts of thread, wool and linen together.

¹²On the four edges of your robe, with which your body is covered, put ornaments of twisted threads.

¹³If any man takes a wife, and having had connection with her, has no delight in her,

¹⁴And says evil things about her and gives her a bad name, saying, I took this woman, and when I had connection with her it was clear to me that she was not a virgin:

¹⁵Then let the girl's father and mother put before the responsible men of the town, in the public place, signs that the girl was a virgin:

¹⁶And let the girl's father say to the responsible men, I gave my daughter to this man for his wife, but he has no love for her;

¹⁷And now he has put shame on her, saying that she is not a virgin; but here is the sign that she is a virgin. Then they are to put her clothing before the responsible men of the town.

¹⁸Then the responsible men of the town are to give the man his punishment;

¹⁹They will take from him a hundred shekels of silver, which are to be given to the father of the girl, because he has given an evil name to a virgin of Israel: she will go on being his wife, he may never put her away all his life.

²⁰But if what he has said is true, and she is seen to be not a virgin,

²¹Then they are to make the girl come to the door of her father's house and she will be stoned to death by the men of the town, because she has done evil and put shame on Israel, by acting as a loose woman in her father's house: so you are to put away evil from among you.

²²If a man is taken in the act of going in to a married woman, the two of them, the man as well as the woman, are to be put to death: so you are to put away the evil from Israel.

²³If a young virgin has given her word to be married to a man, and another man meeting her in the town, has connection with her;

²⁴Then you are to take the two of them to the doorway of the town, and have them stoned to death; the young virgin, because she gave no cry for help, though it was in the town, and the man, because he has put shame on his neighbour's wife: so you are to put away evil from among you.

²⁵But if the man, meeting such a virgin in the open country, takes her by force, then only the man is to be put to death;

²⁶Nothing is to be done to the virgin, because there is no cause of death in her: it is the same as if a man made an attack on his neighbour and put him to death:

²⁷For he came across her in the open country, and there was no one to come to the help of the virgin in answer to her cry.

²⁸If a man sees a young virgin, who has not given her word to be married to anyone, and he takes her by force and has connection with her, and discovery is made of it;

²⁹Then the man will have to give the virgin's father fifty shekels of silver and make her his wife, because he has put shame on her; he may never put her away all his life.

³⁰A man may not take his father's wife or have sex relations with a woman who is his father's.

23No man whose private parts have been wounded or cut off may come into the meeting of the Lord's people.

²One whose father and mother are not married may not come into the meeting of the Lord's people, or any of his family to the tenth generation.

³No Ammonite or Moabite or any of their people to the tenth generation may come into the meeting of the Lord's people:

⁴Because they gave you no bread or water on your way, when you came out of Egypt: and they got Balaam, the son of Peor, from Pethor in Aram-naharaim to put curses on you.

⁵But the Lord your God would not give ear to Balaam, but let the curse be changed into a blessing to you, because of his love for you.

⁶Do nothing for their peace or well-being for ever.

⁷But have no hate for an Edomite, because he is your brother, or for an Egyptian, for you were living in his land.

⁸Their children in the third generation may come into the meeting of the Lord's people.

⁹When you go out to war and put your tents in position, keep from every evil thing.

¹⁰If any man among you becomes unclean through anything which has taken place in the night, he is to go out from the tent-circle and keep outside it:

¹¹But when evening comes near, let him take a bath: and after sundown he may come back to the tents.

¹²Let there be a place outside the tent-circle to which you may go;

¹³And have among your arms a spade; and when you have been to that place, let that which comes from you be covered up with earth:

¹⁴For the Lord your God is walking among your tents, to keep you safe and to give up into your hands those who are fighting against you; then let your tents be holy, so that he may see no unclean thing among you, and be turned away from you.

¹⁵Do not give back to his master a servant who has gone in flight from his master and come to you:

¹⁶Let him go on living among you in whatever place is most pleasing to him: do not be hard on him.

¹⁷No daughter of Israel is to let herself be used as a loose woman for a strange god, and no son of Israel is to give himself to a man.

¹⁸Do not take into the house of the Lord your God, as an offering for an oath, the price of a loose woman or the money given to one used for sex purposes in the worship of the gods: for these two things are disgusting to the Lord your God.

¹⁹Do not take interest from an Israelite on anything, money or food or any other goods, which you let him have:

²⁰From men of other nations you may take interest, but not from an Israelite: so that the blessing of the Lord your God may be on everything to which you put your hand, in the land which you are about to take as your heritage.

²¹When you take an oath to the Lord, do not be slow to give effect to it: for without doubt the Lord your God will make you responsible, and will put it to your account as sin.

²²But if you take no oath, there will be no sin.

²³Whatever your lips have said, see that you do it; for you gave your word freely to the Lord your God.

²⁴When you go into your neighbour's vine-garden, you may take of his grapes at your pleasure, but you may not take them away in your vessel.

²⁵When you go into your neighbour's field, you may take the heads of grain with your hand; but you may not put your blade to his grain.

24If a man takes a wife, and after they are married she is unpleasing to him because of some bad quality in her, let him give her a statement in writing and send her away from his house.

²And when she has gone away from him, she may become another man's wife.

³And if the second husband has no love for her and, giving her a statement in writing, sends her away; or if death comes to the second husband to whom she was married;

⁴Her first husband, who had sent her away, may not take her back after she has been wife to another; for that is disgusting to the Lord: and you are not to be a cause of sin in the land which the Lord your God is giving you for your heritage.

⁵A newly married man will not have to go out with the army or undertake any business, but may be free for one year, living in his house for the comfort of his wife.

⁶No one is to take, on account of a debt, the stones with which grain is crushed: for in doing so he takes a man's living.

⁷If a man takes by force one of his countrymen, the children of Israel, using him as his property or getting a price for him, that thief is to be put to death: so you are to put away evil from among you.

⁸In connection with the leper's disease, take care to keep and do every detail of the teaching of the priests, the Levites: as I gave them orders, so you are to do.

⁹Keep in mind what the Lord your God did to Miriam on the way, when you came out of Egypt.

¹⁰If you let your brother have the use of anything which is yours, do not go into his house and take anything of his as a sign of his debt;

¹¹But keep outside till he comes out and gives it to you.

¹²If he is a poor man, do not keep his property all night;

¹³But be certain to give it back to him when the sun goes down, so that he may have his clothing for sleeping in, and will give you his blessing: and this will be put to your account as righteousness before the Lord your God.

¹⁴Do not be hard on a servant who is poor and in need, if he is one of your countrymen or a man from another nation living with you in your land.

¹⁵Give him his payment day by day, not keeping it back over night; for he is poor and his living is dependent on it; and if his cry against you comes to the ears of the Lord, it will be judged as sin in you.

¹⁶Fathers are not to be put to death for their children or children for their fathers: every man is to be put to death for the sin which he himself has done.

¹⁷Be upright in judging the cause of the man from a strange country and of him who has no father; do not take a widow's clothing on account of a debt:

¹⁸But keep in mind that you were a servant in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God made you free: for this is why I give you orders to do this.

¹⁹When you get in the grain from your field, if some of the grain has been dropped by chance in the field, do not go back and get it, but let it be for the man from a strange land, the child without a father, and the widow: so that the blessing of the Lord your God may be on all the work of your hands.

²⁰When you are shaking the fruit from your olive-trees, do not go over the branches a second time: let some be for the man from a strange land, the child without a father, and the widow.

²¹When you are pulling the grapes from your vines, do not take up those which have been dropped; let them be for the man from a strange land, the child without a father, and the widow.

²²Keep in mind that you were a servant in the land of Egypt: for this is why I give you orders to do this.

25If there is an argument between men and they go to law with one another, let the judges give their decision for the upright, and against the wrongdoer.

²And if the wrongdoer is to undergo punishment by whipping, the judge will give orders for him to go down on his face and be whipped before him, the number of the blows being in relation to his crime.

³He may be given forty blows, not more; for if more are given, your brother may be shamed before you.

⁴Do not keep the ox from taking the grain when he is crushing it.

⁵If brothers are living together and one of them, at his death, has no son, the wife of the dead man is not to be married outside the family to another man: let her husband's brother go in to her and make her his wife, doing as it is right for a brother-in-law to do.

⁶Then the first male child she has will take the rights of the brother who is dead, so that his name may not come to an end in Israel.

⁷But if the man says he will not take his brother's wife, then let the wife go to the responsible men of the town, and say, My husband's brother will not keep his brother's name living in Israel; he will not do what it is right for a husband's brother to do.

⁸Then the responsible men of the town will send for the man, and have talk with him: and if he still says, I will not take her;

⁹Then his brother's wife is to come to him, before the responsible men of the town, and take his shoe off his foot, and put shame on him, and say, So let it be done to the man who will not take care of his brother's name.

¹⁰And his family will be named in Israel, The house of him whose shoe has been taken off.

¹¹If two men are fighting, and the wife of one of them, coming to the help of her husband, takes the other by the private parts;

¹²Her hand is to be cut off; have no pity on her.

¹³Do not have in your bag different weights, a great and a small;

¹⁴Or in your house different measures, a great and a small.

¹⁵But have a true weight and a true measure: so that your life may be long in the land which the Lord your God is giving you.

¹⁶For all who do such things, and all whose ways are not upright, are disgusting to the Lord your God.

¹⁷Keep in mind what Amalek did to you on your way from Egypt;

¹⁸How, meeting you on the way, he made an attack on you when you were tired and without strength, cutting off all the feeble ones at the end of your line; and the fear of God was not in him.

¹⁹So when the Lord your God has given you rest from all who are against you on every side, in the land which the Lord your God is giving you for your heritage, see to it that the memory of Amalek is cut off from the earth; keep this in mind.

26Now when you have come into the land which the Lord is giving you for your heritage, and you have made it yours and are living in it;

²You are to take a part of the first-fruits of the earth, which you get from the land which the Lord your God is giving you, and put it in a basket, and go to the place marked out by the Lord your God, as the resting-place of his name.

³And you are to come to him who is priest at that time, and say to him, I give witness today before the Lord your God, that I have come into the land which the Lord made an oath to our fathers to give us.

⁴Then the priest will take the basket from your hand and put it down in front of the altar of the Lord your God.

⁵And these are the words which you will say before the Lord your God: My father was a wandering Aramaean, and he went down with a small number of people into Egypt; there he became a great and strong nation:

⁶And the Egyptians were cruel to us, crushing us under a hard yoke:

⁷And our cry went up to the Lord, the God of our fathers, and the Lord's ear was open to the voice of our cry, and his eyes took note of our grief and the crushing weight of our work:

⁸And the Lord took us out of Egypt with a strong hand and a stretched-out arm, with works of power and signs and wonders:

⁹And he has been our guide to this place, and has given us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.

¹⁰So now, I have come here with the first of the fruits of the earth which you, O Lord, have given me. Then you will put it down before the Lord your God and give him worship:

¹¹And you will have joy in every good thing which the Lord your God has given to you and to your family; and the Levite, and the man from a strange land who is with you, will take part in your joy.

¹²When you have taken out a tenth from the tenth of all your produce in the third year, which is the year when this has to be done, give it to the Levite, and the man from a strange land, and the child without a father, and the widow, so that they may have food in your towns and be full;

¹³And say before the Lord your God, I have taken all the holy things out of my house and have given them to the Levite, and the man from a strange land, and him who has no father, and the widow, as you have given me orders: I have kept in mind all your orders, in nothing have I gone against them:

¹⁴No part of these things has been used for food in a time of weeping, or put away when I was unclean, or given for the dead: I have given ear to the voice of the Lord my God, and have done all you have given me orders to do.

¹⁵So, looking down from your holy place in heaven, send your blessing on your people Israel and on the land which you have given us, as you said in your oath to our fathers, a land flowing with milk and honey.

¹⁶Today the Lord your God gives you orders to keep all these laws and decisions: so then keep and do them with all your heart and all your soul.

¹⁷Today you have given witness that the Lord is your God, and that you will go in his ways and keep his laws and his orders and his decisions and give ear to his voice:

¹⁸And the Lord has made it clear this day that you are a special people to him, as he gave you his word; and that you are to keep all his orders;

¹⁹And that he will make you high over all the nations he has made, in praise, in name, and in honour, and that you are to be a holy people to the Lord your God as he has said.

27Then Moses and the responsible men of Israel gave the people these orders: Keep all the orders which I have given you this day;

²And on the day when you go over Jordan into the land which the Lord your God is giving you, put up great stones, coating them with building-paste,

³And writing on them all the words of this law, after you have gone over; so that you may take the heritage which the Lord your God is giving you, a land flowing with milk and honey, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has said.

⁴And when you have gone over Jordan, you are to put up these stones, as I have said to you today, in Mount Ebal, and have them coated with building-paste.

⁵There you are to make an altar to the Lord your God, of stones on which no iron instrument has been used.

⁶You are to make the altar of the Lord your God of uncut stones; offering on it burned offerings to the Lord your God:

⁷And you are to make your peace-offerings, feasting there with joy before the Lord your God.

⁸And put on the stones all the words of this law, writing them very clearly.

⁹Then Moses and the priests, the Levites, said to all Israel, Be quiet and give ear, O Israel; today you have become the people of the Lord your God.

¹⁰For this cause you are to give ear to the voice of the Lord your God, and do his orders and his laws which I give you this day.

¹¹That same day Moses said to the people,

¹²These are to take their places on Mount Gerizim for blessing the people when you have gone over Jordan: Simeon and Levi and Judah and Issachar and Joseph and Benjamin;

¹³And these are to be on Mount Ebal for the curse: Reuben, Gad, and Asher, and Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali.

¹⁴Then the Levites are to say in a loud voice to all the men of Israel,

¹⁵Cursed is the man who makes any image of wood or stone or metal, disgusting to the Lord, the work of man's hands, and puts it up in secret. And let all the people say, So be it.

¹⁶Cursed is he who does not give honour to his father or mother. And let all the people say, So be it.

¹⁷Cursed is he who takes his neighbour's landmark from its place. And let all the people say, So be it.

¹⁸Cursed is he by whom the blind are turned out of the way. And let all the people say, So be it.

¹⁹Cursed is he who gives a wrong decision in the cause of a man from a strange land, or of one without a father, or of a widow. And let all the people say, So be it.

²⁰Cursed is he who has sex relations with his father's wife, for he has put shame on his father. And let all the people say, So be it.

²¹Cursed is he who has sex relations with any sort of beast. And let all the people say, So be it.

²²Cursed is he who has sex relations with his sister, the daughter of his father or of his mother. And let all the people say, So be it.

²³Cursed is he who has sex relations with his mother-in-law. And let all the people say, So be it.

²⁴Cursed is he who takes his neighbour's life secretly. And let all the people say, So be it.

²⁵Cursed is he who for a reward puts to death one who has done no wrong. And let all the people say, So be it.

²⁶Cursed is he who does not take this law to heart to do it. And let all the people say, So be it.

28Now if you give ear to the voice of the Lord your God, and keep with care all these orders which I have given you today, then the Lord your God will put you high over all the nations of the earth:

²And all these blessings will come on you and overtake you, if your ears are open to the voice of the Lord your God.

³A blessing will be on you in the town, and a blessing in the field.

⁴A blessing will be on the fruit of your body, and on the fruit of your land, on the fruit of your cattle, the increase of your herd, and the young of your flock.

⁵A blessing will be on your basket and on your bread-basin.

⁶A blessing will be on your coming in and on your going out.

⁷By the power of the Lord, those who take arms against you will be overcome before you: they will come out against you one way, and will go in flight from you seven ways.

⁸The Lord will send his blessing on your store-houses and on everything to which you put your hand: his blessing will be on you in the land which the Lord your God is giving you.

⁹The Lord will keep you as a people holy to himself, as he has said to you in his oath, if you keep the orders of the Lord your God and go on walking in his ways.

¹⁰And all the peoples of the earth will see that the name of the Lord is on you, and they will go in fear of you.

¹¹And the Lord will make you fertile in every good thing, in the fruit of your body, and the fruit of your cattle, and the fruit of your fields, in the land which the Lord, by his oath to your fathers, said he would give you.

¹²Opening his store-house in heaven, the Lord will send rain on your land at the right time, blessing all the work of your hands: other nations will make use of your wealth, and you will have no need of theirs.

¹³The Lord will make you the head and not the tail; and you will ever have the highest place, if you give ear to the orders of the Lord your God which I give you today, to keep and to do them;

¹⁴Not turning away from any of the orders which I give you today, to the right hand or to the left, or going after any other gods to give them worship.

¹⁵But if you do not give ear to the voice of the Lord your God, and take care to do all his orders and his laws which I give you today, then all these curses will come on you and overtake you:

¹⁶You will be cursed in the town and cursed in the field.

¹⁷A curse will be on your basket and on your bread-basin.

¹⁸A curse will be on the fruit of your body, and on the fruit of your land, on the increase of your cattle, and the young of your flock.

¹⁹You will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out.

²⁰The Lord will send on you cursing and trouble and punishment in everything to which you put your hand, till sudden destruction overtakes you; because of your evil ways in which you have been false to me.

²¹The Lord will send disease after disease on you, till you have been cut off by death from the land to which you are going.

²²The Lord will send wasting disease, and burning pain, and flaming heat against you, keeping back the rain till your land is waste and dead; so will it be till your destruction is complete.

²³And the heaven over your heads will be brass, and the earth under you hard as iron.

²⁴The Lord will make the rain of your land powder and dust, sending it down on you from heaven till your destruction is complete.

²⁵The Lord will let you be overcome by your haters: you will go out against them one way, and you will go in flight before them seven ways: you will be the cause of fear among all the kingdoms of the earth.

²⁶Your bodies will be meat for all the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth; there will be no one to send them away.

²⁷The Lord will send on you the disease of Egypt, and other sorts of skin diseases which nothing will make well.

²⁸He will make your minds diseased, and your eyes blind, and your hearts wasted with fear:

²⁹You will go feeling your way when the sun is high, like a blind man for whom all is dark, and nothing will go well for you: you will be crushed and made poor for ever, and you will have no saviour.

³⁰You will take a wife, but another man will have the use of her: the house which your hands have made will never be your resting-place: you will make a vine-garden, and never take the fruit of it.

³¹Your ox will be put to death before your eyes, but its flesh will not be your food: your ass will be violently taken away before your face, and will not be given back to you: your sheep will be given to your haters, and there will be no saviour for you.

³²Your sons and your daughters will be given to another people, and your eyes will be wasted away with looking and weeping for them all the day: and you will have no power to do anything.

³³The fruit of your land and all the work of your hands will be food for a nation which is strange to you and to your fathers; you will only be crushed down and kept under for ever:

³⁴So that the things which your eyes have to see will send you out of your minds.

³⁵The Lord will send a skin disease, attacking your knees and your legs, bursting out from your feet to the top of your head, so that nothing will make you well.

³⁶And you, and the king whom you have put over you, will the Lord take away to a nation strange to you and to your fathers; there you will be servants to other gods of wood and stone.

³⁷And you will become a wonder and a name of shame among all the nations where the Lord will take you.

³⁸You will take much seed out into the field, and get little in; for the locust will get it.

³⁹You will put in vines and take care of them, but you will get no wine or grapes from them; for they will be food for worms.

⁴⁰Your land will be full of olive-trees, but there will be no oil for the comfort of your body; for your olive-tree will give no fruit.

⁴¹You will have sons and daughters, but they will not be yours; for they will go away prisoners into a strange land.

⁴²All your trees and the fruit of your land will be the locust's.

⁴³The man from a strange land who is living among you will be lifted up higher and higher over you, while you go down lower and lower.

⁴⁴He will let you have his wealth at interest, and will have no need of yours: he will be the head and you the tail.

⁴⁵And all these curses will come after you and overtake you, till your destruction is complete; because you did not give ear to the voice of the Lord your God, or keep his laws and his orders which he gave you:

⁴⁶These things will come on you and on your seed, to be a sign and a wonder for ever;

⁴⁷Because you did not give honour to the Lord your God, worshipping him gladly, with joy in your hearts on account of all your wealth of good things;

⁴⁸For this cause you will become servants to those whom the Lord your God will send against you, without food and drink and clothing, and in need of all things: and he will put a yoke of iron on your neck till he has put an end to you.

⁴⁹The Lord will send a nation against you from the farthest ends of the earth, coming with the flight of an eagle; a nation whose language is strange to you;

⁵⁰A hard-faced nation, who will have no respect for the old or mercy for the young:

⁵¹He will take the fruit of your cattle and of your land till death puts an end to you: he will let you have nothing of your grain or wine or oil or any of the increase of your cattle or the young of your flock, till he has made your destruction complete.

⁵²Your towns will be shut in by his armies, till your high walls, in which you put your faith, have come down: his armies will be round your towns, through all your land which the Lord your God has given you.

⁵³And your food will be the fruit of your body, the flesh of the sons and daughters which the Lord your God has given you; because of your bitter need and the cruel grip of your haters.

⁵⁴That man among you who is soft and used to comfort will be hard and cruel to his brother, and to his dear wife, and to of those his children who are still living;

⁵⁵And will not give to any of them the flesh of his children which will be his food because he has no other; in the cruel grip of your haters on all your towns.

⁵⁶The most soft and delicate of your women, who would not so much as put her foot on the earth, so delicate is she, will be hard-hearted to her husband and to her son and to her daughter;

⁵⁷And to her baby newly come to birth, and to the children of her body; for having no other food, she will make a meal of them secretly, because of her bitter need and the cruel grip of your haters on all your towns.

⁵⁸If you will not take care to do all the words of this law, recorded in this book, honouring that name of glory and of fear, THE LORD YOUR GOD;

⁵⁹Then the Lord your God will make your punishment, and the punishment of your seed, a thing to be wondered at; great punishments and cruel diseases stretching on through long years.

⁶⁰He will send on you again all the diseases of Egypt, which were a cause of fear to you, and they will take you in their grip.

⁶¹And all the diseases and the pains not recorded in the book of this law will the Lord send on you till your destruction is complete.

⁶²And you will become a very small band, though your numbers were like the stars of heaven; because you did not give ear to the voice of the Lord your God.

⁶³And as the Lord took delight in doing you good and increasing you, so the Lord will take pleasure in cutting you off and causing your destruction, and you will be uprooted from the land which you are about to take as your heritage.

⁶⁴And the Lord will send you wandering among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other: there you will be servants to other gods, of wood and stone, gods of which you and your fathers had no knowledge.

⁶⁵And even among these nations there will be no peace for you, and no rest for your feet: but the Lord will give you there a shaking heart and wasting eyes and weariness of soul:

⁶⁶Your very life will be hanging in doubt before you, and day and night will be dark with fears, and nothing in life will be certain:

⁶⁷In the morning you will say, If only it was evening! And at evening you will say, If only morning would come! Because of the fear in your hearts and the things which your eyes will see.

⁶⁸And the Lord will take you back to Egypt again in ships, by the way of which I said to you, You will never see it again: there you will be offering yourselves as men-servants and women-servants to your haters for a price, and no man will take you.

29These are the words of the agreement which Moses was ordered by the Lord to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, in addition to the agreement which he made with them in Horeb.

²And Moses said in the hearing of all Israel, You have seen all the Lord did before your eyes in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh and to all his servants and all his land;

³The great tests which your eyes saw, and the signs and wonders:

⁴But even to this day the Lord has not given you a mind open to knowledge, or seeing eyes or hearing ears.

⁵For forty years I have been your guide through the waste land: your clothing has not become old on your backs, or your shoes on your feet.

⁶You have had no bread, or wine, or strong drink: so that you might see that I am the Lord your God.

⁷When you came to this place, Sihon, king of Heshbon, and Og, king of Bashan, came out to make war against us and we overcame them:

⁸And we took their land and gave it to the Reubenites and the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh, for their heritage.

⁹So keep the words of this agreement and do them, so that it may be well for you in everything you do.

¹⁰You have come here today, all of you, before the Lord your God; the heads of your tribes, the overseers, and those who are in authority over you, with all the men of Israel,

¹¹And your little ones, your wives, and the men of other lands who are with you in your tents, down to the wood-cutter and the servant who gets water for you:

¹²With the purpose of taking part in the agreement of the Lord your God, and his oath which he makes with you today:

¹³And so that he may make you his people today, and be your God, as he has said to you, and as he made an oath to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

¹⁴And not with you only do I make this agreement and this oath;

¹⁵But with everyone who is here with us today before the Lord our God, as well as with those who are not here:

¹⁶(For you have in mind how we were living in the land of Egypt; and how we came through all the nations which were on your way;

¹⁷And you have seen their disgusting doings, and the images of wood and stone and silver and gold which were among them:)

¹⁸So that there may not be among you any man or woman or family or tribe whose heart is turned away from the Lord our God today, to go after other gods and give them worship; or any root among you whose fruit is poison and bitter sorrow;

¹⁹If such a man, hearing the words of this oath, takes comfort in the thought that he will have peace even if he goes on in the pride of his heart, taking whatever chance may give him:

²⁰The Lord will have no mercy on him, but the wrath of the Lord will be burning against that man, and all the curses recorded in this book will be waiting for him, and the Lord will take away his name completely from the earth.

²¹He will be marked out by the Lord, from all the tribes of Israel, for an evil fate, in keeping with all the curses of the agreement recorded in this book of the law.

²²And future generations, your children coming after you, and travellers from far countries, will say, when they see the punishments of that land and the diseases which the Lord has sent on it;

²³And that all the land is a salt and smoking waste, not planted or giving fruit or clothed with grass, but wasted like Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, on which the Lord sent destruction in the heat of his wrath:

²⁴Truly all the nations will say, Why has the Lord done so to this land? what is the reason for this great and burning wrath?

²⁵Then men will say, Because they gave up the agreement of the Lord, the God of their fathers, which he made with them when he took them out of the land of Egypt:

²⁶And they went after other gods and gave them worship, gods who were strange to them, and whom he had not given them:

²⁷And so the wrath of the Lord was moved against this land, to send on it all the curse recorded in this book:

²⁸Rooting them out of their land, in the heat of his wrath and passion, and driving them out into another land, as at this day.

²⁹The secret things are the Lord our God's: but the things which have been made clear are ours and our children's for ever, so that we may do all the words of this law.

30Now when all these things have come on you, the blessing and the curse which I have put before you, if the thought of them comes back to your minds, when you are living among the nations where the Lord your God has sent you,

²And your hearts are turned again to the Lord your God, and you give ear to his word which I give you today, you and your children, with all your heart and with all your soul:

³Then the Lord will have pity on you, changing your fate, and taking you back again from among all the nations where you have been forced to go.

⁴Even if those who have been forced out are living in the farthest part of heaven, the Lord your God will go in search of you, and take you back;

⁵Placing you again in the land of your fathers as your heritage; and he will do you good, increasing you till you are more in number than your fathers were.

⁶And the Lord your God will give to you and to your seed a circumcision of the heart, so that, loving him with all your heart and all your soul, you may have life.

⁷And the Lord your God will put all these curses on those who are against you, and on your haters who put a cruel yoke on you.

⁸And you will again give ear to the voice of the Lord, and do all his orders which I have given you today.

⁹And the Lord your God will make you fertile in all good things, blessing the work of your hands, and the fruit of your body, and the fruit of your cattle, and the fruit of your land: for the Lord will have joy in you, as he had in your fathers:

¹⁰If you give ear to the voice of the Lord your God, keeping his orders and his laws which are recorded in this book of the law, and turning to the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

¹¹For these orders which I have given you today are not strange and secret, and are not far away.

¹²They are not in heaven, for you to say, Who will go up to heaven for us and give us knowledge of them so that we may do them?

¹³And they are not across the sea, for you to say, Who will go over the sea for us and give us news of them so that we may do them?

¹⁴But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, so that you may do it.

¹⁵See, I have put before you today, life and good, and death and evil;

¹⁶In giving you orders today to have love for the Lord your God, to go in his ways and keep his laws and his orders and his decisions, so that you may have life and be increased, and that the blessing of the Lord your God may be with you in the land where you are going, the land of your heritage.

¹⁷But if your heart is turned away and your ear is shut, and you go after those who would make you servants and worshippers of other gods:

¹⁸I give witness against you this day that destruction will certainly be your fate, and your days will be cut short in the land where you are going, the land of your heritage on the other side of Jordan.

¹⁹Let heaven and earth be my witnesses against you this day that I have put before you life and death, a blessing and a curse: so take life for yourselves and for your seed:

²⁰In loving the Lord your God, hearing his voice and being true to him: for he is your life and by him will your days be long: so that you may go on living in the land which the Lord gave by an oath to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

31So Moses said all these things to Israel.

²Then he said to them, I am now a hundred and twenty years old; I am no longer able to go out and come in: and the Lord has said to me, You are not to go over Jordan.

³The Lord your God, he will go over before you; he will send destruction on all those nations, and you will take their land as your heritage: and Joshua will go over at your head as the Lord has said.

⁴The Lord will do to them as he did to Sihon and to Og, the kings of the Amorites, and to their land, whom he put to destruction.

⁵The Lord will give them up into your hands, and you are to do to them as I have given you orders.

⁶Be strong and take heart, and have no fear of them: for it is the Lord your God who is going with you; he will not take away his help from you.

⁷Then Moses sent for Joshua, and before the eyes of all Israel said to him, Be strong and take heart: for you are to go with this people into the land which the Lord, by his oath to their fathers, has given them; by your help they will take it for their heritage.

⁸It is the Lord who goes before you; he will be with you, he will not take away his help from you or give you up: so have no fear.

⁹Then Moses put all this law in writing, and gave it to the priests, the sons of Levi, who take up the ark of the Lord's agreement, and to all the responsible men of Israel.

¹⁰And Moses said to them, At the end of every seven years, at the time fixed for the ending of debts, at the feast of tents,

¹¹When all Israel has come before the Lord your God in the place named by him, let a reading be given of this law in the hearing of all Israel.

¹²Make all the people come together, men and women and children, and anyone from another country who is with you, so that hearing they may become wise in the fear of the Lord your God, and take care to do all the words of this law;

¹³And so that your children, to whom it is new, may give ear and be trained in the fear of the Lord your God, while you are living in the land which you are going over Jordan to take for your heritage.

¹⁴At that time the Lord said to Moses, The day of your death is near: send for Joshua, and come to the Tent of meeting so that I may give him his orders. So Moses and Joshua went to the Tent of meeting.

¹⁵And the Lord was seen in the Tent in a pillar of cloud resting by the door of the Tent.

¹⁶And the Lord said to Moses, Now you are going to rest with your fathers; and this people will be false to me, uniting themselves to the strange gods of the land where they are going; they will be turned away from me and will not keep the agreement I have made with them.

¹⁷In that day my wrath will be moved against them, and I will be turned away from them, veiling my face from them, and destruction will overtake them, and unnumbered evils and troubles will come on them; so that in that day they will say, Have not these evils come on us because our God is not with us?

¹⁸Truly, my face will be turned away from them in that day, because of all the evil they have done in going after other gods.

¹⁹Make then this song for yourselves, teaching it to the children of Israel: put it in their mouths, so that this song may be a witness for me against the children of Israel.

²⁰For when I have taken them into the land named in my oath to their fathers, a land flowing with milk and honey, and they have made themselves full of food and are fat, then they will be turned to other gods and will give them worship, no longer honouring me or keeping my agreement.

²¹Then when evils and troubles without number have overtaken them, this song will be a witness to them, for the words of it will be clear in the memories of their children: for I see the thoughts which are moving in their hearts even now, before I have taken them into the land of my oath.

²²So that same day Moses made this song, teaching it to the children of Israel.

²³Then he gave orders to Joshua, the son of Nun, saying to him, Be strong and take heart: for you are to go at the head of the children of Israel into the land which I made an oath to give them; and I will be with you.

²⁴Now after writing all the words of this law in a book till the record of them was complete,

²⁵Moses said to the Levites who were responsible for taking up the ark of the Lord's agreement,

²⁶Take this book of the law and put it by the ark of the Lord's agreement, so that it may be a witness against you.

²⁷For I have knowledge of your hard and uncontrolled hearts: even now, while I am still living, you will not be ruled by the Lord; how much less after my death?

²⁸Get together before me all those who are in authority in your tribes, and your overseers, so that I may say these things in their hearing, and make heaven and earth my witnesses against them.

²⁹For I am certain that after my death you will give yourselves up to sin, wandering from the way which I have given you; and evil will overtake you in the end, because you will do evil in the eyes of the Lord, moving him to wrath by the work of your hands.

³⁰Then in the hearing of all the meeting of Israel, Moses said the words of this song, to the end.

32Give ear, O heavens, to my voice; let the earth take note of the words of my mouth:

²My teaching is dropping like rain, coming down like dew on the fields; like rain on the young grass and showers on the garden plants:

³For I will give honour to the name of the Lord: let our God be named great.

⁴He is the Rock, complete is his work; for all his ways are righteousness: a God without evil who keeps faith, true and upright is he.

⁵They have become false, they are not his children, the mark of sin is on them; they are an evil and hard-hearted generation.

⁶Is this your answer to the Lord, O foolish people and unwise? Is he not your father who has given you life? He has made you and given you your place.

⁷Keep in mind the days of the past, give thought to the years of generations gone by: go to your father and he will make it clear to you, to the old men and they will give you the story.

⁸When the Most High gave the nations their heritage, separating into groups the children of men, he had the limits of the peoples marked out, keeping in mind the number of the children of Israel.

⁹For the Lord's wealth is his people; Jacob is the land of his heritage.

¹⁰He came to him in the waste land, in the unpeopled waste of sand: putting his arms round him and caring for him, he kept him as the light of his eye.

¹¹As an eagle, teaching her young to make their flight, with her wings outstretched over them, takes them up on her strong feathers:

¹²So the Lord only was his guide, no other god was with him.

¹³He put him on the high places of the earth, his food was the increase of the field; honey he gave him out of the rock and oil out of the hard rock;

¹⁴Butter from his cows and milk from his sheep, with fat of lambs and sheep of Bashan, and goats, and the heart of the grain; and for your drink, wine from the blood of the grape.

¹⁵But Jeshurun became fat and would not be controlled: you have become fat, you are thick and full of food: then he was untrue to the God who made him, giving no honour to the Rock of his salvation.

¹⁶The honour which was his they gave to strange gods; by their disgusting ways he was moved to wrath.

¹⁷They made offerings to evil spirits which were not God, to gods who were strange to them, which had newly come up, not feared by your fathers.

¹⁸You have no thought for the Rock, your father, you have no memory of the God who gave you birth.

¹⁹And the Lord saw with disgust the evil-doing of his sons and daughters.

²⁰And he said, My face will be veiled from them, I will see what their end will be: for they are an uncontrolled generation, children in whom is no faith.

²¹They have given my honour to that which is not God, moving me to wrath with their false worship: I will give their honour to those who are not a people, moving them to wrath by a foolish nation,

²²For my wrath is a flaming fire, burning to the deep parts of the underworld, burning up the earth with her increase, and firing the deep roots of the mountains.

²³I will send a rain of troubles on them, my arrows will be showered on them.

²⁴They will be wasted from need of food, and overcome by burning heat and bitter destruction; and the teeth of beasts I will send on them, with the poison of the worms of the dust.

²⁵Outside they will be cut off by the sword, and in the inner rooms by fear; death will take the young man and the virgin, the baby at the breast and the grey-haired man.

²⁶I said I would send them wandering far away, I would make all memory of them go from the minds of men:

²⁷But for the fear that their haters, uplifted in their pride, might say, Our hand is strong, the Lord has not done all this.

²⁸For they are a nation without wisdom; there is no sense in them.

²⁹If only they were wise, if only this was clear to them, and they would give thought to their future!

³⁰How would it be possible for one to overcome a thousand, and two to send ten thousand in flight, if their rock had not let them go, if the Lord had not given them up?

³¹For their rock is not like our Rock, even our haters themselves being judges.

³²For their vine is the vine of Sodom, from the fields of Gomorrah: their grapes are the grapes of evil, and the berries are bitter:

³³Their wine is the poison of dragons, the cruel poison of snakes.

³⁴Is not this among my secrets, kept safe in my store-house?

³⁵Punishment is mine and reward, at the time of the slipping of their feet: for the day of their downfall is near, sudden will be their fate.

³⁶For the Lord will be judge of his people, he will have pity for his servants; when he sees that their power is gone, there is no one, shut up or free.

³⁷And he will say, Where are their gods, the rock in which they put their faith?

³⁸Who took the fat of their offerings, and the wine of their drink offering? Let them now come to your help, let them be your salvation.

³⁹See now, I myself am he; there is no other god but me: giver of death and life, wounding and making well: and no one has power to make you free from my hand.

⁴⁰For lifting up my hand to heaven I say, By my unending life,

⁴¹If I make sharp my shining sword, and my hand is outstretched for judging, I will give punishment to those who are against me, and their right reward to my haters.

⁴²I will make my arrows red with blood, my sword will be feasting on flesh, with the blood of the dead and the prisoners, of the long-haired heads of my haters.

⁴³Be glad, O you his people, over the nations; for he will take payment for the blood of his servants, and will give punishment to his haters, and take away the sin of his land, for his people.

⁴⁴So Moses said all the words of this song in the hearing of the people, he and Hoshea, the son of Nun.

⁴⁵And after saying all this to the people,

⁴⁶Moses said to them, Let the words which I have said to you today go deep into your hearts, and give orders to your children to do every word of this law.

⁴⁷And this is no small thing for you, but it is your life, and through this you may make your days long in the land which you are going over Jordan to take for your heritage.

⁴⁸That same day the Lord said to Moses,

⁴⁹Go up into this mountain of Abarim, to Mount Nebo in the land of Moab opposite Jericho; there you may see the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the children of Israel for their heritage:

⁵⁰And let death come to you on the mountain where you are going, and be put to rest with your people; as death came to Aaron, your brother, on Mount Hor, where he was put to rest with his people:

⁵¹Because of your sin against me before the children of Israel at the waters of Meribath Kadesh in the waste land of Zin; because you did not keep my name holy among the children of Israel.

⁵²So you will see the land before you, but you will not go into the land which I am giving to the children of Israel.

33Now this is the blessing which Moses, the man of God, gave to the children of Israel before his death.

²He said, The Lord came from Sinai, dawning on them from Seir; shining out from Mount Paran, coming from Meribath Kadesh: from his right hand went flames of fire: his wrath made waste the peoples.

³All his holy ones are at his hand; they go at his feet; they are lifted up on his wings.

⁴Moses gave us a law, a heritage for the people of Jacob.

⁵And there was a king in Jeshurun, when the heads of the people and the tribes of Israel came together.

⁶Let life not death be Reuben's, let not the number of his men be small.

⁷And this is the blessing of Judah: he said, Give ear, O Lord, to the voice of Judah and make him one with his people: let your hands take up his cause, and be his help against his attackers.

⁸And of Levi he said, Give your Thummim to Levi and let the Urim be with your loved one, whom you put to the test at Massah, with whom you were angry at the waters of Meribah;

⁹Who said of his father, Who is he? and of his mother, I have not seen her; he kept himself separate from his brothers and had no knowledge of his children: for they have given ear to your word and kept your agreement.

¹⁰They will be the teachers of your decisions to Jacob and of your law to Israel: the burning of perfumes before you will be their right, and the ordering of burned offerings on your altar.

¹¹Let your blessing, O Lord, be on his substance, may the work of his hands be pleasing to you: may those who take up arms against him and all who have hate for him, be wounded through the heart, never to be lifted up again.

¹²And of Benjamin he said, Benjamin is the loved one of the Lord, he will be kept safe at all times; he will be covered by the Most High, resting between his arms.

¹³And of Joseph he said, Let the blessing of the Lord be on his land; for the good things of heaven on high, and the deep waters flowing under the earth,

¹⁴And the good things of the fruits of the sun, and the good things of the growth of the moons,

¹⁵And the chief things of the oldest mountains, and the good things of the eternal hills,

¹⁶The good things of the earth and all its wealth, the good pleasure of him who was seen in the burning tree: may they come on the head of Joseph, on the head of him who was prince among his brothers.

¹⁷He is a young ox, glory is his; his horns are the horns of the mountain ox, with which all peoples will be wounded, even to the ends of the earth: they are the ten thousands of Ephraim and the thousands of Manasseh.

¹⁸And of Zebulun he said, Be glad, Zebulun, in your going out; and, Issachar, in your tents.

¹⁹They will send out the word for the people to come to the mountain, taking there the offerings of righteousness: for the store of the seas will be theirs, and the secret wealth of the sand.

²⁰Of Gad he said, A blessing be on him who makes wide the limits of Gad: he takes his rest like a she-lion, taking for himself the arm and the crown of the head.

²¹He kept for himself the first part, for his was the ruler's right: he put in force the righteousness of the Lord, and his decisions for Israel.

²²And of Dan he said, Dan is a young lion, springing out from Bashan.

²³And of Naphtali he said, O Naphtali, made glad with grace and full of the blessing of the Lord: the sea and its fishes will be his.

²⁴And of Asher he said, Let Asher have the blessing of children; may he be pleasing to his brothers, and let his foot be wet with oil.

²⁵Your shoes will be iron and brass; and as your days, so may your work be.

²⁶No other is like the God of Jeshurun, coming on the heavens to your help, and letting his glory be seen in the skies.

²⁷The God of your fathers is your safe resting-place, and under you are his eternal arms: driving out the forces of your haters from before you, he said, Let destruction overtake them.

²⁸And Israel is living in peace, the fountain of Jacob by himself, in a land of grain and wine, with dew dropping from the heavens.

²⁹Happy are you, O Israel: who is like you, a people whose saviour is the Lord, whose help is your cover, whose sword is your strength! All those who are against you will put themselves under your rule, and your feet will be planted on their high places.

34And Moses went up from the table-lands of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah which is facing Jericho. And the Lord let him see all the land, the land of Gilead as far as Dan;

²And all Naphtali and the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, and all the land of Judah, as far as the Great Sea of the west;

³And the South, and the circle of the valley of Jericho, the town of palm-trees, as far as Zoar.

⁴And the Lord said to him, This is the land about which I made an oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, I will give it to your seed: now I have let you see it with your eyes, but you will not go in there.

⁵So death came to Moses, the servant of the Lord, there in the land of Moab, as the Lord had said.

⁶And the Lord put him to rest in the valley in the land of Moab opposite Beth-peor: but no man has knowledge of his resting-place to this day.

⁷And Moses at his death was a hundred and twenty years old: his eye had not become clouded, or his natural force become feeble.

⁸For thirty days the children of Israel were weeping for Moses in the table-lands of Moab, till the days of weeping and sorrow for Moses were ended.

⁹And Joshua, the son of Nun, was full of the spirit of wisdom; for Moses had put his hands on him: and the children of Israel gave ear to him, and did as the Lord had given orders to Moses.

¹⁰There has never been another prophet in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord had knowledge of face to face;

¹¹In all the signs and wonders which the Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his servants and all his land;

¹²And in all the acts of power and fear which Moses did before the eyes of all Israel.

1Now after the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, the word of the Lord came to Joshua, the son of Nun, Moses' helper, saying,

²Moses my servant is dead; so now get up! Go over Jordan, you and all this people, into the land which I am giving to them, to the children of Israel.

³Every place on which you put your foot I have given to you, as I said to Moses.

⁴From the waste land and this mountain Lebanon, as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, and all the land of the Hittites to the Great Sea, in the west, will be your country.

⁵While you are living, all will give way before you: as I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will not take away my help from you or give you up.

⁶Take heart and be strong; for you will give to this people for their heritage the land which I gave by an oath to their fathers.

⁷Only take heart and be very strong; take care to do all the law which Moses my servant gave you, not turning from it to the right hand or to the left, so that you may do well in all your undertakings.

⁸Let this book of the law be ever on your lips and in your thoughts day and night, so that you may keep with care everything in it; then a blessing will be on all your way, and you will do well.

⁹Have I not given you your orders? Take heart and be strong; have no fear and do not be troubled; for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go,

¹⁰Then Joshua gave their orders to those who were in authority over the people, saying,

¹¹Go through the tents and give orders to the people, saying, Get ready a store of food; for in three days you are to go over this river Jordan and take for your heritage the land which the Lord your God is giving you.

¹²And to the Reubenites and the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh, Joshua said,

¹³Keep in mind what Moses, the servant of the Lord, said to you, The Lord your God is sending you rest and will give you this land.

¹⁴Your wives, your little ones, and your cattle will be kept here in the land which Moses gave you on this side of Jordan; but you, the fighting-men, are to go over before your brothers, armed, to give them help;

¹⁵Till the Lord has given your brothers rest, as he has given it to you, and they have taken their heritage in the land which the Lord your God is giving them: then you will go back to the land of your heritage which Moses, the servant of the Lord, gave you on the east side of Jordan.

¹⁶Then they said to Joshua in answer, Whatever you say to us we will do, and wherever you send us we will go.

¹⁷As we gave attention to Moses in all things, so we will give attention to you: and may the Lord your God be with you as he was with Moses.

¹⁸Whoever goes against your orders, and does not give attention to all your words, will be put to death: only take heart and be strong.

2Then Joshua, the son of Nun, sent two men from Shittim secretly, with the purpose of searching out the land, and Jericho. So they went and came to the house of a loose woman of the town, named Rahab, where they took their rest for the night.

²And it was said to the king of Jericho, See, some men have come here tonight from the children of Israel with the purpose of searching out the land.

³Then the king of Jericho sent to Rahab, saying, Send out the men who have come to you and are in your house; for they have come with the purpose of searching out all the land.

⁴And the woman took the two men and put them in a secret place; then she said, Yes, the men came to me, but I had no idea where they came from;

⁵And when it was the time for shutting the doors at dark, they went out; I have no idea where the men went: but if you go after them quickly, you will overtake them.

⁶But she had taken them up to the roof, covering them with the stems of flax which she had put out in order there.

⁷So the men went after them on the road to Jordan as far as the river-crossing: and when they had gone out after them, the door into the town was shut.

⁸And before the men went to rest, she came up to them on the roof,

⁹And said to them, It is clear to me that the Lord has given you the land, and that the fear of you has come on us;

¹⁰For we have had news of how the Lord made the Red Sea dry before you when you came out of Egypt; and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites, on the other side of Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you gave up to the curse.

¹¹And because of this news, our hearts became like water, and there was no more spirit in any of us because of you; for the Lord your God is God in heaven on high and here on earth.

¹²So now, will you give me your oath by the Lord, that, because I have been kind to you, you will be kind to my father's house,

¹³And that you will keep safe my father and mother and my brothers and sisters and all they have, so that death may not come on us?

¹⁴And the men said to her, Our life for yours if you keep our business secret; and when the Lord has given us the land, we will keep faith and be kind to you.

¹⁵Then she let them down from the window by a cord, for the house where she was living was on the town wall.

¹⁶And she said to them, Get away into the hill-country, or the men who have gone after you will overtake you; keep yourselves safe there for three days, till the searchers have come back, and then go on your way.

¹⁷And the men said to her, We will only be responsible for this oath which you have made us take,

¹⁸If, when we come into the land, you put this cord of bright red thread in the window from which you let us down; and get your father and mother and your brothers and all your family into the house;

¹⁹Then if anyone goes out of your house into the street, his blood will be on his head, we will not be responsible; but if any damage comes to anyone in the house, his blood will be on our heads.

²⁰But if you say anything about our business here, then we will be free from the oath you have made us take.

²¹And she said, Let it be as you say. Then she sent them away, and they went; and she put the bright red cord in the window.

²²And they went into the hill-country and were there three days, till the men who had gone after them had come back; and those who went after them were searching for them everywhere without coming across them.

²³Then the two men came down from the hill-country and went over and came back to Joshua, the son of Nun; and they gave him a complete account of what had taken place.

²⁴And they said to Joshua, Truly, the Lord has given all the land into our hands; and all the people of the land have become like water because of us.

3Then Joshua got up early in the morning, and, moving on from Shittim, he and all the children of Israel came to Jordan and were there for the night before going over.

²And at the end of three days, the men in authority over the people went through the tents,

³Giving the people their orders, and saying, When you see the ark of the agreement of the Lord your God lifted up by the priests, the Levites, then get up from your places and go after it;

⁴But let there be a space between you and it of about two thousand cubits: come no nearer to it, so that you may see the way you have to go, for you have not been over this way before.

⁵And Joshua said to the people, Make yourselves holy, for tomorrow the Lord will do works of wonder among you.

⁶Then Joshua said to the priests, Take up the ark of the agreement and go over in front of the people. So they took up the ark of the agreement and went in front of the people.

⁷And the Lord said to Joshua, From now on I will give you glory in the eyes of all Israel, so that they may see that, as I was with Moses, so I will be with you.

⁸And you are to give orders to the priests who take up the ark of the agreement, and say, When you come to the edge of the waters of Jordan, go no further.

⁹And Joshua said to the children of Israel, Come to me here: and give ear to the words of the Lord your God.

¹⁰And Joshua said, By this you will see that the living God is among you, and that he will certainly send out from before you the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Hivite and the Perizzite and the Girgashite and the Amorite and the Jebusite.

¹¹See, the ark of the agreement of the Lord of all the earth is going over before you into Jordan.

¹²So take twelve men out of the tribes of Israel, a man from every tribe.

¹³And when the feet of the priests who take up the ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth, come to rest in the waters of Jordan, the waters of Jordan will be cut off, all the waters flowing down from higher up, and will come together in a mass.

¹⁴So when the people went out from their tents to go over Jordan, the priests who took up the ark of the agreement were in front of the people;

¹⁵And when those who took up the ark came to Jordan, and the feet of the priests who took up the ark were touching the edge of the water (for the waters of Jordan are overflowing all through the time of the grain-cutting),

¹⁶Then the waters flowing down from higher up were stopped and came together in a mass a long way back at Adam, a town near Zarethan; and the waters flowing down to the sea of the Arabah, the Salt Sea, were cut off: and the people went across opposite Jericho.

¹⁷And the priests who took up the ark of the agreement of the Lord kept their places, with their feet on dry land in the middle of Jordan, while all Israel went over on dry land, till all the nation had gone over Jordan.

4Now when all the nation had come to the other side of Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua,

²Take twelve men from the people, a man for every tribe,

³And say to them, Take up from the middle of Jordan, from the place where the feet of the priests were resting, twelve stones, and take them over with you and put them down in the place where you take your rest tonight.

⁴So Joshua sent for the twelve men, whom he had ready, one man out of every tribe of the children of Israel,

⁵And he said to them, Go over before the ark of the Lord your God into the middle of Jordan, and let every one of you take up a stone on his back, one for every tribe of the children of Israel:

⁶So that this may be a sign among you; when your children say to you in time to come, What is the reason for these stones?

⁷Then you will say to them, Because the waters of Jordan were cut off before the ark of the Lord's agreement; when it went over Jordan the waters of Jordan were cut off: and these stones will be a sign for the children of Israel, keeping it in their memory for ever.

⁸So the children of Israel did as Joshua gave them orders, and took twelve stones from the middle of Jordan, as the Lord had said to Joshua, one for every tribe of the children of Israel; these they took across with them to their night's resting-place and put them down there.

⁹And Joshua put up twelve stones in the middle of Jordan, where the feet of the priests who took up the ark of the agreement had been placed: and there they are to this day.

¹⁰For the priests who took up the ark kept there in the middle of Jordan till all the orders given to Joshua by Moses from the Lord had been done: then the people went over quickly.

¹¹And when all the people had come to the other side, the ark of the Lord went over, and the priests, before the eyes of the people.

¹²And the children of Reuben and the children of Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh went over armed before the children of Israel as Moses had said to them:

¹³About forty thousand armed for war went over before the Lord to the fight, to the lowlands of Jericho.

¹⁴That day the Lord made Joshua great in the eyes of all Israel; and all the days of his life they went in fear of him, as they had gone in fear of Moses.

¹⁵Then the Lord said to Joshua,

¹⁶Give orders to the priests who take up the ark of witness, to come up out of Jordan.

¹⁷So Joshua gave orders to the priests, saying, Come up now out of Jordan.

¹⁸And when the priests who took up the ark of the Lord's agreement came up out of Jordan and their feet came out on to dry land, the waters of Jordan went back to their place, overflowing its edges as before.

¹⁹So on the tenth day of the first month the people came up out of Jordan, and put up their tents in Gilgal, on the east side of Jericho.

²⁰And the twelve stones which they took out of Jordan, Joshua put up in Gilgal.

²¹And he said to the children of Israel, When your children say to their fathers in time to come, What is the reason for these stones?

²²Then give your children the story, and say, Israel came over this river Jordan on dry land.

²³For the Lord your God made the waters of Jordan dry before you till you had gone across, as he did to the Red Sea, drying it up before us till we had gone across:

²⁴So that all the peoples of the earth may see that the hand of the Lord is strong; and that they may go in fear of the Lord your God for ever.

5Now when the news came to all the kings of the Amorites on the west side of Jordan, and all the kings of the Canaanites living by the sea, how the Lord had made the waters of Jordan dry before the children of Israel, till they had gone across, their hearts became like water, and there was no more spirit in them, because of the children of Israel.

²At that time the Lord said to Joshua, Make yourself stone knives and give the children of Israel circumcision a second time.

³So Joshua made stone knives and gave the children of Israel circumcision at Gibeath-ha-araloth.

⁴And this is the reason why Joshua did so: all the males of the people who came out of Egypt, all the fighting-men, had been overtaken by death in the waste land on the way, after they came out of Egypt.

⁵All the people who came out had undergone circumcision; but all the people whose birth had taken place in the waste land on their journey from Egypt had not.

⁶For the children of Israel were wandering in the waste land for forty years, till all the nation, that is, all the fighting-men, who had come out of Egypt, were dead, because they did not give ear to the voice of the Lord: to whom the Lord said, with an oath, that he would not let them see the land which the Lord had given his word to their fathers to give us, a land flowing with milk and honey.

⁷And their children, who came up in their place, now underwent circumcision by the hands of Joshua, not having had it before: for there had been no circumcision on the journey.

⁸So when all the nation had undergone circumcision, they kept in their tents till they were well again.

⁹And the Lord said to Joshua, Today the shame of Egypt has been rolled away from you. So that place was named Gilgal, to this day.

¹⁰So the children of Israel put up their tents in Gilgal; and they kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the month, in the evening, in the lowlands of Jericho.

¹¹And on the day after the Passover, they had for their food the produce of the land, unleavened cakes and dry grain on the same day.

¹²And there was no more manna from the day after they had for their food the produce of the land; the children of Israel had manna no longer, but that year the produce of the land of Canaan was their food.

¹³Now when Joshua was near Jericho, lifting up his eyes he saw a man in front of him, with his sword uncovered in his hand: and Joshua went up to him and said, Are you for us or against us?

¹⁴And he said, No; but I have come as captain of the armies of the Lord. Then Joshua, falling down with his face to the earth in worship, said, What has my lord to say to his servant?

¹⁵And the captain of the Lord's army said to Joshua, Take off your shoes from your feet, for the place where you are is holy. And Joshua did so.

6(Now Jericho was all shut up because of the children of Israel: there was no going out or coming in.)

²And the Lord said to Joshua, See, I have given into your hands Jericho with its king and all its men of war.

³Now let all your fighting-men make a circle round the town, going all round it once. Do this for six days.

⁴And let seven priests go before the ark with seven loud-sounding horns in their hands: on the seventh day you are to go round the town seven times, the priests blowing their horns.

⁵And at the sound of a long note on the horns, let all the people give a loud cry; and the wall of the town will come down flat, and all the people are to go straight forward.

⁶Then Joshua, the son of Nun, sent for the priests and said to them, Take up the ark of the agreement, and let seven priests take seven horns in their hands and go before the ark of the Lord.

⁷And he said to the people, Go forward, circling the town, and let the armed men go before the ark of the Lord.

⁸So after Joshua had said this to the people, the seven priests with their seven horns went forward before the Lord, blowing on their horns: and the ark of the Lord's agreement went after them.

⁹And the armed men went before the priests who were blowing the horns, and the mass of the people went after the ark, blowing their horns.

¹⁰And to the people Joshua gave an order, saying, You will give no cry, and make no sound, and let no word go out of your mouth till the day when I say, Give a loud cry; then give a loud cry.

¹¹So he made the ark of the Lord go all round the town once: then they went back to the tents for the night.

¹²And early in the morning Joshua got up, and the priests took up the ark of the Lord.

¹³And the seven priests with their seven horns went on before the ark of the Lord, blowing their horns: the armed men went before them, and the mass of the people went after the ark of the Lord, blowing their horns.

¹⁴The second day they went all round the town once, and then went back to their tents: and so they did for six days.

¹⁵Then on the seventh day they got up early, at the dawn of the day, and went round the town in the same way, but that day they went round it seven times.

¹⁶And the seventh time, at the sound of the priests' horns, Joshua said to the people, Now give a loud cry; for the Lord has given you the town.

¹⁷And the town will be put to the curse, and everything in it will be given to the Lord: only Rahab, the loose woman, and all who are in the house with her, will be kept safe, because she kept secret the men we sent.

¹⁸And as for you, keep yourselves from the cursed thing, for fear that you may get a desire for it and take some of it for yourselves, and so be the cause of a curse and great trouble on the tents of Israel.

¹⁹But all the silver and gold and the vessels of brass and iron are holy to the Lord: they are to come into the store-house of the Lord.

²⁰So the people gave a loud cry, and the horns were sounded; and on hearing the horns the people gave a loud cry, and the wall came down flat, so that the people went up into the town, every man going straight before him, and they took the town.

²¹And they put everything in the town to the curse; men and women, young and old, ox and sheep and ass, they put to death without mercy.

²²Then Joshua said to the two men who had been sent to make a search through the land, Go into the house of the loose woman, and get her out, and all who are with her, as you gave her your oath.

²³So the searchers went in and got out Rahab and her father and mother and her brothers and all she had, and they got out all her family; and they took them outside the tents of Israel.

²⁴Then, after burning up the town and everything in it, they put the silver and gold and the vessels of brass and iron into the store-house of the Lord's house.

²⁵But Joshua kept Rahab, the loose woman, and her father's family and all she had, from death, and so she got a living-place among the children of Israel to this day; because she kept safe the men whom Joshua had sent to make a search through the land.

²⁶Then Joshua gave the people orders with an oath, saying, Let that man be cursed before the Lord who puts his hand to the building up of this town: with the loss of his first son will he put the first stone of it in place, and with the loss of his youngest son he will put up its doors.

²⁷So the Lord was with Joshua; and news of him went through all the land.

7But the children of Israel did wrong about the cursed thing: for Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the family of Judah, took of the cursed thing, moving the Lord to wrath against the children of Israel.

²Now Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is by the side of Beth-aven, on the east side of Beth-el, and said to them, Go up and make a search through the land. And the men went up and saw how Ai was placed.

³Then they came back to Joshua and said to him, Do not send all the people up, but let about two or three thousand men go up and make an attack on Ai; there is no need for all the people to be tired with the journey there, for it is only a small town.

⁴So about three thousand of the people went up, and were sent in flight by the men of Ai.

⁵The men of Ai put to death about thirty-six of them, driving them from before the town as far as the stoneworks, and overcoming them on the way down: and the hearts of the people became like water.

⁶Then Joshua, in great grief, went down on the earth before the ark of the Lord till the evening, and all the chiefs of Israel with him, and they put dust on their heads.

⁷And Joshua said, O Lord God, why have you taken us over Jordan only to give us up into the hands of the Amorites for our destruction? If only it had been enough for us to keep on the other side of Jordan!

⁸O Lord, what am I to say now that Israel have given way before their attackers?

⁹For when the news comes to the Canaanites and all the people of the land, they will come up, shutting us in and cutting off our name from the earth: and what will you do for the honour of your great name?

¹⁰Then the Lord said to Joshua, Get up; what are you doing with your face to the earth?

¹¹Israel has done wrong, sinning against the agreement which I made with them: they have even taken of the cursed thing; acting falsely like thieves they have put it among their goods.

¹²For this reason the children of Israel have given way, turning their backs in flight before their attackers, because they are cursed: I will no longer be with you, if you do not put the cursed thing away from among you.

¹³Up! make the people holy; say to them, Make yourselves holy before tomorrow, for the Lord, the God of Israel, has said, There is a cursed thing among you, O Israel, and you will give way before your attackers in the fight till the cursed thing has been taken away from among you.

¹⁴So in the morning you are to come near, tribe by tribe; and the tribe marked out by the Lord is to come near, family by family; and the family marked out by the Lord is to come near, house by house; and the house marked out by the Lord is to come near, man by man.

¹⁵Then the man who is taken with the cursed thing is to be burned, with everything which is his; because he has gone against the agreement of the Lord and has done an act of shame in Israel.

¹⁶So Joshua got up early in the morning, and made Israel come before him by their tribes; and the tribe of Judah was taken;

¹⁷Then he made Judah come forward, and the family of the Zerahites was taken; and he made the family of the Zerahites come forward man by man; and Zabdi was taken;

¹⁸Then the house of Zabdi came forward man by man, and Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, was taken.

¹⁹And Joshua said to Achan, My son, give glory and praise to the Lord, the God of Israel; give me word now of what you have done, and keep nothing back from me.

²⁰And Achan, answering, said to Joshua, Truly I have done wrong against the Lord, the God of Israel, and this is what I have done:

²¹When I saw among their goods a fair robe of Babylon and two hundred shekels of silver, and a mass of gold, fifty shekels in weight, I was overcome by desire and took them; and they are put away in the earth in my tent, and the silver is under it.

²²So Joshua sent men quickly, and looking in his tent, they saw where the robe had been put away secretly with the silver under it.

²³And they took them from the tent and came back with them to Joshua and the children of Israel, and put them before the Lord.

²⁴Then Joshua and all Israel took Achan, the son of Zerah, and the silver and the robe and the mass of gold, and his sons and his daughters and his oxen and his asses and his sheep and his tent and everything he had; and they took them up into the valley of Achor.

²⁵And Joshua said, Why have you been a cause of trouble to us? Today the Lord will send trouble on you. And all Israel took part in stoning him; they had him stoned to death and then burned with fire.

²⁶And over him they put a great mass of stones, which is there to this day; then the heat of the Lord's wrath was turned away. So that place was named, The Valley of Achor, to this day.

8Then the Lord said to Joshua, Have no fear and do not be troubled: take with you all the fighting-men and go up against Ai: for I have given into your hands the king of Ai and his people and his town and his land:

²And you are to do to Ai and its king as you did to Jericho and its king: but their goods and their cattle you may take for yourselves: let a secret force be stationed to make a surprise attack on the town from the back.

³So Joshua and the fighting-men got ready to go up against Ai; and Joshua took thirty thousand men of war, and sent them out by night.

⁴And he gave them their orders, saying, Go and take up your position secretly at the back of the town: do not go very far away, and let all of you be ready:

⁵And I and all the people with me will come near the town, and when they come out against us as they did before, we will go in flight from them;

⁶And they will come out after us, till we have got them away from the town; for they will say, They have gone in flight from us as before; so we will go in flight before them;

⁷Then you will get up from your secret position and take the town, for the Lord your God will give it up into your hands.

⁸And when you have taken the town, put fire to it, as the Lord has said: see, I have given you your orders.

⁹So Joshua sent them out: and they took up a secret position between Beth-el and Ai, on the west side of Ai: but Joshua kept with the people that night.

¹⁰And early in the morning Joshua got up, and put the people in order, and he and the chiefs of Israel went up before the people to Ai.

¹¹And all the fighting-men who were with him went up and came near the town, and took up a position on the north side of Ai facing the town, with a valley between him and the town.

¹²And taking about five thousand men, he put them in position for a surprise attack on the west side of Ai, between Beth-el and Ai.

¹³So all the people were in their places, the army on the north side of the town and the secret force on the west; and that night Joshua went down into the valley.

¹⁴Now when the king of Ai saw it, he got up quickly and went out to war against Israel, he and all his people, to the slope going down to the valley; but he had no idea that a secret force was waiting at the back of the town.

¹⁵Then Joshua and all Israel, acting as if they were overcome before them, went in flight by way of the waste land.

¹⁶And all the people in Ai came together to go after them; and they went after Joshua, moving away from the town.

¹⁷There was not a man in Ai and Beth-el who did not go out after Israel; and the town was open and unwatched while they went after Israel.

¹⁸And the Lord said to Joshua, Let your spear be stretched out against Ai; for I will give it into your hands. So Joshua took up his spear, stretching it out in the direction of the town.

¹⁹Then the secret force came quickly from their place, and running forward when they saw his hand stretched out, went into the town and took it, and put fire to it straight away.

²⁰Then the men of Ai, looking back, saw the smoke of the town going up to heaven, and were unable to go this way or that: and the people who had gone in flight to the waste land were turned back on those who were coming after them.

²¹And when Joshua and all Israel saw that the town had been taken by the surprise attack, and that the smoke of the town had gone up, turning round they overcame the men of Ai.

²²Then the other force came out of the town against them, so that they were being attacked on this side and on that: and Israel overcame them and let not one of them get away with his life.

²³But the king of Ai they made prisoner, and took him to Joshua.

²⁴Then, after the destruction of all the people of Ai in the field and in the waste land where they went after them, and when all the people had been put to death without mercy, all Israel went back to Ai, and put to death all who were in it without mercy.

²⁵On that day twelve thousand were put to death, men and women, all the people of Ai.

²⁶For Joshua did not take back his hand with the outstretched spear till the destruction of the people of Ai was complete.

²⁷But the cattle and the goods from that town, Israel took for themselves, as the Lord had given orders to Joshua.

²⁸So Joshua gave Ai to the flames, and made it a waste mass of stones for ever, as it is to this day.

²⁹And he put the king of Ai to death, hanging him on a tree till evening: and when the sun went down, Joshua gave them orders to take his body down from the tree, and put it in the public place of the town, covering it with a great mass of stones, which is there to this day.

³⁰Then Joshua put up an altar to the Lord, the God of Israel, in Mount Ebal,

³¹In the way ordered by Moses, the servant of the Lord, as it is recorded in the book of the law of Moses, an altar of uncut stones, untouched by any iron instrument: and on it they made burned offerings and peace-offerings to the Lord.

³²And he made there on the stones a copy of the law of Moses, writing it before the eyes of the children of Israel.

³³And all Israel, those who were Israelites by birth, as well as the men from other lands living with them, and their responsible men and their overseers and judges, took their places round the ark, in front of the priests, the Levites, whose work it was to take up the ark of the Lord's agreement; half of them were stationed in front of Mount Gerizim and half in front of Mount Ebal, in agreement with the orders for the blessing of the children of Israel which Moses, the servant of the Lord, had given.

³⁴And after, he gave them all the words of the law, the blessing and the curse, as it is all recorded in the book of the law;

³⁵Reading to all the meeting of Israel, with the women and the children and the men from other lands who were living among them, every word of the orders which Moses had given.

9Now on hearing the news of these things, all the kings on the west side of Jordan, in the hill-country and the lowlands and by the Great Sea in front of Lebanon, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites,

²Came together with one purpose, to make war against Joshua and Israel.

³And the men of Gibeon, hearing what Joshua had done to Jericho and Ai,

⁴Acting with deceit, got food together as if for a long journey; and took old food-bags for their asses, and old and cracked wine-skins kept together with cord;

⁵And put old stitched-up shoes on their feet, and old clothing on their backs; and all the food they had with them was dry and broken up.

⁶And they came to Joshua to the tent-circle at Gilgal, and said to him and to the men of Israel, We have come from a far country: so now make an agreement with us.

⁷And the men of Israel said to the Hivites, It may be that you are living among us; how then may we make an agreement with you?

⁸And they said to Joshua, We are your servants. Then Joshua said to them, Who are you and where do you come from?

⁹And they said to him, Your servants have come from a very far country, because of the name of the Lord your God: for the story of his great name, and of all he did in Egypt has come to our ears,

¹⁰And what he did to the two kings of the Amorites east of Jordan, to Sihon, king of Heshbon, and to Og, king of Bashan, at Ashtaroth.

¹¹So the responsible men and all the people of our country said to us, Take food with you for the journey and go to them, and say to them, We are your servants: so now make an agreement with us.

¹²This bread which we have with us for our food, we took warm and new from our houses when starting on our journey to you; but now see, it has become dry and broken up.

¹³And these wine-skins were new when we put the wine in them, and now they are cracked as you see; and our clothing and our shoes have become old because of our very long journey here.

¹⁴And the men took some of their food, without requesting directions from the Lord.

¹⁵So Joshua made peace with them, and made an agreement with them that they were not to be put to death: and the chiefs of the people took an oath to them.

¹⁶Now three days after, when they had made this agreement with them, they had word that these men were their neighbours, living near them.

¹⁷And the children of Israel went forward on their journey, and on the third day came to their towns. Now their towns were Gibeon and Chephirah and Beeroth and Kiriath-jearim.

¹⁸And the children of Israel did not put them to death, because the chiefs of the people had taken an oath to them by the Lord, the God of Israel. And all the people made an outcry against the chiefs.

¹⁹But all the chiefs said to the people, We have taken an oath to them by the Lord, the God of Israel, and so we may not put our hands on them.

²⁰This is what we will do to them: we will not put them to death, for fear that wrath may come on us because of our oath to them.

²¹Keep them living, and let them be servants, cutting wood and getting water for all the people. And all the people did as the chiefs had said to them.

²²Then Joshua sent for them, and said to them, Why have you been false to us, saying, We are very far from you, when you are living among us?

²³Now because of this you are cursed, and you will for ever be our servants, cutting wood and getting water for the house of my God.

²⁴And, answering Joshua, they said, Because it came to the ears of your servants that the Lord your God had given orders to his servant Moses to give you all this land, and to send destruction on all the people living in it, because of you; so, fearing greatly for our lives because of you, we have done this.

²⁵And now we are in your hands: do to us whatever seems good and right to you.

²⁶So he kept them safe from the children of Israel, and did not let them be put to death.

²⁷And that day Joshua made them servants, cutting wood and getting water for the people and for the altar of the Lord, in the place marked out by him, to this day.

10Now when it came to the ears of Adoni-zedek, king of Jerusalem, that Joshua had taken Ai, and had given it up to the curse (for as he had done to Jericho and its king, so he had done to Ai and its king); and that the people of Gibeon had made peace with Israel and were living among them;

²He was in great fear, because Gibeon was a great town, like one of the king's towns, greater than Ai, and all the men in it were men of war.

³So Adoni-zedek, king of Jerusalem, sent to Hoham, king of Hebron, and to Piram, king of Jarmuth, and to Japhia, king of Lachish, and to Debir, king of Eglon, saying,

⁴Come up to me and give me help, and let us make an attack on Gibeon: for they have made peace with Joshua and the children of Israel.

⁵So the five kings of the Amorites, the king of Jerusalem, the king of Hebron, the king of Jarmuth, the king of Lachish, and the king of Eglon, were banded together, and went up with all their armies and took up their position before Gibeon and made war against it.

⁶And the men of Gibeon sent to Joshua to the tent-circle at Gilgal, saying, Be not slow to send help to your servants; come up quickly to our support and keep us safe: for all the kings of the Amorites from the hill-country have come together against us.

⁷So Joshua went up from Gilgal with all his army and all his men of war.

⁸And the Lord said to Joshua, Have no fear of them, for I have given them into your hands; they will all give way before you.

⁹So Joshua, having come up from Gilgal all night, made a sudden attack on them.

¹⁰And the Lord made them full of fear before Israel, and they put great numbers of them to death at Gibeon, and went after them by the way going up to Beth-horon, driving them back to Azekah and Makkedah

¹¹And in their flight before Israel, on the way down from Beth-horon, the Lord sent down great stones from heaven on them all the way to Azekah, causing their death: those whose death was caused by the stones were more than those whom the children of Israel put to death with the sword.

¹²It was on the day when the Lord gave up the Amorites into the hands of the children of Israel that Joshua said to the Lord, before the eyes of Israel, Sun, be at rest over Gibeon; and you, O moon, in the valley of Aijalon.

¹³And the sun was at rest and the moon kept its place till the nation had given punishment to their attackers. (Is it not recorded in the book of Jashar?) So the sun kept its place in the middle of the heavens, and was waiting, and did not go down, for the space of a day.

¹⁴And there was no day like that, before it or after it, when the Lord gave ear to the voice of a man; for the Lord was fighting for Israel.

¹⁵And Joshua, with all Israel, went back to the tent-circle at Gilgal.

¹⁶But these five kings went in flight secretly to a hole in the rock at Makkedah.

¹⁷And word was given to Joshua that the five kings had been taken in a hole in the rock at Makkedah.

¹⁸And Joshua said, Let great stones be rolled against the mouth of the hole, and let men keep watch by it:

¹⁹But do you, without waiting, go after their army, attacking them from the back; do not let them get into their towns, for the Lord your God has given them into your hands.

²⁰Now when Joshua and the children of Israel had come to the end of their war of complete destruction, and had put to death all but a small band who had got safely into the walled towns,

²¹All the people went back to Joshua to the tent-circle at Makkedah in peace: and no one said a word against the children of Israel.

²²Then Joshua said, Take away the stones from the mouth of the hole in the rock, and make those five kings come out to me.

²³And they did so, and made those five kings come out of the hole to him, the king of Jerusalem, the king of Hebron, the king of Jarmuth, the king of Lachish, and the king of Eglon.

²⁴And when they had made those kings come out to Joshua, Joshua sent for all the men of Israel, and said to the chiefs of the men of war who had gone with him, Come near and put your feet on the necks of these kings. So they came near and put their feet on their necks.

²⁵And Joshua said to them, Have no fear and do not be troubled; be strong and take heart: for so will the Lord do to all against whom you make war.

²⁶Then Joshua had them put to death, hanging them on five trees, where they were till evening.

²⁷And when the sun went down, they were taken down from the trees, by Joshua's orders, and put into the hole where they had gone to be safe; and great stones were placed at the mouth of the hole, where they are to this day.

²⁸That day Joshua took Makkedah, and put it and its king to the sword; every soul in it he gave up to the curse without mercy: and he did to the king of Makkedah as he had done to the king of Jericho.

²⁹Then Joshua and all Israel with him went on from Makkedah and came to Libnah, and made an attack on it;

³⁰And again the Lord gave it and its king into the hands of Israel; and he put it and every person in it to the sword, till their destruction was complete; and he did to its king as he had done to the king of Jericho.

³¹Then Joshua and all Israel with him went on from Libnah to Lachish, and took up their position against it and made an attack on it,

³²And the Lord gave Lachish into the hands of Israel, and on the second day he took it, putting it and every person in it to the sword without mercy, as he had done to Libnah.

³³Then Horam, king of Gezer, came up to the help of Lachish; and Joshua overcame him and his people, putting all of them to death.

³⁴And Joshua and all Israel with him went on from Lachish to Eglon: and they took up their position against it and made an attack on it;

³⁵And that day they took it, putting it and every person in it to the sword, as he had done to Lachish.

³⁶And Joshua and all Israel with him went up from Eglon to Hebron, and made an attack on it;

³⁷And took it, overcoming it and putting it and its king and its towns and every person in it to the sword: as he had done to Eglon, he put them all to death, and gave it up to the curse with every person in it.

³⁸And Joshua and all Israel with him went on to make an attack on Debir;

³⁹And he took it, with its king and all its towns: and he put them to the sword, giving every person in it to the curse; all were put to death: as he had done to Hebron, so he did to Debir and its king.

⁴⁰So Joshua overcame all the land, the hill-country and the South and the lowland and the mountain slopes, and all their kings; all were put to death: and every living thing he gave up to the curse, as the Lord, the God of Israel, had given him orders.

⁴¹Joshua overcame them from Kadesh-barnea to Gaza, and all the land of Goshen as far as Gibeon.

⁴²And all these kings and their land Joshua took at the same time, because the Lord, the God of Israel, was fighting for Israel.

⁴³Then Joshua and all Israel with him went back to their tents at Gilgal.

11Now Jabin, king of Hazor, hearing of these things, sent to Jobab, king of Madon, and to the king of Shimron, and to the king of Achshaph,

²And to the kings on the north in the hill-country, and in the Arabah south of Chinneroth, and in the lowland, and in the highlands of Dor on the west,

³And to the Canaanites on the east and on the west, and to the Amorites and the Hittites and the Perizzites, and the Jebusites in the hill-country, and the Hivites under Hermon in the land of Mizpah.

⁴And they went out, they and all their armies with them, a great people, in number like the sand on the seaside, with horses and war-carriages in great number.

⁵And all these kings came together, and put their forces in position at the waters of Merom, to make war on Israel.

⁶And the Lord said to Joshua, Have no fear of them: for tomorrow at this time I will give them all up dead before Israel; you are to have the leg-muscles of their horses cut and their war-carriages burned with fire.

⁷So Joshua and all the men of war with him came against them suddenly at the waters of Merom, and made an attack on them.

⁸And the Lord gave them up into the hands of Israel, and they overcame them driving them back to great Zidon and to Misrephoth-maim and into the valley of Mizpeh to the east; and they put them all to death, no man got away safely.

⁹And Joshua did to them as the Lord had said to him; he had the leg-muscles of their horses cut and their war-carriages burned with fire.

¹⁰At that time, Joshua went on to take Hazor and put its king to the sword: for in earlier times Hazor was the chief of all those kingdoms.

¹¹And they put every person in it to death without mercy, giving every living thing up to the curse, and burning Hazor.

¹²And all the towns of these kings, and all the kings, Joshua took, and put them to the sword: he gave them up to the curse, as Moses, the servant of the Lord, had said.

¹³As for the towns made on hills of earth, not one was burned by Israel but Hazor, which was burned by Joshua.

¹⁴And all the goods taken from these towns, and their cattle, the children of Israel kept for themselves; but every man they put to death without mercy, till their destruction was complete, and there was no one living.

¹⁵As the Lord had given orders to Moses his servant, so Moses gave orders to Joshua, and so Joshua did; every order which the Lord had given to Moses was done.

¹⁶So Joshua took all that land, the hill-country and all the South, and all the land of Goshen, and the lowland and the Arabah, the hill-country of Israel and its lowland;

¹⁷From Mount Halak, which goes up to Seir, as far as Baal-gad in the valley of Lebanon under Mount Hermon: and all their kings he overcame and put to death.

¹⁸For a long time Joshua made war on all those kings.

¹⁹Not one town made peace with the children of Israel, but only the Hivites of Gibeon: they took them all in war.

²⁰For the Lord made them strong in heart to go to war against Israel, so that he might give them up to the curse without mercy, and that destruction might come on them, as the Lord had given orders to Moses.

²¹And Joshua came at that time and put an end to the Anakim in the hill-country, in Hebron, in Debir, in Anab, and in all the hill-country of Judah and Israel: Joshua gave them and their towns to the curse.

²²Not one of the Anakim was to be seen in the land of the children of Israel: only in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod, some were still living.

²³So Joshua took all the land, as the Lord had said to Moses; and Joshua gave it to the children of Israel as their heritage, making division of it among them by their tribes. And the land had rest from war.

12Now these are the kings of the land whom the children of Israel overcame, taking as their heritage their land on the east side of Jordan, from the valley of the Arnon to Mount Hermon, and all the Arabah to the east:

²Sihon, king of the Amorites, who was living in Heshbon, ruling from Aroer, which is on the edge of the valley of the Arnon, and the town in the middle of the valley, and half Gilead, as far as the river Jabbok, the limits of the children of Ammon;

³And the Arabah to the sea of Chinneroth, to the east, and to the sea of the Arabah, that is the Salt Sea, to the east, the way to Beth-jeshimoth; and on the south, under the slopes of Pisgah:

⁴And the land of Og, king of Bashan, of the rest of the Rephaim, who was living at Ashtaroth and at Edrei,

⁵Ruling in the mountain of Hermon, and in Salecah, and in all Bashan, as far as the limits of the Geshurites and the Maacathites, and half Gilead, to the land of Sihon, king of Heshbon.

⁶Moses, the servant of the Lord, and the children of Israel overcame them; and Moses, the servant of the Lord, gave their land for a heritage to the Reubenites, and the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh.

⁷And these are the kings of the land whom Joshua and the children of Israel overcame on the west side of Jordan, from Baal-gad in the valley of Lebanon to Mount Halak, which goes up to Seir; and Joshua gave the land to the tribes of Israel for a heritage, in keeping with their divisions;

⁸In the hill-country, and in the lowland, and in the Arabah, and on the mountain slopes, and in the waste land, and in the South; the Hittites, the Amorites, and the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.

⁹The king of Jericho, one; the king of Ai, which is near Beth-el, one;

¹⁰The king of Jerusalem, one; the king of Hebron, one;

¹¹The king of Jarmuth, one; the king of Lachish, one;

¹²The king of Eglon, one; the king of Gezer, one;

¹³The king of Debir, one; the king of Geder, one;

¹⁴The king of Hormah, one; the king of Arad, one;

¹⁵The king of Libnah, one; the king of Adullam, one;

¹⁶The king of Makkedah, one; the king of Beth-el, one;

¹⁷The king of Tappuah, one; the king of Hepher, one;

¹⁸The king of Aphek, one; the king of Lassharon, one;

¹⁹The king of Madon, one; the king of Hazor, one;

²⁰The king of Shimron-meron, one; the king of Achshaph, one;

²¹The king of Taanach, one; the king of Megiddo, one;

²²The king of Kedesh, one; the king of Jokneam in Carmel, one;

²³The king of Dor on the hill of Dor, one; the king of Goiim in Gilgal, one;

²⁴The king of Tirzah, one; all the kings together were thirty-one.

13Now Joshua was old and full of years; and the Lord said to him, You are old and full of years, and there is still very much land to be taken.

²This is the land which is still to be taken: all the country of the Philistines, and all the Geshurites;

³From the Shihor, which is before Egypt, to the edge of Ekron to the north, which is taken to be Canaanite property: the five chiefs of the Philistines; the Gazites, and the Ashdodites, the Ashkelonites, the Gittites, and the Ekronites, as well as the Avvim;

⁴On the south: all the land of the Canaanites, and Mearah which is the property of the Zidonians, to Aphek, as far as the limit of the Amorites:

⁵And the land of the Gebalites, and all Lebanon, looking east, from Baal-gad under Mount Hermon as far as Hamath:

⁶All the people of the hill-country from Lebanon to Misrephoth-maim, all the Zidonians; them will I send out from before the children of Israel: only make division of it to Israel for a heritage, as I have given you orders to do.

⁷So now make division of this land for a heritage to the nine tribes, and the half-tribe of Manasseh.

⁸With him the Reubenites and the Gadites have been given their heritage, which Moses gave them, on the east side of Jordan, as Moses, the servant of the Lord, gave them;

⁹From Aroer, on the edge of the valley of the Arnon, and the town in the middle of the valley, and all the table-land from Medeba to Dibon;

¹⁰And all the towns of Sihon, king of the Amorites, who was ruling in Heshbon, to the limits of the children of Ammon;

¹¹And Gilead, and the land of the Geshurites and the Maacathites, and all Mount Hermon, and all Bashan to Salecah;

¹²All the kingdom of Og in Bashan, who was ruling in Ashtaroth and in Edrei (he was one of the last of the Rephaim); these did Moses overcome, driving them out of their country.

¹³However, the people of Israel did not send out the Geshurites, or the Maacathites: but Geshur and Maacath are living among Israel to this day.

¹⁴Only to the tribe of Levi he gave no heritage; the offerings of the Lord, the God of Israel, made by fire are his heritage, as he said to him.

¹⁵And Moses gave their heritage to the tribe of Reuben by their families.

¹⁶Their limit was from Aroer, on the edge of the valley of the Arnon, and the town in the middle of the valley, and all the table-land by Medeba;

¹⁷Heshbon and all her towns in the table-land; Dibon, and Bamoth-baal, and Beth-baal-meon;

¹⁸And Jahaz, and Kedemoth, and Mephaath;

¹⁹And Kiriathaim, and Sibmah, and Zereth-shahar in the mountain of the valley;

²⁰And Beth-peor, and the slopes of Pisgah, and Beth-jeshimoth;

²¹And all the towns of the table-land, and all the kingdom of Sihon, king of the Amorites, who was ruling in Heshbon, whom Moses overcame, together with the chiefs of Midian, Evi, and Rekem, and Zur, and Hur, and Reba, the chiefs of Sihon, who were living in the land.

²²And Balaam, the son of Beor, the prophet, the children of Israel put to death with the sword.

²³And the limit of the children of Reuben was the edge of Jordan. This was the heritage of the children of Reuben by their families, with its towns and its unwalled places.

²⁴And Moses gave their heritage to the tribe of Gad by their families.

²⁵And their limit was Jazer, and all the towns of Gilead, and half the land of the children of Ammon, to Aroer before Rabbah;

²⁶And from Heshbon to Ramath-mizpeh, and Betonim; and from Mahanaim to the edge of Debir;

²⁷And in the valley, Beth-haram, and Beth-nimrah, and Succoth, and Zaphon, the rest of the kingdom of Sihon, king of Heshbon, having Jordan for its limit, to the end of the sea of Chinnereth on the east side of Jordan.

²⁸This is the heritage of the children of Gad by their families, with its towns and its unwalled places

²⁹And Moses gave their heritage to the half-tribe of Manasseh by their families.

³⁰And their limit was from Mahanaim, all Bashan, all the kingdom of Og, king of Bashan, and all Havvoth-Jair, in Bashan, sixty towns;

³¹And half Gilead, and Ashtaroth, and Edrei, towns of the kingdom of Og in Bashan, were for the children of Machir, the son of Manasseh, for half of the children of Machir by their families.

³²These are the heritages of which Moses made distribution in the lowlands of Moab, on the other side of Jordan in Jericho, to the east.

³³But to the tribe of Levi Moses gave no heritage: the Lord, the God of Israel, is their heritage, as he said to them.

14And these are the heritages which the children of Israel took in the land of Canaan, which Eleazar, the priest, and Joshua, the son of Nun, and the heads of the tribes of the children of Israel, gave out to them;

²Their heritage by the Lord's decision, as he gave orders by Moses, for the nine tribes and the half-tribe.

³For Moses had given their heritage to the two tribes and the half-tribe on the other side of Jordan, but to the Levites he gave no heritage among them.

⁴Because the children of Joseph were two tribes, Manasseh and Ephraim; and they gave the Levites no part in the land, only towns for their living-places, with the grass-lands for their cattle and for their property.

⁵As the Lord had given orders to Moses, so the people of Israel did, and they made division of the land.

⁶Then the children of Judah went to Joshua in Gilgal; and Caleb, the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite, said to him, You have knowledge of what the Lord said to Moses, the man of God, about me and about you in Kadesh-barnea.

⁷I was forty years old when Moses, the servant of the Lord, sent me from Kadesh-barnea to make a search through the land; and the account which I gave him was in keeping with his desire.

⁸My brothers, however, who went up with me, made the heart of the people like water: but I was true to the Lord with all my heart.

⁹And on that day Moses took an oath, saying, Truly the land where your feet have been placed will become a heritage for you and your children for ever, because you have been true to the Lord your God with all your heart.

¹⁰And now, as you see, the Lord has kept me safe these forty-five years, from the time when the Lord said this to Moses, while Israel was wandering in the waste land: and now I am eighty-five years old.

¹¹And still, I am as strong today as I was when Moses sent me out: as my strength was then, so is it now, for war and for all the business of life.

¹²So now, give me this hill-country named by the Lord at that time; for you had an account of it then, how the Anakim were there, and great walled towns: it may be that the Lord will be with me, and I will be able to take their land, as the Lord said.

¹³And Joshua gave him his blessing; and he gave Hebron to Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, for his heritage.

¹⁴So Hebron became the heritage of Caleb, the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite, to this day, because with all his heart he was true to the Lord, the God of Israel.

¹⁵In earlier times the name of Hebron had been Kiriath-arba, named after Arba, the greatest of the Anakim. And the land had rest from war.

15Now the part of the land marked out for the children of Judah by families, went up to the edge of Edom, as far as the waste land of Zin to the south, to the farthest point of it on the south.

²Their south limit was from the farthest part of the Salt Sea, from the inlet looking to the south:

³From there it goes south of the slope up to Akrabbim, and on to Zin, then south past Kadesh-barnea, and on by Hezron and up to Addar, turning in the direction of Karka:

⁴Then on to Azmon, ending at the stream of Egypt: and the end of the limit is at the sea; this will be your limit on the south.

⁵And the east limit is the Salt Sea as far as the end of Jordan. And the limit of the north part of the land is from the inlet of the sea at the end of Jordan:

⁶Then the line goes up to Beth-hoglah, past the north of Beth-arabah, and up to the stone of Bohan, the son of Reuben;

⁷Then the line goes up to Debir from the valley of Achor, and so to the north, in the direction of Gilgal, which is opposite the slope up to Adummim, on the south side of the river: and the line goes on to the waters of En-shemesh, ending at En-rogel:

⁸Then the line goes up by the valley of the son of Hinnom to the south side of the Jebusite (which is Jerusalem): then up to the top of the mountain in front of the valley of Hinnom to the west, which is at the farthest point of the valley of Rephaim on the north:

⁹And the limit is marked out from the top of the mountain to the fountain of the waters of Nephtoah, and out to the towns of Mount Ephron, as far as Baalah (which is Kiriath-jearim):

¹⁰Then turning west, the line goes from Baalah to Mount Seir, and on to the side of Mount Jearim (which is Chesalon) on the north, then down to Beth-shemesh, and on past Timnah:

¹¹And out to the side of Ekron to the north: then it is marked out to Shikkeron and on to Mount Baalah, ending at Jabneel; the end of the line is at the sea.

¹²And the limit on the west is the edge of the Great Sea. This is the line going round the land marked out for the children of Judah, by their families.

¹³And to Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, he gave a part among the children of Judah, as the Lord had given orders to Joshua, that is, Kiriath-arba, named after Arba, the father of Anak which is Hebron.

¹⁴And the three sons of Anak, Sheshai and Ahiman and Talmai, the children of Anak, were forced out from there by Caleb.

¹⁵From there he went up against the people of Debir: (now the name of Debir before that was Kiriath-sepher.)

¹⁶And Caleb said, I will give Achsah, my daughter, as wife to the man who overcomes Kiriath-sepher and takes it.

¹⁷And Othniel, the son of Kenaz, Caleb's brother, took it: so he gave him his daughter Achsah for his wife.

¹⁸Now when she came to him, he put into her mind the idea of requesting a field from her father: and she got down from her ass; and Caleb said to her, What is it?

¹⁹And she said, Give me a blessing; because you have put me in dry south-land, now give me springs of water. So he gave her the higher spring and the lower spring.

²⁰This is the heritage of the tribe of Judah, by their families.

²¹The farthest towns of the tribe of Judah in the direction of the limits of Edom to the south, were Kabzeel, and Eder, and Jagur;

²²And Kinah, and Dimonah, and Adadah;

²³And Kedesh, and Hazor, and Ithnan;

²⁴Ziph, and Telem, and Bealoth;

²⁵And Hazor-hadattah, and Kerioth-hezron (which is Hazor);

²⁶Amam, and Shema, and Moladah;

²⁷And Hazar-gaddah, and Heshmon, and Beth-pelet;

²⁸And Hazar-shual, and Beer-sheba, and Biziothiah;

²⁹Baalah, and Iim, and Ezem;

³⁰And Eltolad, and Chesil, and Hormah;

³¹And Ziklag, and Madmannah, and Sansannah;

³²And Lebaoth, and Shilhim, and Ain, and Rimmon; all the towns are twenty-nine, with their unwalled places.

³³In the lowland, Eshtaol, and Zorah, and Ashnah;

³⁴And Zanoah, and En-gannim, Tappuah, and Enam;

³⁵Jarmuth, and Adullam, Socoh, and Azekah;

³⁶And Shaaraim, and Adithaim, and Gederah, and Gederothaim; fourteen towns with their unwalled places.

³⁷Zenan, and Hadashah, and Migdal-gad;

³⁸And Dilan, and Mizpeh, and Joktheel;

³⁹Lachish, and Bozkath, and Eglon;

⁴⁰And Cabbon, and Lahmas, and Chithlish;

⁴¹And Gederoth, Beth-dagon, and Naamah, and Makkedah; sixteen towns with their unwalled places.

⁴²Libnah, and Ether, and Ashan;

⁴³And Iphtah, and Ashnah, and Nezib;

⁴⁴And Keilah, and Achzib, and Mareshah; nine towns with their unwalled places.

⁴⁵Ekron, with her daughter-towns and her unwalled places;

⁴⁶From Ekron to the sea, all the towns by the side of Ashdod, with their unwalled places.

⁴⁷Ashdod, with her daughter-towns and her unwalled places; Gaza, with her daughter-towns and her unwalled places, to the stream of Egypt, with the Great Sea as a limit.

⁴⁸And in the hill-country, Shamir, and Jattir, and Socoh;

⁴⁹And Dannah, and Kiriath-sannah (which is Debir);

⁵⁰And Anab, and Eshtemoh, and Anim;

⁵¹And Goshen, and Holon, and Giloh; eleven towns with their unwalled places.

⁵²Arab, and Dumah, and Eshan;

⁵³And Janim, and Beth-tappuah, and Aphekah;

⁵⁴And Humtah, and Kiriath-arba (which is Hebron), and Zior; nine towns with their unwalled places.

⁵⁵Maon, Carmel, and Ziph, and Jutah;

⁵⁶And Jezreel, and Jokdeam, and Zanoah;

⁵⁷Kain, Gibeah, and Timnah; ten towns with their unwalled places.

⁵⁸Halhul, Beth-zur, and Gedor;

⁵⁹And Maarath, and Beth-anoth, and Eltekon; six towns with their unwalled places.

⁶⁰Kiriath-baal (which is Kiriath-jearim), and Rabbah; two towns with their unwalled places.

⁶¹In the waste land, Beth-arabah, Middin, and Secacah;

⁶²And Nibshan, and the Town of Salt, and En-gedi; six towns with their unwalled places.

⁶³And as for the Jebusites living in Jerusalem, the children of Judah were unable to make them go out; but the Jebusites are living with the children of Judah at Jerusalem, to this day.

16And the limit of the land marked out for the children of Joseph went out from Jordan at Jericho, at the waters of Jericho on the east, in the waste land, going up from Jericho through the hill-country to Beth-el;

²And it goes out from Beth-el to Luz, and on as far as the limit of the Archites to Ataroth;

³And it goes down to the west to the limit of the Japhletites, to the limit of Beth-horon the lower, as far as Gezer; ending at the sea.

⁴And the children of Joseph, Manasseh and Ephraim, took their heritage.

⁵And the limit of the land of the children of Ephraim by their families was marked out in this way: the limit of their heritage to the east was Ataroth-addar, to Beth-horon the higher;

⁶The line goes out to the west at Michmethath on the north; then turning to the east to Taanath-shiloh, going past it on the east of Janoah;

⁷And from Janoah down to Ataroth, and to Naarah, and touching Jericho, it goes on to Jordan.

⁸From Tappuah the line goes on to the west to the river of Kanah; ending at the sea. This is the heritage of the children of Ephraim by their families;

⁹Together with the towns marked out for the children of Ephraim in the heritage of Manasseh, all the towns with their unwalled places.

¹⁰And the Canaanites who were living in Gezer were not forced out; but the Canaanites have been living among Ephraim, to this day, as servants, doing forced work.

17And this was the part marked out for the tribe of Manasseh, because he was the oldest son of Joseph. As for Machir, the oldest son of Manasseh, the father of Gilead, because he was a man of war he had Gilead and Bashan.

²And as for the rest of the children of Manasseh, their heritage was given to them by families; for the children of Abiezer, and for the children of Helek, and for the children of Asriel, and for the children of Shechem, and for the children of Hepher, and for the children of Shemida: these were the male children of Manasseh, the son of Joseph, by their families.

³But Zelophehad, the son of Hepher, the son of Gilead, the son of Machir, the son of Manasseh, had no sons, but only daughters; and these are the names of his daughters: Mahlah, and Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah.

⁴And they came before Eleazar the priest, and Joshua, the son of Nun, and before the chiefs, saying, The Lord gave orders to Moses to give us a heritage among our brothers: so in agreement with the orders of the Lord he gave them a heritage among their father's brothers.

⁵And ten parts were given to Manasseh, in addition to the land of Gilead and Bashan, which is on the other side of Jordan;

⁶Because the daughters of Manasseh had a heritage among his sons, and the land of Gilead was the property of the other sons of Manasseh.

⁷And the limit of Manasseh's land was from Asher to Michmethath, which is before Shechem; the line goes on to the right hand, to the people of En-tappuah.

⁸The land of Tappuah was the property of Manasseh; but Tappuah on the edge of Manasseh was the property of the children of Ephraim.

⁹And the limit goes down to the stream Kanah, to the south of the stream: these towns were Ephraim's among the towns of Manasseh; Manasseh's limit was on the north side of the stream, ending at the sea:

¹⁰To the south it is Ephraim's, and to the north it is Manasseh's, and the sea is his limit; and they are touching Asher on the north, and Issachar on the east.

¹¹In Issachar and Asher, Manasseh had Beth-shean and its daughter-towns, and Ibleam and its daughter-towns, and the people of Dor and its daughter-towns, and the people of En-dor and its daughter-towns, and the people of Taanach and its daughter-towns, and the people of Megiddo and its daughter-towns, that is, the three hills.

¹²But the children of Manasseh were not able to make the people of those towns go out; but the Canaanites would go on living in that land.

¹³And when the children of Israel had become strong, they put the Canaanites to forced work, in place of driving them out.

¹⁴Then the children of Joseph said to Joshua, Why have you given me only one part and one stretch of land for my heritage? For through the blessing given to me by the Lord up to now, I am a great people.

¹⁵Then Joshua said to them, If you are such a great people, go up into the woodlands, clearing a place there for yourselves in the land of the Perizzites and the Rephaim, if the hill-country of Ephraim is not wide enough for you.

¹⁶And the children of Joseph said, The hill-country is not enough for us: and all the Canaanites living in the valley have iron war-carriages, those in Beth-shean and its towns as well as those in the valley of Jezreel.

¹⁷Then Joshua said to the children of Joseph, to Ephraim and Manasseh, You are a great people, and have great power: you are not to have one property only,

¹⁸For the hill-country of Gilead will be yours ... the woodland and cut down ... its outskirts will be yours ... get the Canaanites out, for they have iron war-carriages ... strong.

18And all the meeting of the children of Israel came together at Shiloh and put up the Tent of meeting there: and the land was crushed before them.

²But there were still seven tribes among the children of Israel who had not taken up their heritage.

³Then Joshua said to the children of Israel, Why are you so slow to go in and take up your heritage in the land which the Lord, the God of your fathers, has given you?

⁴Take from among you three men from every tribe; and I will send them to go through the land and make a record of it for distribution as their heritage; then let them come back to me.

⁵And let them make division of it into seven parts: let Judah keep inside his limit on the south, and let the children of Joseph keep inside their limit on the north.

⁶And you are to have the land marked out in seven parts, and come back to me with the record; and I will make the distribution for you here by the decision of the Lord our God.

⁷For the Levites have no part among you; to be the Lord's priests is their heritage; and Gad and Reuben and the half-tribe of Manasseh have had their heritage on the east side of Jordan, given to them by Moses, the servant of the Lord.

⁸So the men got up and went; and Joshua gave orders to those who went, to make a record of the land, saying, Go up and down through the land, and make a record of it and come back here to me, and I will make the distribution for you here by the decision of the Lord in Shiloh.

⁹So the men went, travelling through the land, and made a record of it by towns in seven parts in a book, and came back to Joshua to the tent-circle at Shiloh.

¹⁰And Joshua made the distribution for them in Shiloh by the decision of the Lord, marking out the land for the children of Israel by their divisions.

¹¹And the first heritage came out for the tribe of Benjamin by their families: and the limit of their heritage went between the children of Judah and the children of Joseph.

¹²And their limit on the north was from the Jordan, and the line goes up to the side of Jericho on the north and through the hill-country to the west, ending at the waste land of Beth-aven.

¹³And from there the line goes south to Luz, to the side of Luz (which is Beth-el), then down to Ataroth-addar, by the mountain to the south of Beth-horon the lower.

¹⁴And the limit is marked as coming round to the south on the west side from the mountain which is south of Beth-horon, and ending at Kiriath-baal (which is Kiriath-jearim), a town of the children of Judah: this is the west part.

¹⁵And the south part is from the farthest point of Kiriath-jearim, and the line goes out to the west to the fountain of the waters of Nephtoah:

¹⁶And the line goes down to the farthest part of the mountain facing the valley of the son of Hinnom, which is on the north of the valley of Rephaim: from there it goes down to the valley of Hinnom, to the side of the Jebusite on the south as far as En-rogel;

¹⁷And it goes to En-shemesh and on to Geliloth, opposite the way up to Adummim, and it goes down to the stone of Bohan, the son of Reuben;

¹⁸And it goes on to the side facing the Arabah to the north, and down to the Arabah;

¹⁹And on to the north side of Beth-hoglah, ending at the north inlet of the Salt Sea at the south end of Jordan; this is their limit on the south.

²⁰And the limit of the east part is the Jordan. This is the heritage of the children of Benjamin, marked out for their families by these limits on all sides.

²¹And the towns of the children of Benjamin, given to them in the order of their families, are Jericho and Beth-hoglah and Emek-kezziz

²²And Beth-arabah and Zemaraim and Beth-el

²³And Avvim and Parah and Ophrah

²⁴And Chephar-Ammoni and Ophni and Geba; twelve towns with their unwalled places;

²⁵Gibeon and Ramah and Beeroth

²⁶And Mizpeh and Chephirah and Mozah

²⁷And Rekem and Irpeel and Taralah

²⁸And Zela, Eleph and the Jebusite (which is Jerusalem), Gibeath and Kiriath; fourteen towns with their unwalled places. This is the heritage of the children of Benjamin by their families.

19And the second heritage came out for the tribe of Simeon by their families; and their heritage was in the middle of the heritage of the children of Judah.

²And they had for their heritage Beer-sheba and Shema and Moladah

³And Hazar-shual and Balah and Ezem

⁴And Eltolad and Bethul and Hormah

⁵And Ziklag and Beth-marcaboth and Hazar-susah

⁶And Beth-lebaoth and Sharuhen; thirteen towns with their unwalled places;

⁷Ain, Rimmon, and Ether and Ashan; four towns with their unwalled places;

⁸And all the unwalled places round about these towns as far as Baalath-beer-ramah to the south. This is the heritage of the tribe of Simeon by their families.

⁹The heritage of Simeon was taken out of Judah's stretch of land, for Judah's part was more than they had need of, so the heritage of the children of Simeon was inside their heritage.

¹⁰And the third heritage came out for Zebulun by their families; the limit of their heritage was as far as Sarid;

¹¹And their limit goes up to the west to Maralah, stretching to Dabbesheth, and to the stream in front of Jokneam;

¹²Then turning east from Sarid to the limit of Chisloth-tabor, it goes out to Daberath, and up to Japhia;

¹³And from there it goes on east to Gath-hepher, to Eth-kazin; ending at Rimmon which goes as far as Neah;

¹⁴And the line goes round it on the north to Hannathon, ending at the valley of Iphtah-el;

¹⁵And Kattath and Nahalal and Shimron and Idalah and Beth-lehem; twelve towns with their unwalled places.

¹⁶This is the heritage of the children of Zebulun by their families, these towns with their unwalled places.

¹⁷For Issachar the fourth heritage came out, for the children of Issachar by their families;

¹⁸And their limit was to Jezreel and Chesulloth and Shunem

¹⁹And Hapharaim and Shion and Anaharath

²⁰And Rabbith and Kishion and Ebez

²¹And Remeth and En-gannim and En-haddah and Beth-pazzez;

²²And their limit goes as far as Tabor and Shahazimah and Beth-shemesh, ending at Jordan; sixteen towns with their unwalled places.

²³This is the heritage of the tribe of the children of Issachar by their families, these towns with their unwalled places.

²⁴And the fifth heritage came out for the tribe of Asher by their families.

²⁵And their limit was Helkath and Hali and Beten and Achshaph

²⁶And Alammelech and Amad and Mishal, stretching to Carmel on the west and Shihor-libnath;

²⁷Turning to the east to Beth-dagon and stretching to Zebulun and the valley of Iphtah-el as far as Beth-emek and Neiel to the north; on the left it goes as far as Cabul

²⁸And Ebron and Rehob and Hammon and Kanah, to great Zidon;

²⁹And the limit goes round to Ramah and the walled town of Tyre and Hosah, ending at the sea by Heleb and Achzib;

³⁰And Ummah and Aphek and Rehob; twenty-two towns with their unwalled places.

³¹This is the heritage of the tribe of the children of Asher by their families, these towns with their unwalled places.

³²For the children of Naphtali the sixth heritage came out, for the children of Naphtali by their families;

³³And their limit was from Heleph, from the oak-tree in Zaanannim, and Adami-hannekeb and Jabneel, as far as Lakkum, ending at Jordan;

³⁴And turning west to Aznoth-tabor, the limit goes out from there to Hukkok, stretching to Zebulun on the south, and Asher on the west, and Judah at Jordan on the east.

³⁵And the walled towns are Ziddim, Zer, and Hammath, Rakkath, and Chinnereth

³⁶And Adamah and Ramah and Hazor

³⁷And Kedesh and Edrei and En-Hazor

³⁸And Iron and Migdal-el, Horem and Beth-anath and Beth-shemesh; nineteen towns with their unwalled places.

³⁹This is the heritage of the tribe of the children of Naphtali by their families, these towns with their unwalled places.

⁴⁰For the tribe of Dan by their families the seventh heritage came out;

⁴¹And the limit of their heritage was Zorah and Eshtaol and Ir-shemesh

⁴²And Shaalabbin and Aijalon and Ithlah

⁴³And Elon and Timnah and Ekron

⁴⁴And Eltekeh and Gibbethon and Baalath

⁴⁵And Jehud and Bene-berak and Gath-rimmon;

⁴⁶And on the west was ... opposite Joppa.

⁴⁷(But the limit of the children of Dan was not wide enough for them; so the children of Dan went up and made war on Leshem and took it, putting it to the sword without mercy, and they took it for their heritage and made a place for themselves there, giving it the name of Leshem-dan, after the name of their father, Dan.)

⁴⁸This is the heritage of the tribe of the children of Dan by their families, these towns with their unwalled places.

⁴⁹So the distribution of the land and its limits was complete; and the children of Israel gave Joshua, the son of Nun, a heritage among them;

⁵⁰By the orders of the Lord they gave him the town for which he made request, Timnath-serah in the hill-country of Ephraim: there, after building the town, he made his living-place.

⁵¹These are the heritages which Eleazar the priest and Joshua, the son of Nun, and the heads of families of the tribes of the children of Israel gave out at Shiloh, by the decision of the Lord, at the door of the Tent of meeting. So the distribution of the land was complete.

20And the Lord said to Joshua,

²Say to the children of Israel, Let certain towns be marked out as safe places, as I said to you by the mouth of Moses,

³So that any man who in error and without design has taken the life of another, may go in flight to them: and they will be safe places for you from him who has the right of punishment for blood.

⁴And if anyone goes in flight to one of those towns, and comes into the public place of the town, and puts his cause before the responsible men of the town, they will take him into the town and give him a place among them where he may be safe.

⁵And if the one who has the right of punishment comes after him, they are not to give the taker of life up to him; because he was the cause of his neighbour's death without designing it and not in hate.

⁶And he is to go on living in that town till he has to come before the meeting of the people to be judged; (till the death of him who is high priest at that time:) then the taker of life may come back to his town and to his house, to the town from which he had gone in flight.

⁷So they made selection of Kedesh in Galilee in the hill-country of Naphtali, and Shechem in the hill-country of Ephraim, and Kiriath-arba (which is Hebron) in the hill-country of Judah.

⁸And on the east side of Jordan at Jericho, they made selection of Bezer in the waste land, in the table-land, out of the tribe of Reuben, and Ramoth in Gilead out of the tribe of Gad, and Golan in Bashan out of the tribe of Manasseh.

⁹These were the towns marked out for all the children of Israel and for the man from a strange country living among them, so that anyone causing the death of another in error, might go in flight there, and not be put to death by him who has the right of punishment for blood till he had come before the meeting of the people.

21Then the heads of the families of the Levites came to Eleazar the priest and Joshua, the son of Nun, and to the heads of families of the tribes of the children of Israel;

²And said to them in Shiloh in the land of Canaan, The Lord gave orders by Moses that we were to have towns for living in, with their grass-lands for our cattle.

³And the children of Israel out of their heritage gave to the Levites these towns with their grass-lands, by the order of the Lord.

⁴And the heritage came out for the families of the Kohathites: the children of Aaron the priest, who were of the Levites, were given thirteen towns from the tribes of Judah, Simeon, and Benjamin.

⁵The rest of the children of Kohath by their families were given ten towns from the tribes of Ephraim and Dan and the half-tribe of Manasseh.

⁶The children of Gershon by their families were given thirteen towns from the tribes of Issachar and Asher and Naphtali and the half-tribe of Manasseh which was in Bashan.

⁷The children of Merari by their families were given twelve towns from the tribes of Reuben and Gad and Zebulun.

⁸All these towns with their grass-lands the children of Israel gave by the decision of the Lord to the Levites, as the Lord had given orders by Moses.

⁹From the tribes of the children of Judah and the children of Simeon they gave these towns, listed here by name:

¹⁰These were for the children of Aaron among the families of the Kohathites, of the children of Levi: for they came first in the distribution.

¹¹They gave them Kiriath-arba, the town of Arba, the father of Anak, (which is Hebron) in the hill-country of Judah, with its grass-lands.

¹²But the open country round the town, and its unwalled places, they gave to Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, as his property.

¹³And to the children of Aaron the priest they gave Hebron with its grass-lands, the town where the taker of life might be safe, and Libnah with its grass-lands;

¹⁴And Jattir with its grass-lands, and Eshtemoa with its grass-lands;

¹⁵And Holon with its grass-lands, and Debir with its grass-lands;

¹⁶And Ain, and Juttah, and Beth-shemesh, with their grass-lands; nine towns from those two tribes.

¹⁷And from the tribe of Benjamin they gave Gibeon and Geba with their grass-lands;

¹⁸Anathoth and Almon with their grass-lands, four towns.

¹⁹Thirteen towns with their grass-lands were given to the children of Aaron, the priests.

²⁰The rest of the families of the children of Kohath, the Levites, were given towns from the tribe of Ephraim.

²¹And they gave them Shechem with its grass-lands in the hill-country of Ephraim, the town where the taker of life might be safe, and Gezer with its grass-lands;

²²And Kibzaim and Beth-horon with their grass-lands, four towns.

²³And from the tribe of Dan, Elteke and Gibbethon with their grass-lands;

²⁴Aijalon and Gath-rimmon with their grass-lands, four towns.

²⁵And from the half-tribe of Manasseh, Taanach and Gath-rimmon with their grass-lands, two towns.

²⁶All the towns of the rest of the families of the children of Kohath were ten with their grass-lands.

²⁷And to the children of Gershon, of the families of the Levites, they gave from the half-tribe of Manasseh, Golan in Bashan with its grass-lands, the town where the taker of life might be safe, and Ashtaroth with its grass-lands, two towns.

²⁸And from the tribe of Issachar, Kishion and Daberath with their grass-lands;

²⁹Jarmuth and En-gannim with their grass-lands, four towns.

³⁰And from the tribe of Asher, Mishal and Abdon, with their grass-lands:

³¹Helkath and Rehob with their grass-lands, four towns.

³²And from the tribe of Naphtali, Kedesh in Galilee with its grass-lands, the town where the taker of life might be safe, and Hammoth-dor and Kartan with their grass-lands, three towns.

³³All the towns of the Gershonites with their families were thirteen with their grass-lands.

³⁴And to the rest of the Levites, that is, the families of the children of Merari, they gave from the tribe of Zebulun, Jokneam and Kartah with their grass-lands;

³⁵Dimnah and Nahalal with their grass-lands, four towns.

³⁶And from the tribe of Reuben, Bezer and Jahaz with their grass-lands;

³⁷Kedemoth and Mephaath with their grass-lands, four towns.

³⁸And from the tribe of Gad, Ramoth in Gilead, the town where the taker of life might be safe, and Mahanaim with their grass-lands;

³⁹Heshbon and Jazer with their grass-lands, four towns.

⁴⁰All these towns were given to the children of Merari by their families, that is, the rest of the families of the Levites; and their heritage was twelve towns.

⁴¹All the towns of the Levites, among the heritage of the children of Israel, were forty-eight towns with their grass-lands.

⁴²Every one of these towns had grass-lands round it.

⁴³So the Lord gave to Israel all the land which he gave by oath to their fathers; so it became their heritage and their living-place.

⁴⁴And the Lord gave them peace on every side, as he had said to their fathers: all those who were against them gave way before them, for the Lord gave them all up into their hands.

⁴⁵The Lord kept faith with the house of Israel about all the good which he said he would do for them, and all his words came true.

22Then Joshua sent for the Reubenites and the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh,

²And said to them, You have kept all the orders of Moses, the Lord's servant, and have done everything I gave you orders to do:

³You have now been with your brothers for a long time; till this day you have been doing the orders of the Lord your God.

⁴And now the Lord your God has given your brothers rest, as he said: so now you may go back to your tents, to the land of your heritage, which Moses, the Lord's servant, gave to you on the other side of Jordan.

⁵Only take great care to do the orders and the law which Moses, the Lord's servant, gave you; to have love for the Lord your God and to go in all his ways; and to keep his laws and to be true to him and to be his servants with all your heart and with all your soul.

⁶Then Joshua gave them his blessing and sent them away: and they went back to their tents.

⁷Now to the one half of the tribe of Manasseh, Moses had given a heritage in Bashan; but to the other half, Joshua gave a heritage among their brothers on the west side of Jordan. Now when Joshua sent them away to their tents, he gave them his blessing,

⁸And said to them, Go back with much wealth to your tents, and with very much cattle, with silver and gold and brass and iron, and with a very great store of clothing; give your brothers a part of the goods taken in the war.

⁹So Reuben and Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh went back, parting from the children of Israel at Shiloh in the land of Canaan, to go to the land of Gilead, to the land of their heritage which had been given to them by the Lord's order to Moses.

¹⁰Now when they came to the country by Jordan in the land of Canaan, the children of Reuben and the children of Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh put up there, by Jordan, a great altar, seen from far.

¹¹And news came to the children of Israel, See, the children of Reuben and the children of Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh have put up an altar opposite the land of Canaan, in the country by Jordan on the side which is Israel's.

¹²Then all the meeting of the children of Israel, hearing this, came together at Shiloh to go up against them to war.

¹³And the children of Israel sent Phinehas, the son of Eleazar the priest, to the children of Reuben and the children of Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh, to the land of Gilead,

¹⁴And with him they sent ten chiefs, one for every tribe of the children of Israel, every one of them the head of his house among the families of Israel.

¹⁵And they came to the children of Reuben and the children of Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh, to the land of Gilead, and said to them,

¹⁶This is what all the meeting of the people of the Lord has said, What is this wrong which you have done against the God of Israel, turning back this day from the Lord and building an altar for yourselves, and being false to the Lord?

¹⁷Was not the sin of Baal-peor great enough, from which we are not clear even to this day, though punishment came on the people of the Lord,

¹⁸That now you are turned back from the Lord? and, because you are false to him today, tomorrow his wrath will be let loose on all the people of Israel.

¹⁹But if the land you now have is unclean, come over into the Lord's land where his House is, and take up your heritage among us: but do not be false to the Lord and to us by building yourselves an altar in addition to the altar of the Lord our God.

²⁰Did not Achan, the son of Zerah, do wrong about the cursed thing, causing wrath to come on all the people of Israel? And not on him only came the punishment of death.

²¹Then the children of Reuben and the children of Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh said in answer to the heads of the families of Israel,

²²God, even God the Lord, God, even God the Lord, he sees, and Israel will see--if it is in pride or in sin against the Lord,

²³That we have made ourselves an altar, being false to the Lord, keep us not safe from death this day; and if for the purpose of offering burned offerings on it and meal offerings, or peace-offerings, let the Lord himself send punishment for it;

²⁴And if we have not, in fact, done this designedly and with purpose, having in our minds the fear that in time to come your children might say to our children, What have you to do with the Lord, the God of Israel?

²⁵For the Lord has made Jordan a line of division between us and you, the children of Reuben and the children of Gad; you have no part in the Lord: so your children will make our children give up fearing the Lord.

²⁶So we said, Let us now make an altar for ourselves, not for burned offerings or for the offerings of beasts:

²⁷But to be a witness between us and you, and between the future generations, that we have the right of worshipping the Lord with our burned offerings and our offerings of beasts and our peace-offerings; so that your children will not be able to say to our children in time to come, You have no part in the Lord.

²⁸For we said to ourselves, If they say this to us or to future generations, then we will say, See this copy of the Lord's altar which our fathers made, not for burned offerings or offerings of beasts, but for a witness between us and you.

²⁹Never let it be said that we were false to the Lord, turning back this day from him and building an altar for burned offerings and meal offerings and offerings of beasts, in addition to the altar of the Lord our God which is before his House.

³⁰Then Phinehas the priest and the chiefs of the meeting and the heads of the families of Israel who were with him, hearing what the children of Reuben and the children of Gad and the children of Manasseh said, were pleased.

³¹And Phinehas, the son of Eleazar the priest, said to the children of Reuben and the children of Gad and the children of Manasseh, Now we are certain that the Lord is among us, because you have not done this wrong against the Lord: and you have kept us from falling into the hands of the Lord.

³²Then Phinehas, the son of Eleazar the priest, and the chiefs went back from the land of Gilead, from the children of Reuben and the children of Gad, and came to the children of Israel in Canaan and gave them the news.

³³And the children of Israel were pleased about this; and they gave praise to God, and had no more thought of going to war against the children of Reuben and the children of Gad for the destruction of their land.

³⁴And the children of Reuben and the children of Gad gave to that altar the name of Ed. For, they said, It is a witness between us that the Lord is God.

23Now after a long time, when the Lord had given Israel rest from wars on every side, and Joshua was old and full of years,

²Joshua sent for all Israel, for their responsible men and their chiefs and their judges and their overseers, and said to them, I am old, and full of years:

³You have seen everything the Lord your God has done to all these nations because of you; for it is the Lord your God who has been fighting for you.

⁴Now I have given to you, as the heritage of your tribes, all these nations which are still in the land, together with those cut off by me, from Jordan as far as the Great Sea on the west.

⁵The Lord your God will send them away by force, driving them out before you; and you are to take their land for your heritage, as the Lord your God said to you.

⁶So be very strong to keep and do whatever is recorded in the book of the law of Moses, not turning away from it to the right or to the left;

⁷Have nothing to do with these nations who still are living among you; let not their gods be named by you or used in your oaths; do not be their servants or give them worship:

⁸But be true to the Lord your God as you have been till this day.

⁹For the Lord has sent out from before you nations great and strong: and they have all given way before you till this day.

¹⁰One man of you is able to put to flight a thousand; for it is the Lord your God who is fighting for you, as he has said to you.

¹¹So keep watch on yourselves, and see that you have love for the Lord your God.

¹²For if you go back, joining yourselves to the rest of these nations who are still among you, getting married to them and living with them and they with you:

¹³Then you may be certain that the Lord your God will not go on driving these nations out from before you; but they will become a danger and a cause of sin to you, a whip for your sides and thorns in your eyes, till you are cut off from this good land which the Lord your God has given you.

¹⁴Now I am about to go the way of all the earth: and you have seen and are certain, all of you, in your hearts and souls, that in all the good things which the Lord said about you, he has kept faith with you; everything has come true for you.

¹⁵And you will see that, as all the good things which the Lord your God undertook to do for you, have come to you, so the Lord will send down on you all the evil things till he has made your destruction complete, and you are cut off from the good land which the Lord your God has given you.

¹⁶If the agreement of the Lord your God, which was given to you by his orders, is broken, and you become the servants of other gods and give them worship, then the wrath of the Lord will be burning against you, and you will quickly be cut off from the good land which he has given you.

24Then Joshua got all the tribes of Israel together at Shechem; and he sent for the responsible men of Israel and their chiefs and their judges and their overseers; and they took their place before God.

²And Joshua said to all the people, These are the words of the Lord, the God of Israel: In the past your fathers, Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nahor, were living on the other side of the River: and they were worshipping other gods.

³And I took your father Abraham from the other side of the River, guiding him through all the land of Canaan; I made his offspring great in number, and gave him Isaac.

⁴And to Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau: to Esau I gave Mount Seir, as his heritage; but Jacob and his children went down to Egypt.

⁵And I sent Moses and Aaron, troubling Egypt by all the signs I did among them: and after that I took you out.

⁶I took your fathers out of Egypt: and you came to the Red Sea; and the Egyptians came after your fathers to the Red Sea, with their war-carriages and their horsemen.

⁷And at their cry, the Lord made it dark between you and the Egyptians, and made the sea go over them, covering them with its waters; your eyes have seen what I did in Egypt: then for a long time you were living in the waste land.

⁸And I took you into the lands of the Amorites on the other side of Jordan; and they made war on you, and I gave them into your hands and you took their land; and I sent destruction on them before you.

⁹Then Balak, the son of Zippor, king of Moab, went up to war against Israel; and he sent for Balaam, the son of Beor, to put a curse on you:

¹⁰But I did not give ear to Balaam; and so he went on blessing you; and I kept you safe from him.

¹¹Then you went over Jordan and came to Jericho: and the men of Jericho made war on you, the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Hivites and the Jebusites: and I gave them up into your hands.

¹²And I sent the hornet before you, driving out the two kings of the Amorites before you, not with your sword and your bow.

¹³And I gave you a land on which you had done no work, and towns not of your building, and you are now living in them; and your food comes from vine-gardens and olive-gardens not of your planting.

¹⁴So now, go in fear of the Lord, and be his servants with true hearts: put away the gods worshipped by your fathers across the River and in Egypt, and be servants of the Lord.

¹⁵And if it seems evil to you to be the servants of the Lord, make the decision this day whose servants you will be: of the gods whose servants your fathers were across the River, or of the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living: but I and my house will be the servants of the Lord.

¹⁶Then the people in answer said, Never will we give up the Lord to be the servants of other gods;

¹⁷For it is the Lord our God who has taken us and our fathers out of the land of Egypt, out of the prison-house, and who did all those great signs before our eyes, and kept us safe on all our journeys, and among all the peoples through whom we went:

¹⁸And the Lord sent out from before us all the peoples, the Amorites living in the land: so we will be the servants of the Lord, for he is our God.

¹⁹And Joshua said to the people, You are not able to be the servants of the Lord, for he is a holy God, a God who will not let his honour be given to another: he will have no mercy on your wrongdoing or your sins.

²⁰If you are turned away from the Lord and become the servants of strange gods, then turning against you he will do you evil, cutting you off, after he has done you good.

²¹And the people said to Joshua, No! But we will be the servants of the Lord.

²²And Joshua said to the people, You are witnesses against yourselves that you have made the decision to be the servants of the Lord. And they said, We are witnesses.

²³Then, he said, put away the strange gods among you, turning your hearts to the Lord, the God of Israel.

²⁴And the people said to Joshua, We will be the servants of the Lord our God, and we will give ear to his voice.

²⁵So Joshua made an agreement with the people that day, and gave them a rule and a law in Shechem.

²⁶And Joshua put these words on record, writing them in the book of the law of God; and he took a great stone, and put it up there under the oak-tree which was in the holy place of the Lord.

²⁷And Joshua said to all the people, See now, this stone is to be a witness against us; for all the words of the Lord have been said to us in its hearing: so it will be a witness against you if you are false to the Lord your God.

²⁸Then Joshua let the people go away, every man to his heritage.

²⁹Now after these things, the death of Joshua, the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, took place, he being then a hundred and ten years old.

³⁰And they put his body in the earth in the land of his heritage in Timnath-serah, in the hill-country of Ephraim, to the north of Mount Gaash.

³¹And Israel was true to the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the older men who were still living after Joshua's death, and had seen what the Lord had done for Israel.

³²And the bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel had taken up from Egypt, they put in the earth in Shechem, in the property which Jacob had got from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem, for a hundred shekels: and they became the heritage of the children of Joseph.

³³Then the death of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, took place; and his body was put in the earth in the hill of Phinehas his son, which had been given to him in the hill-country of Ephraim.

1Now after the death of Joshua, the children of Israel made request to the Lord, saying, Who is to go up first to make war for us against the Canaanites?

²And the Lord said, Judah is to go up: see, I have given the land into his hands.

³Then Judah said to Simeon his brother, Come up with me into my heritage, so that we may make war against the Canaanites; and I will then go with you into your heritage. So Simeon went with him.

⁴And Judah went up; and the Lord gave the Canaanites and the Perizzites into their hands; and they overcame ten thousand of them in Bezek.

⁵And they came across Adoni-zedek, and made war on him; and they overcame the Canaanites and the Perizzites.

⁶But Adoni-zedek went in flight; and they went after him and overtook him, and had his thumbs and his great toes cut off.

⁷And Adoni-zedek said, Seventy kings, whose thumbs and great toes had been cut off, got broken meat under my table: as I have done, so has God done to me in full. And they took him to Jerusalem, and he came to his end there.

⁸Then the children of Judah made an attack on Jerusalem, and took it, burning down the town after they had put its people to the sword without mercy.

⁹After that the children of Judah went down to make war on the Canaanites living in the hill-country and in the south and in the lowlands.

¹⁰And Caleb went against the Canaanites of Hebron: (now in earlier times Hebron was named Kiriath-arba:) and he put Sheshai and Ahiman and Talmai to the sword.

¹¹And from there he went up against the people of Debir. (Now the name of Debir in earlier times was Kiriath-sepher.)

¹²And Caleb said, I will give Achsah, my daughter, as wife to the man who overcomes Kiriath-sepher and takes it.

¹³And Othniel, the son of Kenaz, Caleb's younger brother, took it; so he gave him his daughter Achsah for his wife.

¹⁴Now when she came to him, he put into her mind the idea of requesting a field from her father: and she got down from her ass; and Caleb said to her, What is it?

¹⁵And she said to him, Give me a blessing; because you have put me in a dry south-land, now give me springs of water. So Caleb gave her the higher spring and the lower spring.

¹⁶Now Hobab the Kenite, Moses' father-in-law, had come up out of the town of palm-trees, with the children of Judah, into the waste land of Arad; and he went and was living among the Amalekites;

¹⁷And Judah went with Simeon, his brother, and overcame the Canaanites living in Zephath, and put it under the curse; and he gave the town the name of Hormah.

¹⁸Then Judah took Gaza and its limit, and Ashkelon and its limit, and Ekron and its limit.

¹⁹And the Lord was with Judah; and he took the hill-country for his heritage; but he was unable to make the people of the valley go out, for they had war-carriages of iron.

²⁰And they gave Hebron to Caleb, as Moses had said; and he took the land of the three sons of Anak, driving them out from there.

²¹And the children of Judah did not make the Jebusites who were living in Jerusalem go out; the Jebusites are still living with the children of Benjamin in Jerusalem.

²²And the family of Joseph went up against Beth-el, and the Lord was with them.

²³So they sent men to make a search round Beth-el. (Now the name of the town in earlier times was Luz.)

²⁴And the watchers saw a man coming out of the town, and said to him, If you will make clear to us the way into the town, we will be kind to you.

²⁵So he made clear to them the way into the town, and they put it to the sword; but they let the man and all his family get away safe.

²⁶And he went into the land of the Hittites, building a town there and naming it Luz: which is its name to this day.

²⁷And Manasseh did not take away the land of the people of Beth-shean and its daughter-towns, or of Taanach and its daughter-towns, or of the people of Dor and its daughter-towns, or of the people of Ibleam and its daughter-towns, or of the people of Megiddo and its daughter-towns, driving them out; but the Canaanites would go on living in that land.

²⁸And whenever Israel became strong, they put the Canaanites to forced work, without driving them out completely.

²⁹And Ephraim did not make the Canaanites who were living in Gezer go out; but the Canaanites went on living in Gezer among them.

³⁰Zebulun did not make the people of Kitron or the people of Nahalol go out; but the Canaanites went on living among them and were put to forced work.

³¹And Asher did not take the land of the people of Acco, or Zidon, or Ahlab, or Achzib, or Helbah, or Aphik, or Rehob, driving them out;

³²But the Asherites went on living among the Canaanites, the people of the land, without driving them out.

³³Naphtali did not take the land of the people of Beth-shemesh or of Beth-anath, driving them out; but he was living among the Canaanites in the land; however, the people of Beth-shemesh and Beth-anath were put to forced work.

³⁴And the children of Dan were forced into the hill-country by the Amorites, who would not let them come down into the valley;

³⁵For the Amorites would go on living in Mount Heres, in Aijalon, and in Shaalbim; but the children of Joseph became stronger than they, and put them to forced work.

³⁶And the limit of the Edomites went from the slope of Akrabbim from Sela and up.

2Now the angel of the Lord came up from Gilgal to Bochim. And he said, *** I took you out of Egypt, guiding you into the land which I gave by an oath to your fathers; and I said, My agreement with you will never be broken by me:

²And you are to make no agreement with the people of this land; you are to see that their altars are broken down: but you have not given ear to my voice: what have you done?

³And so I have said, I will not send them out from before you; but they will be a danger to you, and their gods will be a cause of falling to you.

⁴Now on hearing these words which the angel of the Lord said to all the children of Israel, the people gave themselves up to loud crying and weeping.

⁵And they gave that place the name of Bochim, and made offerings there to the Lord.

⁶And Joshua let the people go away, and the children of Israel went, every man to his heritage, to take the land for themselves.

⁷And the people were true to the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the responsible men who were still living after the death of Joshua, and had seen all the great work of the Lord which he had done for Israel.

⁸And death came to Joshua, the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, he being a hundred and ten years old.

⁹And they put his body in the earth in the land of his heritage in Timnath-heres, in the hill-country of Ephraim to the north of Mount Gaash.

¹⁰And in time death overtook all that generation; and another generation came after them, having no knowledge of the Lord or of the things which he had done for Israel.

¹¹And the children of Israel did evil in the eyes of the Lord and became servants to the Baals;

¹²And they gave up the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had taken them out of the land of Egypt, and went after other gods, the gods of the peoples round about them, worshipping them and moving the Lord to wrath.

¹³And they gave up the Lord, and became the servants of Baal and the Astartes.

¹⁴And the wrath of the Lord was burning against Israel, and he gave them up into the hands of those who violently took their property, and into the hands of their haters all round them, so that they were forced to give way before them.

¹⁵Wherever they went out, the hand of the Lord was against them for evil, as the Lord had taken his oath it would be; and things became very hard for them.

¹⁶Then the Lord gave them judges, as their saviours from the hands of those who were cruel to them.

¹⁷But still they would not give ear to their judges, but went after other gods and gave them worship; quickly turning from the way in which their fathers had gone, keeping the orders of the Lord; but they did not do so.

¹⁸And whenever the Lord gave them judges, then the Lord was with the judge, and was their saviour from the hands of their haters all the days of the judge; for the Lord was moved by their cries of grief because of those who were cruel to them.

¹⁹But whenever the judge was dead, they went back and did more evil than their fathers, going after other gods, to be their servants and their worshippers; giving up nothing of their sins and their hard-hearted ways.

²⁰And the wrath of the Lord was burning against Israel, and he said, Because this nation has not been true to my agreement which I made with their fathers, and has not given ear to my voice;

²¹From now on I will not go on driving out from before them any of the nations which at the death of Joshua were still living in this land;

²²In order to put Israel to the test, and see if they will keep the way of the Lord, walking in it as their fathers did, or not.

²³So the Lord let those nations go on living in the land, not driving them out quickly, and did not give them up into the hands of Joshua.

3Now these are the nations which the Lord kept in the land for the purpose of testing Israel by them, all those who had had no experience of all the wars of Canaan;

²Only because of the generations of the children of Israel, for the purpose of teaching them war--only those who up till then had no experience of it;

³The five chiefs of the Philistines, and all the Canaanites and the Zidonians and the Hivites living in Mount Lebanon, from the mountain Baal-hermon as far as Hamath:

⁴For the purpose of testing Israel by them, to see if they would give ear to the orders of the Lord, which he had given to their fathers by the hand of Moses.

⁵Now the children of Israel were living among the Canaanites, the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites:

⁶And they took as wives the daughters of these nations and gave their daughters to their sons, and became servants to their gods.

⁷And the children of Israel did evil in the eyes of the Lord, and put out of their minds the Lord their God, and became servants to the Baals and the Astartes.

⁸So the wrath of the Lord was burning against Israel, and he gave them up into the hands of Cushan-rishathaim, king of Mesopotamia; and the children of Israel were his servants for eight years.

⁹And when the children of Israel made prayer to the Lord, he gave them a saviour, Othniel, the son of Kenaz, Caleb's younger brother.

¹⁰And the spirit of the Lord came on him and he became judge of Israel, and went out to war, and the Lord gave up Cushan-rishathaim, king of Mesopotamia, into his hands and he overcame him.

¹¹Then for forty years the land had peace, till the death of Othniel, the son of Kenaz.

¹²Then the children of Israel again did evil in the eyes of the Lord; and the Lord made Eglon, king of Moab, strong against Israel, because they had done evil in the Lord's eyes.

¹³And Eglon got together the people of Ammon and Amalek, and they went and overcame Israel and took the town of palm-trees.

¹⁴And the children of Israel were servants to Eglon, king of Moab, for eighteen years.

¹⁵Then when the children of Israel made prayer to the Lord, he gave them a saviour, Ehud, the son of Gera, the Benjamite, a left-handed man; and the children of Israel sent an offering by him to Eglon, king of Moab.

¹⁶So Ehud made himself a two-edged sword, a cubit long, which he put on at his right side under his robe.

¹⁷And he took the offering to Eglon, king of Moab, who was a very fat man.

¹⁸And after giving the offering, he sent away the people who had come with the offering.

¹⁹But he himself, turning back from the stone images at Gilgal, said, I have something to say to you in secret, O king. And he said, Let there be quiet. Then all those who were waiting before him went out.

²⁰Then Ehud came in to him while he was seated by himself in his summer-house. And Ehud said, I have a word from God for you. And he got up from his seat.

²¹And Ehud put out his left hand, and took the sword from his right side, and sent it into his stomach;

²²And the hand-part went in after the blade, and the fat was joined up over the blade; for he did not take the sword out of his stomach. And he went out into the ...

²³Then Ehud went out into the covered way, shutting the doors of the summer-house on him and locking them.

²⁴Now when he had gone, the king's servants came, and saw that the doors of the summer-house were locked; and they said, It may be that he is in his summer-house for a private purpose.

²⁵And they went on waiting till they were shamed, but the doors were still shut; so they took the key, and, opening them, saw their lord stretched out dead on the floor.

²⁶But Ehud had got away while they were waiting and had gone past the stone images and got away to Seirah.

²⁷And when he came there, he had a horn sounded in the hill-country of Ephraim, and all the children of Israel went down with him from the hill-country, and he at their head.

²⁸And he said to them, Come after me; for the Lord has given the Moabites, your haters, into your hands. So they went down after him and took the crossing-places of Jordan against Moab, and let no one go across.

²⁹At that time they put about ten thousand men of Moab to the sword, every strong man and every man of war; not a man got away.

³⁰So Moab was broken that day under the hand of Israel. And for eighty years the land had peace.

³¹And after him came Shamgar, the son of Anath, who put to death six hundred Philistines with an ox-stick; and he was another saviour of Israel.

4And the children of Israel again did evil in the eyes of the Lord when Ehud was dead.

²And the Lord gave them up into the hands of Jabin, king of Canaan, who was ruling in Hazor; the captain of his army was Sisera, who was living in Harosheth of the Gentiles.

³Then the children of Israel made prayer to the Lord; for he had nine hundred iron war-carriages, and for twenty years he was very cruel to the children of Israel.

⁴Now Deborah, a woman prophet, the wife of Lapidoth, was judge of Israel at that time.

⁵(And she had her seat under the palm-tree of Deborah between Ramah and Beth-el in the hill-country of Ephraim; and the children of Israel came up to her to be judged.)

⁶And she sent for Barak, the son of Abinoam, from Kedesh-naphtali, and said to him, Has not the Lord, the God of Israel, given orders saying, Go and get your force into line in Mount Tabor, and take with you ten thousand men of the children of Naphtali and of the children of Zebulun?

⁷And I will make Sisera, the captain of Jabin's army, with his war-carriages and his forces, come against you at the river Kishon, where I will give him into your hands.

⁸And Barak said to her, If you will go with me then I will go; but if you will not go with me I will not go.

⁹And she said, I will certainly go with you: though you will get no honour in your undertaking, for the Lord will give Sisera into the hands of a woman. So Deborah got up and went with Barak to Kedesh.

¹⁰Then Barak sent for Zebulun and Naphtali to come to Kedesh; and ten thousand men went up after him, and Deborah went up with him.

¹¹Now Heber the Kenite, separating himself from the rest of the Kenites, from the children of Hobab, the brother-in-law of Moses, had put up his tent as far away as the oak-tree in Zaanannim, by Kedesh.

¹²And word was given to Sisera that Barak, the son of Abinoam, had gone up to Mount Tabor.

¹³So Sisera got together all his war-carriages, nine hundred war-carriages of iron, and all the people who were with him, from Harosheth of the Gentiles as far as the river Kishon.

¹⁴Then Deborah said to Barak, Up! for today the Lord has given Sisera into your hands: has not the Lord gone out before you? So Barak went down from Mount Tabor and ten thousand men after him.

¹⁵And the Lord sent fear on Sisera and all his war-carriages and all his army before Barak; and Sisera got down from his war-carriage and went in flight on foot.

¹⁶But Barak went after the war-carriages and the army as far as Harosheth of the Gentiles; and all Sisera's army was put to the sword; not a man got away.

¹⁷But Sisera went in flight on foot to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite; for there was peace between Jabin, king of Hazor, and the family of Heber the Kenite.

¹⁸And Jael went out to Sisera, and said to him, Come in, my lord, come in to me without fear. So he went into her tent, and she put a cover over him.

¹⁹Then he said to her, Give me now a little water, for I have need of a drink. And opening a skin of milk, she gave him drink, and put the cover over him again.

²⁰And he said to her, Take your place at the door of the tent, and if anyone comes and says to you, Is there any man here, say, No.

²¹Then Jael, Heber's wife, took a tent-pin and a hammer and went up to him quietly, driving the pin into his head, and it went through his head into the earth, for he was in a deep sleep from weariness; and so he came to his end.

²²Then Jael went out, and meeting Barak going after Sisera, said to him, Come, and I will let you see the man you are searching for. So he came into her tent and saw, and there was Sisera stretched out dead with the tent-pin in his head.

²³So that day God overcame Jabin, king of Canaan, before the children of Israel.

²⁴And the power of the children of Israel went on increasing against Jabin, king of Canaan, till he was cut off.

5At that time Deborah and Barak, the son of Abinoam, made this song, saying:

²Because of the flowing hair of the fighters in Israel, because the people gave themselves freely, give praise to the Lord.

³Give attention, O kings; give ear, O rulers; I, even I, will make a song to the Lord; I will make melody to the Lord, the God of Israel.

⁴Lord, when you went out from Seir, moving like an army from the field of Edom, the earth was shaking and the heavens were troubled, and the clouds were dropping water.

⁵The mountains were shaking before the Lord, before the Lord, the God of Israel.

⁶In the days of Shamgar, the son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were not used, and travellers went by side roads.

⁷Country towns were no more in Israel, *** were no more, till you, Deborah, came up, till you came up as a mother in Israel.

⁸They had no one to make arms, there were no more armed men in the towns; was there a body-cover or a spear to be seen among forty thousand in Israel?

⁹Come, you rulers of Israel, you who gave yourselves freely among the people: give praise to the Lord.

¹⁰Let them give thought to it, who go on white asses, and those who are walking on the road.

¹¹Give ear to the women laughing by the water-springs; there they will give again the story of the upright acts of the Lord, all the upright acts of his arm in Israel.

¹²Awake! awake! Deborah: awake! awake! give a song: Up! Barak, and take prisoner those who took you prisoner, O son of Abinoam.

¹³Then the chiefs went down to the doors; the Lord's people went down among the strong ones.

¹⁴Out of Ephraim they came down into the valley; after you, Benjamin, among your tribesmen; from Machir came down the captains, and from Zebulun those in whose hand is the ruler's rod.

¹⁵Your chiefs, Issachar, were with Deborah; and Naphtali was true to Barak; into the valley they went rushing out at his feet. In Reuben there were divisions, and great searchings of heart.

¹⁶Why did you keep quiet among the sheep, hearing nothing but the watchers piping to the flocks?

¹⁷Gilead was living over Jordan; and Dan was waiting in his ships; Asher kept in his place by the sea's edge, living by his inlets.

¹⁸It was the people of Zebulun who put their lives in danger, even to death, with Naphtali on the high places of the field.

¹⁹The kings came on to the fight, the kings of Canaan were warring; in Taanach by the waters of Megiddo: they took no profit in money.

²⁰The stars from heaven were fighting; from their highways they were fighting against Sisera.

²¹The river Kishon took them violently away, stopping their flight, the river Kishon. Give praise, O my soul, to the strength of the Lord!

²²Then loudly the feet of the horses were sounding with the stamping, the stamping of their war-horses.

²³A curse, a curse on Meroz! said the angel of the Lord. A bitter curse on her townspeople! Because they came not to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord among the strong ones.

²⁴Blessings be on Jael, more than on all women! Blessings greater than on any in the tents!

²⁵His request was for water, she gave him milk; she put butter before him on a fair plate.

²⁶She put out her hand to the tent-pin, and her right hand to the workman's hammer; and she gave Sisera a blow, crushing his head, wounding and driving through his brow.

²⁷Bent at her feet he went down, he was stretched out; bent at her feet he went down; where he was bent down, there he went down in death.

²⁸Looking out from the window she gave a cry, the mother of Sisera was crying out through the window, Why is his carriage so long in coming? When will the noise of his wheels be sounding?

²⁹Her wise women gave answer to her, yes, she made answer again to herself,

³⁰Are they not getting, are they not parting the goods among them: a young girl or two to every man; and to Sisera robes of coloured needlework, worked in fair colours on this side and on that, for the neck of the queen?

³¹So may destruction come on all your haters, O Lord; but let your lovers be like the sun going out in his strength. And for forty years the land had peace.

6And the children of Israel did evil in the eyes of the Lord; and the Lord gave them up into the hand of Midian for seven years.

²And Midian was stronger than Israel; and because of the Midianites, the children of Israel made holes for themselves in the mountains, and hollows in the rocks, and strong places.

³And whenever Israel's grain was planted, the Midianites and the Amalekites and the people of the east came up against them;

⁴And put their army in position against them; and they took all the produce of the earth as far as Gaza, till there was no food in Israel, or any sheep or oxen or asses.

⁵For they came up regularly with their oxen and their tents; they came like the locusts in number; they and their camels were without number; and they came into the land for its destruction.

⁶And Israel was in great need because of Midian; and the cry of the children of Israel went up to the Lord.

⁷And when the cry of the children of Israel, because of Midian, came before the Lord,

⁸The Lord sent a prophet to the children of Israel, who said to them, The Lord the God of Israel, has said, I took you up from Egypt, out of the prison-house;

⁹And I took you out of the hands of the Egyptians and out of the hands of all who were cruel to you, and I sent them out by force from before you and gave you their land;

¹⁰And I said to you, I am the Lord your God; you are not to give worship to the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living, but you did not give ear to my voice.

¹¹Now the angel of the Lord came and took his seat under the oak-tree in Ophrah, in the field of Joash the Abiezrite; and his son Gideon was crushing grain in the place where the grapes were crushed, so that the Midianites might not see it.

¹²And the angel of the Lord came before his eyes, and said to him, The Lord is with you, O man of war.

¹³Then Gideon said to him, O my lord, if the Lord is with us why has all this come on us? And where are all his works of power, of which our fathers have given us word, saying, Did not the Lord take us out of Egypt? But now he has given us up, handing us over to the power of Midian.

¹⁴And the Lord, turning to him, said, Go in the strength you have and be Israel's saviour from Midian: have I not sent you?

¹⁵And he said to him, O Lord, how may I be the saviour of Israel? See, my family is the poorest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house.

¹⁶Then the Lord said to him, Truly, I will be with you, and you will overcome the Midianites as if they were one man.

¹⁷So he said to him, If now I have grace in your eyes, then give me a sign that it is you who are talking to me.

¹⁸Do not go away till I come with my offering and put it before you. And he said, I will not go away before you come back.

¹⁹Then Gideon went in and made ready a young goat, and with an ephah of meal he made unleavened cakes: he put the meat in a basket and the soup in which it had been cooked he put in a pot, and he took it out to him under the oak-tree and gave it to him there.

²⁰And the angel of God said to him, Take the meat and the unleavened cakes and put them down on the rock over there, draining out the soup over them. And he did so.

²¹Then the angel of the Lord put out the stick which was in his hand, touching the meat and the cakes with the end of it; and a flame came up out of the rock, burning up the meat and the cakes: and the angel of the Lord was seen no longer.

²²Then Gideon was certain that he was the angel of the Lord; and Gideon said, I am in fear, O Lord God! for I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face.

²³But the Lord said to him, Peace be with you; have no fear: you are in no danger of death.

²⁴Then Gideon made an altar there to the Lord, and gave it the name Yahweh-shalom; to this day it is in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.

²⁵The same night the Lord said to him, Take ten men of your servants and an ox seven years old, and after pulling down the altar of Baal which is your father's, and cutting down the holy tree by its side,

²⁶Make an altar to the Lord your God on the top of this rock, in the ordered way and take the ox and make a burned offering with the wood of the holy tree which has been cut down.

²⁷Then Gideon took ten of his servants and did as the Lord had said to him; but fearing to do it by day, because of his father's people and the men of the town, he did it by night.

²⁸And the men of the town got up early in the morning, and they saw the altar of Baal broken down, and the holy tree which was by it cut down, and the ox offered on the altar which had been put up there.

²⁹And they said to one another, Who has done this thing? And after searching with care, they said, Gideon, the son of Joash, has done this thing.

³⁰Then the men of the town said to Joash, Make your son come out to be put to death, for pulling down the altar of Baal and cutting down the holy tree which was by it.

³¹But Joash said to all those who were attacking him, Will you take up the cause of Baal? will you be his saviour? Let anyone who will take up his cause be put to death while it is still morning: if he is a god, let him take up his cause himself because of the pulling down of his altar.

³²So that day he gave him the name of Jerubbaal, saying, Let Baal take up his cause against him because his altar has been broken down.

³³Then all the Midianites and the Amalekites and the people of the east, banding themselves together, went over and put up their tents in the valley of Jezreel.

³⁴But the spirit of the Lord came on Gideon; and at the sound of his horn all Abiezer came together after him.

³⁵And he sent through all Manasseh, and they came after him; and he sent to Asher and Zebulun and Naphtali, and they came up and were joined to the others.

³⁶Then Gideon said to God, If you are going to give Israel salvation by my hand, as you have said,

³⁷See, I will put the wool of a sheep on the grain-floor; if there is dew on the wool only, while all the earth is dry, then I will be certain that it is your purpose to give Israel salvation by my hand as you have said.

³⁸And it was so: for he got up early on the morning after, and twisting the wool in his hands, he got a basin full of water from the dew on the wool.

³⁹Then Gideon said to God, Do not be moved to wrath against me if I say only this: let me make one more test with the wool; let the wool now be dry, while the earth is covered with dew.

⁴⁰And that night God did so; for the wool was dry, and there was dew on all the earth round it.

7Then Jerubbaal, that is, Gideon, and all the people with him, got up early and put up their tents by the side of the water-spring of Harod; the tents of Midian were on the north side of him, under the hill of Moreh in the valley.

²And the Lord said to Gideon, So great is the number of your people, that if I give the Midianites into their hands they will be uplifted in pride over me and will say, I myself have been my saviour.

³So now, let it be given out to the people that anyone who is shaking with fear is to go back from Mount Galud. So twenty-two thousand of the people went back, but there were still ten thousand.

⁴Then the Lord said to Gideon, There are still more people than is necessary; take them down to the water so that I may put them to the test for you there; then whoever I say is to go with you will go, and whoever I say is not to go will not go.

⁵So he took the people down to the water; and the Lord said to Gideon, Put on one side by themselves all those drinking up the water with their tongues like a dog; and in the same way, all those who go down on their knees to the water while drinking.

⁶Now the number of those who took up the water with their tongues was three hundred; all the rest of the people went down on their knees to the water.

⁷And the Lord said to Gideon, By those three hundred who were drinking with their tongues I will give you salvation and give the Midianites into your hands; let the rest of the people go away, every man to his place.

⁸So they took the vessels of the people, and their horns from their hands, and he sent them away, every man to his tent, keeping only the three hundred; and the tents of Midian were lower down in the valley.

⁹The same night the Lord said to him, Up! go down now against their army, for I have given them into your hands.

¹⁰But if you have fear of going down, take your servant Purah with you and go down to the tents;

¹¹And after hearing what they are saying, you will get strength to go down against the army. So he went down with his servant Purah to the outer line of the tents of the armed men.

¹²Now the Midianites and the Amalekites and all the people of the east were covering the valley like locusts; and their camels were like the sand by the seaside, without number.

¹³When Gideon came there, a man was giving his friend an account of his dream, saying, See, I had a dream about a cake of barley bread which, falling into the tents of Midian, came on to the tent, overturning it so that it was stretched out flat on the earth.

¹⁴And his friend in answer said, This is certainly the sword of Gideon, the son of Joash, the men of Israel: into their hands God has given up all the army of Midian.

¹⁵Then Gideon, hearing the story of the dream and the sense in which they took it, gave worship; then he went back to the tents of Israel, and said, Up! for the Lord has given the army of Midian into your hands.

¹⁶Then separating the three hundred men into three bands, he gave every man a horn, and a vessel in which was a flaming branch.

¹⁷And he said to them, Keep your eyes on me, and do what I do; when I come to the outer line of tents, whatever I do, you are to do the same.

¹⁸At the sound of my horn, and the horns of those who are with me, let your horns be sounded all round the tents, and say, For the Lord and for Gideon.

¹⁹So Gideon and the three hundred men who were with him came to the outer line of tents, at the start of the middle watch, when the watchmen had only then taken their stations; and the horns were sounded and the vessels broken.

²⁰So the three bands all gave a loud note on their horns, and when the vessels had been broken, they took the flaming branches in their left hands, and the horns in their right hands ready for blowing, crying out, For the Lord and for Gideon.

²¹Then they made a line round the tents, every man in his place; and all the army, awaking from sleep, came running out, and with loud cries went in flight.

²²And the three hundred gave a loud note on their horns, and every man's sword was turned by the Lord against his brother all through the army; and the army went in flight as far as Beth-shittah in the direction of Zeredah, to the edge of Abel-meholah by Tabbath.

²³And the men of Israel came together from Naphtali and from Asher and all Manasseh, and went after Midian.

²⁴Then Gideon sent through all the hill-country of Ephraim saying, Come down against Midian, and keep the ways across Jordan before they come. So all the men of Ephraim, massing themselves together, kept the ways across Jordan.

²⁵And they took the two chiefs of Midian, Oreb and Zeeb; and they put Oreb to death at the rock of Oreb, and Zeeb they put to death at the place of the grape-crushing in Zeeb, and they went after Midian; but the heads of Oreb and Zeeb they took across Jordan to Gideon.

8And the men of Ephraim came and said to him, Why did you not send for us when you went to war against Midian? And they said sharp and angry words to him.

²And he said to them, What have I done in comparison with you? Is not that which Ephraim took up after the grape-cutting better than all the grapes which Abiezer got in from the grape-cutting?

³God has given into your hands the chiefs of Midian, Oreb and Zeeb; what have I been able to do in comparison with you? And when he said this, their feeling about him became kinder.

⁴Then Gideon came to Jordan and went over it with his three hundred, overcome with weariness and in need of food.

⁵And he said to the men of Succoth, Give bread cakes to my people, for they are overcome with weariness, and I am going on after Zebah and Zalmunna, the kings of Midian.

⁶But the chiefs of Succoth said, Are the hands of Zebah and Zalmunna even now in your hand that we are to give bread to your army?

⁷Then Gideon said, Because of this, when the Lord has given Zebah and Zalmunna into my hands, I will have you stretched on a bed of thorns of the waste land and on sharp stems, and have you crushed as grain is crushed on a grain-floor.

⁸So he went up from there to Penuel and made the same request to the men of Penuel; but they gave him the same answer as the men of Succoth had given.

⁹So he said to the men of Penuel, When I come back in peace, I will have this tower broken down.

¹⁰Now Zebah and Zalmunna were in Karkor and their armies with them, about fifteen thousand men, those of all the army of the children of the east who were still living; for a hundred and twenty thousand of their swordsmen had been put to death.

¹¹And Gideon went up by the way used by the people living in tents on the east of Nobah and Jogbehah, and made an attack on the army when they had no thought of danger.

¹²And Zebah and Zalmunna went in flight; and he went after them, and took the two kings of Midian, Zebah and Zalmunna, and put all the army to the curse.

¹³Then Gideon, the son of Joash, went back from the fight:

¹⁴And taking prisoner a young man of the people of Succoth, he got from him, in answer to his questions, a list of the chiefs of Succoth and the responsible men, seventy-seven men.

¹⁵So he came to the men of Succoth and said, Here are Zebah and Zalmunna, on account of whom you made sport of me, saying, Are the hands of Zebah and Zalmunna even now in your hand, that we are to give bread to your army who are overcome with weariness?

¹⁶Then he took the responsible men of the town and had them crushed on a bed of thorns and sharp stems.

¹⁷And he had the tower of Penuel broken down and the men of the town put to death.

¹⁸Then he said to Zebah and Zalmunna, Where are the men whom you put to death at Tabor? And they gave answer, As you are, so were they; every one of them was like a king's son.

¹⁹And he said, They were my brothers, my mother's sons: by the life of the Lord, if you had kept them safe, I would not put you to death.

²⁰Then he said to Jether, his oldest son, Up! Put them to death. But the boy did not take out his sword, fearing because he was still a boy.

²¹Then Zebah and Zalmunna said, Up! Put an end to us yourself: for you have a man's strength. Then Gideon got up and put Zebah and Zalmunna to death and took the ornaments which were on their camels' necks.

²²Then the men of Israel said to Gideon, Be our ruler, you and your son and your son's son after him; for you have been our saviour from the hands of Midian.

²³But Gideon said to them, I will not be a ruler over you, and my son will not be a ruler over you: it is the Lord who will be ruler over you.

²⁴Then Gideon said to them, I have a request to make to you; let every man give me the ear-rings he has taken. (For they had gold ear-rings, because they were Ishmaelites.)

²⁵And they gave answer, We will gladly give them. So they put down a robe, every man dropping into it the ear-rings he had taken.

²⁶The weight of the gold ear-rings which he got from them was one thousand, seven hundred shekels of gold; in addition to the moon-ornaments and jewels and the purple robes which were on the kings of Midian, and the chains on their camels' necks.

²⁷And Gideon made an ephod from them and put it up in his town Ophrah; and all Israel went after it there and were false to the Lord; and it became a cause of sin to Gideon and his house.

²⁸So Midian was broken before the children of Israel and the Midianites never got back their strength. And the land had peace for forty years, in the days of Gideon.

²⁹And Jerubbaal, the son of Joash, went back to his house and was living there.

³⁰Gideon had seventy sons, the offspring of his body; for he had a number of wives.

³¹And the servant-wife he had in Shechem had a son by him, to whom he gave the name Abimelech.

³²And Gideon, the son of Joash, came to his end when he was very old, and his body was put in the resting-place of Joash his father, in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.

³³And after the death of Gideon, the children of Israel again went after the gods of Canaan and were false to the Lord, and made Baal-berith their god.

³⁴And the children of Israel did not keep in their minds the Lord their God, who had been their saviour from all their haters on every side;

³⁵And they were not kind to the house of Jerubbaal, that is, Gideon, in reward for all the good he had done to Israel.

9Now Abimelech, the son of Jerubbaal, went to Shechem to his mother's family, and said to them and to all the family of his mother's father,

²Say now in the ears of all the townsmen of Shechem, Is it better for you to be ruled by all the seventy sons of Jerubbaal or by one man only? And keep in mind that I am your bone and your flesh.

³So his mother's family said all this about him in the ears of all the townsmen of Shechem: and their hearts were turned to Abimelech, for they said, He is our brother.

⁴And they gave him seventy shekels of silver from the house of Baal-berith, with which Abimelech got the support of a number of uncontrolled and good-for-nothing persons.

⁵Then he went to his father's house at Ophrah, and put his brothers, the seventy sons of Jerubbaal, to death on the same stone; however, Jotham, the youngest, kept himself safe by going away to a secret place.

⁶And all the townsmen of Shechem and all Beth-millo came together and went and made Abimelech their king, by the oak of the pillar in Shechem.

⁷Now Jotham, on hearing of it, went to the top of Mount Gerizim, and crying out with a loud voice said to them, Give ear to me, you townsmen of Shechem, so that God may give ear to you.

⁸One day the trees went out to make a king for themselves; and they said to the olive-tree, Be king over us.

⁹But the olive-tree said to them, Am I to give up my wealth of oil, by which men give honour to God, and go waving over the trees?

¹⁰Then the trees said to the fig-tree, You come and be king over us.

¹¹But the fig-tree said to them, Am I to give up my sweet taste and my good fruit and go waving over the trees?

¹²Then the trees said to the vine, You come and be king over us.

¹³But the vine said to them, Am I to give up my wine, which makes glad God and men, to go waving over the trees?

¹⁴Then all the trees said to the thorn, You come and be king over us.

¹⁵And the thorn said to the trees, If it is truly your desire to make me your king, then come and put your faith in my shade; and if not, may fire come out of the thorn, burning up the cedars of Lebanon.

¹⁶So now, if you have done truly and uprightly in making Abimelech king, and if you have done well to Jerubbaal and his house in reward for the work of his hands;

¹⁷(For my father made war for you, and put his life in danger, and made you free from the hands of Midian;

¹⁸And you have gone against my father's family this day, and have put to death his sons, even seventy men on one stone, and have made Abimelech, the son of his servant-wife, king over the townsmen of Shechem because he is your brother;)

¹⁹If then you have done what is true and upright to Jerubbaal and his family this day, may you have joy in Abimelech, and may he have joy in you;

²⁰But if not, may fire come out from Abimelech, burning up the townsmen of Shechem and Beth-millo; and may fire come out from the townsmen of Shechem and Beth-millo, for the destruction of Abimelech.

²¹Then Jotham straight away went in flight to Beer, and was living there for fear of his brother Abimelech.

²²So Abimelech was chief over Israel for three years.

²³And God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the townsmen of Shechem; and the townsmen of Shechem were false to Abimelech;

²⁴So that punishment for the violent attack made on the seventy sons of Jerubbaal, and for their blood, might come on Abimelech, their brother, who put them to death, and on the townsmen of Shechem who gave him their help in putting his brothers to death.

²⁵And the townsmen of Shechem put secret watchers on the tops of the mountains, and they made attacks on all who went by on the road and took their goods; and word of this came to Abimelech.

²⁶Then Gaal, the son of Ebed, came with his brothers, and went over to Shechem; and the men of Shechem put their faith in him.

²⁷And they went out into their fields and got in the fruit of their vines, and when the grapes had been crushed, they made a holy feast and went into the house of their god, and over their food and drink they were cursing Abimelech.

²⁸And Gaal, the son of Ebed, said, Who is Abimelech and who is Shechem, that we are to be his servants? Is it not right for the son of Jerubbaal and Zebul his captain to be servants to the men of Hamor, the father of Shechem? But why are we to be his servants?

²⁹If only I had authority over this people! I would put Abimelech out of the way, and I would say to Abimelech, Make your army strong, and come out.

³⁰Now Zebul, the ruler of the town, hearing what Gaal, the son of Ebed, had said, was moved to wrath.

³¹And he sent to Abimelech at Arumah, saying, See, Gaal, the son of Ebed, and his brothers have come to Shechem, and they are working up the town against you.

³²So now, get up by night, you and your people, and keep watch in the field secretly;

³³And in the morning, when the sun is up, get up early and make a rush on the town; and when he and his people come out against you, do to them whatever you have a chance to do.

³⁴So Abimelech and the people with him got up by night, in four bands, to make a surprise attack on Shechem.

³⁵And Gaal, the son of Ebed, went out, and took his place at the doorway into the town; then Abimelech and his people got up from the place where they had been waiting.

³⁶And when Gaal saw the people, he said to Zebul, See! people are coming down from the tops of the mountains. And Zebul said to him, You see the shade of the mountains like men.

³⁷And Gaal said again, See! people are coming down from the middle of the land, and one band is coming by way of the oak-tree of the Seers.

³⁸Then Zebul said to him, Now where is your loud talk when you said, Who is Abimelech that we are to be his servants? Is this not the people whom you were rating so low? Go out now, and make war on them.

³⁹So Gaal went out at the head of the townsmen of Shechem and made war on Abimelech.

⁴⁰And Abimelech went after him and he went in flight before him; and a great number were falling by the sword all the way up to the town.

⁴¹Then Abimelech went back to Arumah; and Zebul sent Gaal and his brothers away and would not let them go on living in Shechem.

⁴²Now the day after, the people went out into the fields; and news of it came to Abimelech.

⁴³And he took his people, separating them into three bands, and was waiting secretly in the field; and when he saw the people coming out of the town, he went up and made an attack on them.

⁴⁴And Abimelech with his band made a rush, and took up their position at the doorway into the town; and the other two bands made a rush on all those who were in the fields, and overcame them.

⁴⁵And all that day Abimelech was fighting against the town; and he took it, and put to death the people who were in it, and had the town pulled down and covered with salt.

⁴⁶Then all the townsmen of the tower of Shechem, hearing of it, went into the inner room of the house of El-berith.

⁴⁷And word was given to Abimelech that all the men of the tower of Shechem were there together.

⁴⁸Then Abimelech went up to Mount Zalmon, with all his people; and Abimelech took an axe in his hand and, cutting down branches of trees, took them and put them on his back. And he said to the people who were with him, Be quick and do as you have seen me do.

⁴⁹So all the people got branches, every man cutting down a branch, and they went with Abimelech at their head and, massing the branches against the inner room, put fire to the room over them; so all those who were in the tower of Shechem, about a thousand men and women, were burned to death with it.

⁵⁰Then Abimelech went to Thebez, and put his army in position against Thebez and took it.

⁵¹But in the middle of the town there was a strong tower, to which all the men and women of the town went in flight and, shutting themselves in, went up to the roof of the tower.

⁵²And Abimelech came to the tower and made an attack on it, and got near to the door of the tower for the purpose of firing it.

⁵³But a certain woman sent a great stone, such as is used for crushing grain, on to the head of Abimelech, cracking the bone.

⁵⁴Then quickly crying out to his body-servant, he said to him, Take out your sword and put an end to me straight away, so that men may not say of me, His death was the work of a woman. So the young man put his sword through him, causing his death.

⁵⁵And when the men of Israel saw that Abimelech was dead, they went away, every man to his place.

⁵⁶In this way Abimelech was rewarded by God for the evil he had done to his father in putting his seventy brothers to death;

⁵⁷And God sent back on to the heads of the men of Shechem all the evil they had done, and the curse of Jotham, the son of Jerubbaal, came on them.

10Now after Abimelech, Tola, the son of Puah, the son of Dodo, a man of Issachar, became the saviour of Israel; he was living in Shamir in the hill-country of Ephraim.

²He was judge over Israel for twenty-three years; and at his death his body was put to rest in the earth in Shamir.

³And after him came Jair the Gileadite, who was judge over Israel for twenty-two years.

⁴And he had thirty sons, who went on thirty young asses; and they had thirty towns in the land of Gilead, which are named Havvoth-Jair to this day.

⁵And at the death of Jair his body was put to rest in the earth in Kamon.

⁶And again the children of Israel did evil in the eyes of the Lord, worshipping the Baals and Astartes, and the gods of Aram and the gods of Zidon and the gods of Moab and the gods of the children of Ammon and the gods of the Philistines; they gave up the Lord and were servants to him no longer.

⁷And the wrath of the Lord was burning against Israel, and he gave them up into the hands of the Philistines and into the hands of the children of Ammon.

⁸And that year the children of Israel were crushed under their yoke; for eighteen years all the children of Israel on the other side of Jordan, in the land of the Amorites which is in Gilead, were cruelly crushed down.

⁹And the children of Ammon went over Jordan, to make war against Judah and Benjamin and the house of Ephraim; and Israel was in great trouble.

¹⁰Then the children of Israel, crying out to the Lord, said, Great is our sin against you, for we have given up our God and have been servants to the Baals.

¹¹And the Lord said to the children of Israel, Were not the Egyptians and the Amorites and the children of Ammon and the Philistines

¹²And the Zidonians and Amalek and Midian crushing you down, and in answer to your cry did I not give you salvation from their hands?

¹³But, for all this, you have given me up and have been servants to other gods: so I will be your saviour no longer.

¹⁴Go, send up your cry for help to the gods of your selection; let them be your saviours in the time of your trouble.

¹⁵And the children of Israel said to the Lord, We are sinners; do to us whatever seems good to you: only give us salvation this day.

¹⁶So they put away the strange gods from among them, and became the Lord's servants; and his soul was angry because of the sorrows of Israel.

¹⁷Then the children of Ammon came together and put their army in position in Gilead. And the children of Israel came together and put their army in position in Mizpah.

¹⁸And the people of Israel said to one another, Who will be the first to make an attack on the children of Ammon? We will make him head over all Gilead.

11Now Jephthah the Gileadite was a great man of war; he was the son of a loose woman, and Gilead was his father.

²And Gilead's wife gave birth to sons, and when her sons became men, they sent Jephthah away, saying, You have no part in the heritage of our father's house, for you are the son of another woman.

³So Jephthah went in flight from his brothers and was living in the land of Tob, where a number of good-for-nothing men, joining Jephthah, went out with him on his undertakings.

⁴Now after a time the children of Ammon made war against Israel.

⁵And when the children of Ammon made war against Israel, the responsible men of Gilead went to get Jephthah back from the land of Tob;

⁶And they said to Jephthah, Come and be our chief so that we may make war against the children of Ammon.

⁷But Jephthah said to the responsible men of Gilead, Did you not, in your hate for me, send me away from my father's house? Why do you come to me now when you are in trouble?

⁸And the responsible men of Gilead said to Jephthah, That is the reason we have come back to you; so go with us and make war against the children of Ammon, and we will make you our head over all the people of Gilead.

⁹Then Jephthah said to the responsible men of Gilead, If you take me back to make war against the children of Ammon, and if with the help of the Lord I overcome them, will you make me your head?

¹⁰And the responsible men of Gilead said to Jephthah, May the Lord be our witness: we will certainly do as you say.

¹¹So Jephthah went with the responsible men of Gilead, and the people made him head and chief over them; and Jephthah said all these things before the Lord in Mizpah.

¹²Then Jephthah sent men to the king of the children of Ammon, saying, What have you against me that you have come to make war against my land?

¹³And the king of the children of Ammon said to the men sent by Jephthah, Because Israel, when he came up out of Egypt, took away my land, from the Arnon as far as the Jabbok and as far as Jordan: so now, give me back those lands quietly.

¹⁴And Jephthah sent again to the king of the children of Ammon,

¹⁵And said to him, This is the word of Jephthah: Israel did not take away the land of Moab or the land of the children of Ammon;

¹⁶But when they came up from Egypt, Israel went through the waste land to the Red Sea and came to Kadesh;

¹⁷Then Israel sent men to the king of Edom saying, Let me now go through your land; but the king of Edom did not give ear to them. And in the same way he sent to the king of Moab, but he would not; so Israel went on living in Kadesh.

¹⁸Then he went on through the waste land and round the land of Edom and the land of Moab, and came by the east side of the land of Moab, and put up their tents on the other side of the Arnon; they did not come inside the limit of Moab, for the Arnon was the limit of Moab.

¹⁹And Israel sent men to Sihon, king of the Amorites, the king of Heshbon; and Israel said to him, Let me now go through your land to my place.

²⁰But Sihon would not give way and let Israel go through his land; and Sihon got together all his people, and put his army in position in Jahaz, and made war on Israel.

²¹And the Lord, the God of Israel, gave Sihon and all his people into the hands of Israel, and they overcame them; so all the land of the Amorites, the people of that land, became Israel's.

²²All the limit of the Amorites was theirs, from the Arnon as far as the Jabbok and from the waste land even to Jordan.

²³So now the Lord, the God of Israel, has taken away their land from the Amorites and given it to his people Israel; are you then to have it?

²⁴Do you not keep the lands of those whom Chemosh your god sends out from before you? So we will keep all the lands of those whom the Lord our God sends out from before us.

²⁵What! are you any better than Balak, the son of Zippor, king of Moab? Did he ever take up a cause against Israel or make war against them?

²⁶While Israel was living in Heshbon and its daughter-towns and in Aroer and its daughter-towns and in all the towns which are by the side of the Arnon, for three hundred years, why did you not get them back at that time?

²⁷So I have done no wrong against you, but you are doing wrong to me in fighting against me: may the Lord, who is Judge this day, be judge between the children of Israel and the children of Ammon.

²⁸The king of the children of Ammon, however, did not give ear to the words which Jephthah sent to him.

²⁹Then the spirit of the Lord came on Jephthah, and he went through Gilead and Manasseh, and came to Mizpeh of Gilead; and from Mizpeh of Gilead he went over to the children of Ammon.

³⁰And Jephthah took an oath to the Lord, and said, If you will give the children of Ammon into my hands,

³¹Then whoever comes out from the door of my house, meeting me when I come back in peace from the children of Ammon, will be the Lord's and I will give him as a burned offering.

³²So Jephthah went over to the children of Ammon to make war on them; and the Lord gave them into his hands.

³³And he made an attack on them from Aroer all the way to Minnith, overrunning twenty towns, as far as Abel-cheramim, and put great numbers to the sword. So the children of Ammon were crushed before the children of Israel.

³⁴Then Jephthah came back to his house in Mizpah, and his daughter came out, meeting him on his way with music and with dances; she was his only child; he had no other sons or daughters.

³⁵And when he saw her he was overcome with grief, and said, Ah! my daughter! I am crushed with sorrow, and it is you who are the chief cause of my trouble; for I have made an oath to the Lord and I may not take it back.

³⁶And she said to him, My father, you have made an oath to the Lord; do then to me whatever you have said; for the Lord has sent a full reward on your haters, on the children of Ammon.

³⁷Then she said to her father, Only do this for me: let me have two months to go away into the mountains with my friends, weeping for my sad fate.

³⁸And he said, Go then. So he sent her away for two months; and she went with her friends to the mountains, weeping for her sad fate.

³⁹And at the end of two months she went back to her father, who did with her as he had said in his oath: and she had never been touched by a man. So it became a rule in Israel,

⁴⁰For the women to go year by year sorrowing for the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite, four days in every year.

12Now the men of Ephraim came together and took up arms and went over to Zaphon; and they said to Jephthah, Why did you go over to make war against the children of Ammon without sending for us to go with you? Now we will put your house on fire over you.

²And Jephthah said to them, I and my people were in danger, and the children of Ammon were very cruel to us, and when I sent for you, you gave me no help against them.

³So when I saw that there was no help to be had from you, I put my life in my hand and went over against the children of Ammon, and the Lord gave them into my hands: why then have you come up to me this day to make war on me?

⁴Then Jephthah got together all the men of Gilead and made war on Ephraim; and the men of Gilead overcame Ephraim.

⁵And the Gileadites took the crossing-places of Jordan against the Ephraimites; and when any of the men of Ephraim who had gone in flight said, let me go over; the men of Gilead said to him, Are you an Ephraimite? And if he said, No;

⁶Then they said to him, Now say Shibboleth; and he said Sibboleth, and was not able to say it in the right way; then they took him and put him to death at the crossing-places of Jordan; and at that time forty-two thousand Ephraimites were put to death.

⁷Now Jephthah was judge of Israel for six years. And Jephthah the Gileadite came to his death, and his body was put to rest in his town, Mizpeh of Gilead.

⁸And after him, Ibzan of Beth-lehem was judge of Israel.

⁹He had thirty sons, and thirty daughters whom he sent to other places, and he got thirty wives from other places for his sons. And he was judge of Israel for seven years.

¹⁰And Ibzan came to his death and his body was put to rest at Beth-lehem.

¹¹And after him, Elon the Zebulonite was judge of Israel; and he was judge of Israel for ten years.

¹²And Elon the Zebulonite came to his death, and his body was put to rest in Aijalon in the land of Zebulun.

¹³And after him, Abdon, the son of Hillel, the Pirathonite, was judge of Israel.

¹⁴He had forty sons and thirty sons' sons who went on seventy young asses; and he was judge of Israel for eight years.

¹⁵And Abdon, the son of Hillel, came to his death, and his body was put to rest in Pirathon in the land of Ephraim, in the hill-country of the Amalekites.

13And the children of Israel again did evil in the eyes of the Lord; and the Lord gave them into the hands of the Philistines for forty years.

²Now there was a certain man of Zorah of the family of the Danites, and his name was Manoah; and his wife had never given birth to a child.

³And the angel of the Lord came to the woman, and said to her, See now! though you have never given birth to children, you will be with child and give birth to a son.

⁴Now then take care to have no wine or strong drink and to take no unclean thing for food;

⁵For you are with child and will give birth to a son; his hair is never to be cut, for the child is to be separate to God from his birth; and he will take up the work of freeing Israel from the hands of the Philistines.

⁶Then the woman came in, and said to her husband, A man came to me, and his form was like the form of a god, causing great fear; I put no question to him about where he came from, and he did not give me his name;

⁷But he said to me, You are with child and will give birth to a son; and now do not take any wine or strong drink or let anything unclean be your food; for the child will be separate to God from his birth to the day of his death.

⁸Then Manoah made prayer to the Lord, and said, O Lord, let the man of God whom you sent come to us again and make clear to us what we are to do for the child who is to come.

⁹And God gave ear to the voice of Manoah; and the angel of God came to the woman again when she was seated in the field; but her husband Manoah was not with her.

¹⁰So the woman, running quickly, gave her husband the news, saying, I have seen the man who came to me the other day.

¹¹And Manoah got up and went after his wife, and came up to the man and said to him, Are you the man who was talking to this woman? And he said, I am.

¹²And Manoah said, Now when your words come true, what is to be the rule for the child and what will be his work?

¹³And the angel of the Lord said to Manoah, Let the woman take note of what I have said to her.

¹⁴She is to have nothing which comes from the vine for her food, and let her take no wine or strong drink or anything which is unclean; let her take care to do all I have given her orders to do.

¹⁵And Manoah said to the angel of the Lord, Now let us keep you while we make ready a young goat for you.

¹⁶And the angel of the Lord said to Manoah, Though you keep me I will not take of your food; but if you will make a burned offering, let it be offered to the Lord. For it had not come into Manoah's mind that he was the angel of the Lord.

¹⁷Then Manoah said to the angel of the Lord, What is your name, so that when your words come true we may give you honour?

¹⁸But the angel of the Lord said to him, Why are you questioning me about my name, seeing that it is a wonder?

¹⁹So Manoah took the young goat with its meal offering, offering it on the rock to the Lord, who did strange things.

²⁰And when the flame went up to heaven from the altar, the angel of the Lord went up in the flame of the altar, while Manoah and his wife were looking on; and they went down on their faces to the earth.

²¹But the angel of the Lord was seen no more by Manoah and his wife. Then it was clear to Manoah that he was the angel of the Lord.

²²And Manoah said to his wife, Death will certainly be our fate, for it is a god whom we have seen.

²³But his wife said to him, If the Lord was purposing our death, he would not have taken our burned offering and our meal offering, or have given us such orders about the child.

²⁴So the woman gave birth to a son, and gave him the name Samson; and he became a man and the blessing of the Lord was on him.

²⁵And the spirit of the Lord first came on him in Mahaneh-dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.

14Now Samson went down to Timnah, and saw a woman in Timnah, of the daughters of the Philistines;

²And when he came back he said to his father and mother, I have seen a woman in Timnah, of the daughters of the Philistines: get her now for me for my wife.

³Then his father and mother said to him, Is there no woman among the daughters of your relations or among all my people, that you have to go for your wife to the Philistines, who are without circumcision? But Samson said to his father, Get her for me, for she is pleasing to me.

⁴Now his father and mother had no knowledge that this was the purpose of the Lord, who had the destruction of the Philistines in mind. Now the Philistines at that time were ruling over Israel.

⁵Then Samson went down to Timnah (and his father and his mother,) and came to the vine-gardens of Timnah; and a young lion came rushing out at him.

⁶And the spirit of the Lord came on him with power, and, unarmed as he was, pulling the lion in two as one might do to a young goat, he put him to death; (but he said nothing to his father and mother of what he had done.)

⁷So he went down and had talk with the woman; and she was pleasing to Samson.

⁸Then after a time he went back to take her; and turning from the road to see the dead body of the lion, he saw a mass of bees in the body of the lion, and honey there.

⁹And he took the honey in his hand, and went on, tasting it on the way; and when he came to his father and mother he gave some to them; but did not say that he had taken the honey from the body of the lion.

¹⁰Then Samson went down to the woman, and made a feast there, as was the way among young men.

¹¹And he took thirty friends, and they were with him.

¹²And Samson said, Now I have a hard question for you: if you are able to give me the answer before the seven days of the feast are over, I will give you thirty linen robes and thirty changes of clothing;

¹³But if you are not able to give me the answer, then you will have to give me thirty linen robes and thirty changes of clothing. And they said to him, Put your hard question and let us see what it is.

¹⁴And he said, Out of the taker of food came food, and out of the strong came the sweet. And at the end of three days they were still not able to give the answer.

¹⁵So on the fourth day they said to Samson's wife, Get from your husband the answer to his question by some trick or other, or we will have you and your father's house burned with fire; did you get us here to take all we have?

¹⁶Then Samson's wife, weeping over him, said, Truly you have no love for me but only hate; you have put a hard question to the children of my people and have not given me the answer. And he said to her, See, I have not given the answer even to my father or my mother; am I to give it to you?

¹⁷And all the seven days of the feast she went on weeping over him; and on the seventh day he gave her the answer, because she gave him no peace; and she sent word of it to the children of her people.

¹⁸Then on the seventh day, before he went into the bride's room, the men of the town said to him, What is sweeter than honey? and what is stronger than a lion? And he said to them, If you had not been ploughing with my cow you would not have got the answer to my question.

¹⁹And the spirit of the Lord came rushing on him, and he went down to Ashkelon and, attacking thirty men there, took their clothing from them, and gave it to the men who had given the answer to his hard question. Then, full of wrath, he went back to his father's house.

²⁰But Samson's wife was given to the friend who had been his best man.

15Now a short time after, at the time of the grain-cutting, Samson, taking with him a young goat, went to see his wife; and he said, I will go in to my wife into the bride's room. But her father would not let him go in.

²And her father said, It seemed to me that you had only hate for her; so I gave her to your friend: but is not her younger sister fairer than she? so please take her in place of the other.

³Then Samson said to them, This time I will give payment in full to the Philistines, for I am going to do them great evil.

⁴So Samson went and got three hundred foxes and some sticks of fire-wood; and he put the foxes tail to tail with a stick between every two tails;

⁵Then firing the sticks, he let the foxes loose among the uncut grain of the Philistines, and all the corded stems as well as the living grain and the vine-gardens and the olives went up in flames.

⁶Then the Philistines said, Who has done this? And they said, Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he took his wife and gave her to his friend. So the Philistines came up and had her and her father's house burned.

⁷And Samson said to them, If you go on like this, truly I will take my full payment from you; and that will be the end of it.

⁸And he made an attack on them, driving them in uncontrolled flight, and causing great destruction; then he went away to his safe place in the crack of the rock at Etam.

⁹Then the Philistines went and put up their tents in Judah, all round Lehi.

¹⁰And the men of Judah said, Why have you come up against us? And they said, We have come up to take Samson, and to do to him as he has done to us.

¹¹Then three thousand of the men of Judah went down to the crack of the rock of Etam, and said to Samson, Is it not clear to you that the Philistines are our rulers? What is this you have done to us? And he said to them, I only did to them as they did to me.

¹²Then they said to him, We have come down to take you and give you up into the hands of the Philistines. And Samson said to them, Give me your oath that you will not make an attack on me yourselves.

¹³And they said, No; we will take you and give you up into their hands, but truly we will not put you to death. So knotting two new cords round him they took him up from the rock.

¹⁴And when he came to Lehi, the Philistines came out, meeting him with loud cries; then the spirit of the Lord came rushing on him, and the cords on his arms became like grass which has been burned with fire, and the bands came falling off his hands.

¹⁵And taking up the mouth-bone of an ass newly dead, which he saw by chance on the earth, he put to death a thousand men with it.

¹⁶And Samson said, With a red ass's mouth-bone I have made them red with blood, with a red ass's mouth-bone I have sent destruction on a thousand men.

¹⁷And having said these words, he let the mouth-bone go out of his hand; so that place was named Ramath-lehi.

¹⁸After this, he was in great need of water, and crying out to the Lord, he said, You have given this great salvation by the hand of your servant, and now need of water will be my death; and I will be given into the hands of this people who are without circumcision.

¹⁹Then God made a crack in the hollow rock in Lehi and water came out of it; and after drinking, his spirit came back to him and he was strong again; so that place was named En-hakkore; it is in Lehi to this day.

²⁰And he was judge of Israel in the days of the Philistines for twenty years.

16Now Samson went to Gaza, and there he saw a loose woman and went in to her.

²And it was said to the Gazites, Samson is here. So they went round, watching for him all day at the doorway of the town, but at night they kept quiet, saying, When daylight comes we will put him to death.

³And Samson was there till the middle of the night; then he got up, and took a grip on the doors of the town, pulling them up, together with their two supports and their locks, and put them on his back and took them up to the top of the hill in front of Hebron.

⁴Now after this, he was in love with a woman in the valley of Sorek, named Delilah.

⁵And the chiefs of the Philistines came up to her, and said to her, Make use of your power over him and see what is the secret of his great strength, and how we may get the better of him, and put bands on him, so that we may make him feeble; and every one of us will give you eleven hundred shekels of silver.

⁶So Delilah said to Samson, Make clear to me now what is the secret of your great strength, and how you may be put in bands and made feeble.

⁷And Samson said to her, If seven new bow-cords which have never been made dry are knotted round me, I will become feeble and will be like any other man.

⁸So the chiefs of the Philistines gave her seven new bow-cords which had never been made dry, and she had them tightly knotted round him.

⁹Now she had men waiting secretly in the inner room; and she said to him, The Philistines are on you, Samson. And the cords were broken by him as a twist of thread is broken when touched by a flame. So the secret of his strength did not come to light.

¹⁰Then Delilah said to Samson, See, you have been making sport of me with false words; now, say truly how may you be put in bands?

¹¹And he said to her, If they only put round me new thick cords which have never been used, then I will become feeble and will be like any other man.

¹²So Delilah took new thick cords, knotting them tightly round him, and said to him, The Philistines are on you, Samson. And men were waiting secretly in the inner room. And the cords were broken off his arms like threads.

¹³Then Delilah said to Samson, Up to now you have made sport of me with false words; now say truly, how may you be put in bands? And he said to her, If you get the seven twists of my hair worked into the cloth you are making and fixed with the pin, I will become feeble and will be like any other man.

¹⁴So while he was sleeping she got the seven twists of his hair worked into her cloth and fixed with the pin, and said to him, The Philistines are on you, Samson. Then awaking from his sleep, he got up quickly, pulling up cloth and machine together.

¹⁵And she said to him, Why do you say you are my lover when your heart is not mine? Three times you have made sport of me, and have not made clear to me the secret of your great strength.

¹⁶So day after day she gave him no peace, for ever questioning him till his soul was troubled to death.

¹⁷And opening all his heart to her, he said to her, My head has never been touched by a blade, for I have been separate to God from the day of my birth: if my hair is cut off, then my strength will go from me and I will become feeble, and will be like any other man.

¹⁸And when Delilah saw that he had let her see into his heart, she sent word to the chiefs of the Philistines saying, Come up this time, for he has let out all his heart to me. Then the chiefs of the Philistines came to her, with the money in their hands.

¹⁹And she made him go to sleep on her knees; and she sent for a man and had his seven twists of hair cut off; and while it was being done he became feeble and his strength went from him.

²⁰Then she said, The Philistines are on you, Samson. And awaking from his sleep, he said, I will go out as at other times, shaking myself free. But he was not conscious that the Lord had gone from him.

²¹So the Philistines took him and put out his eyes; then they took him down to Gaza, and, chaining him with bands of brass, put him to work crushing grain in the prison-house.

²²But the growth of his hair was starting again after it had been cut off.

²³And the chiefs of the Philistines came together to make a great offering to Dagon their god, and to be glad; for they said, Our god has given into our hands Samson our hater.

²⁴And when the people saw him, they gave praise to their god; for they said, Our god has given into our hands the one who was fighting against us, who made our country waste, and who put great numbers of us to death.

²⁵Now when their hearts were full of joy, they said, Send for Samson to make sport for us. And they sent for Samson out of the prison-house, and he made sport before them; and they put him between the pillars.

²⁶And Samson said to the boy who took him by the hand, Let me put my hand on the pillars supporting the house, so that I may put my back against them.

²⁷Now the house was full of men and women; and all the lords of the Philistines were there; and about three thousand men and women were on the roof, looking on while Samson made sport.

²⁸And Samson, crying out to the Lord, said, O Lord God, do have me now in mind, and do make me strong only this once, O God, so that I may take one last payment from the Philistines for my two eyes.

²⁹Then Samson put his arms round the two middle pillars supporting the house, putting his weight on them, on one with his right hand and on the other with his left.

³⁰And Samson said, Let death overtake me with the Philistines. And he put out all his strength, and the house came down on the chiefs and on all the people who were in it. So the dead whom he sent to destruction by his death were more than all those on whom he had sent destruction in his life.

³¹Then his brothers and his father's people came down and took him up and put his body to rest in the earth between Zorah and Eshtaol in the resting-place of Manoah his father. And he had been judge of Israel for twenty years.

17Now there was a man of the hill-country of Ephraim named Micah.

²And he said to his mother, The eleven hundred shekels of silver which were taken from you, about which you took an oath and said in my hearing, I have given this silver to the Lord from my hand for myself, to make a pictured image and a metal image: see, I have the silver, for I took it: so now I will give it back to you. And his mother said, May the blessing of the Lord be on my son.

³And he gave back the eleven hundred shekels of silver to his mother, and his mother said, I have made the silver holy to the Lord from me for my son, to make a pictured image and a metal image.

⁴So he gave the silver back to his mother. Then his mother took two hundred shekels of silver and gave them to a metal-worker who made a pictured image and a metal image from them: and it was in the house of Micah.

⁵And the man Micah had a house of gods; and he made an ephod and family gods and put one of his sons in the position of priest.

⁶In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did as seemed right to him.

⁷Now there was a young man living in Beth-lehem-judah, of the family of Judah and a Levite, who was not a townsman of the place.

⁸And he went away from the town of Beth-lehem-judah, looking for somewhere to make his living-place; and on his journey he came to the hill-country of Ephraim, to the house of Micah.

⁹And Micah said to him, Where do you come from? And he said to him, I am a Levite from Beth-lehem-judah, and I am looking for a living-place.

¹⁰Then Micah said to him, Make your living-place with me, and be a father and a priest to me, and I will give you ten shekels of silver a year and your clothing and food.

¹¹And the Levite said he would make his living-place with the man, and he became to him as one of his sons.

¹²And Micah gave the position to the Levite, and the young man became his priest, and was in the house of Micah.

¹³Then Micah said, Now I am certain that the Lord will do me good, seeing that the Levite has become my priest.

18In those days there was no king in Israel, and in those days the Danites were looking for a heritage for themselves, to be their living-place; for up to that time no distribution of land had been made to them among the tribes of Israel.

²So the children of Dan sent five men from among their number, strong men, from Zorah and from Eshtaol, to take a look at the land and make a search through it; and they said to them, Go and make a search through the land; and they came to the hill-country of Ephraim, to the house of Micah, where they made a stop for the night.

³When they were near the house of Micah, hearing a voice which was not strange to them, that of the young Levite, they went out of their road to his place, and said to him, How did you come here? and what are you doing in this place? and why are you here?

⁴And he said to them, This is what Micah did for me, and he gave me payment and I became his priest.

⁵Then they said, Do get directions from God for us, to see if the journey on which we are going will have a good outcome.

⁶And the priest said to them, Go in peace: your way is guided by the Lord.

⁷Then the five men went on their way and came to Laish and saw the people who were there, living without thought of danger, like the Zidonians, quiet and safe; for they had everything on earth for their needs, and they were far from the Zidonians and had no business with Aram.

⁸So they came back to their brothers in Zorah and Eshtaol, and their brothers said to them, What news have you?

⁹And they said, Up! and let us go against Laish; for we have seen the land, and it is very good: why are you doing nothing? Do not be slow to go in and take the land for your heritage.

¹⁰When you come there you will come to a people living without thought of danger; and the land is wide, and God has given it into your hands: a place where there is everything on earth for man's needs.

¹¹So six hundred men of the Danites from Zorah and Eshtaol went out armed with instruments of war.

¹²And they went up and put up their tents in Kiriath-jearim in Judah: so that place is named Mahaneh-dan to this day. It is to the west of Kiriath-jearim.

¹³From there they went on to the hill-country of Ephraim and came to the house of Micah.

¹⁴Then the five men who had gone to make a search through the country of Laish, said to their brothers, Have you knowledge that in these houses there is an ephod and family gods and a pictured image and a metal image? So now you see what to do.

¹⁵And turning from their road they came to the house of the young Levite, the house of Micah, and said to him, Is it well with you?

¹⁶And the six hundred armed men of the Danites took their places by the doorway.

¹⁷Then the five men who had gone to make a search through the land, went in and took the pictured image and the ephod and the family gods and the metal image; and the priest was by the doorway with the six hundred armed men.

¹⁸And when they went into Micah's house and took out the pictured image and the ephod and the family gods and the metal image, the priest said to them, What are you doing?

¹⁹And they said to him, Be quiet; say nothing, and come with us and be our father and priest; is it better for you to be priest to one man's house or to be priest to a tribe and a family in Israel?

²⁰Then the priest's heart was glad, and he took the ephod and the family gods and the pictured image and went with the people.

²¹So they went on their way again, putting the little ones and the oxen and the goods in front of them.

²²When they had gone some way from the house of Micah, the men from the houses near Micah's house came together and overtook the children of Dan,

²³Crying out to them. And the Danites, turning round, said to Micah, What is your trouble, that you have taken up arms?

²⁴And he said, You have taken my gods which I made, and my priest, and have gone away; what is there for me now? Why then do you say to me, What is your trouble?

²⁵And the children of Dan said to him, Say no more, or men of bitter spirit may make an attack on you, causing loss of your life and the lives of your people.

²⁶Then the children of Dan went on their way; and when Micah saw that they were stronger than he, he went back to his house.

²⁷And they took that which Micah had made, and his priest, and came to Laish, to a people living quietly and without thought of danger, and they put them to the sword without mercy, burning down their town.

²⁸And they had no saviour, because it was far from Zidon, and they had no business with Aram; and it was in the valley which is the property of Beth-rehob. And building up the town again they took it for their living-place.

²⁹And they gave the town the name of Dan, after Dan their father, who was the son of Israel: though the town had been named Laish at first.

³⁰(And the children of Dan put up the pictured image for themselves; and Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the son of Moses, and his sons were priests for the tribe of the Danites till the day when the ark was taken prisoner.)

³¹And they put up for themselves the image which Micah had made, and it was there all the time that the house of God was in Shiloh.

19Now in those days, when there was no king in Israel, a certain Levite was living in the inmost parts of the hill-country of Ephraim, and he got for himself a servant-wife from Beth-lehem-judah.

²And his servant-wife was angry with him, and went away from him to her father's house at Beth-lehem-judah, and was there for four months.

³Then her husband got up and went after her, with the purpose of talking kindly to her, and taking her back with him; he had with him his young man and two asses: and she took him into her father's house, and her father, when he saw him, came forward to him with joy.

⁴And his father-in-law, the girl's father, kept him there for three days; and they had food and drink and took their rest there.

⁵Now on the fourth day they got up early in the morning and he made ready to go away; but the girl's father said to his son-in-law, Take a little food to keep up your strength, and then go on your way.

⁶So seating themselves they had food and drink, the two of them together; and the girl's father said to the man, If it is your pleasure, take your rest here tonight, and let your heart be glad.

⁷And the man got up to go away, but his father-in-law would not let him go, so he took his rest there again for the night.

⁸Then early on the morning of the fifth day he got up to go away; but the girl's father said, Keep up your strength; so the two of them had a meal, and the man and his woman and his servant did not go till after the middle of the day.

⁹And when they got up to go away, his father-in-law, the girl's father, said to him, Now evening is coming on, so do not go tonight; see, the day is almost gone; take your rest here and let your heart be glad, and tomorrow early, go on your way back to your house.

¹⁰But the man would not be kept there that night, and he got up and went away and came opposite to Jebus (which is Jerusalem); and he had with him the two asses, ready for travelling, and his woman.

¹¹When they got near Jebus the day was far gone; and the servant said to his master, Now let us go from our road into this town of the Jebusites and take our night's rest there.

¹²But his master said to him, We will not go out of our way into a strange town, whose people are not of the children of Israel; but we will go on to Gibeah.

¹³And he said to his servant, Come, let us go on to one of these places, stopping for the night in Gibeah or Ramah.

¹⁴So they went on their way; and the sun went down when they were near Gibeah in the land of Benjamin.

¹⁵And they went off the road there with the purpose of stopping for the night in Gibeah: and he went in, seating himself in the street of the town, for no one took them into his house for the night.

¹⁶Now when it was evening they saw an old man coming back from his work in the fields; he was from the hill-country of Ephraim and was living in Gibeah: but the men of the place were Benjamites.

¹⁷And when he saw the traveller in the street of the town, the old man said, Where are you going? and where do you come from?

¹⁸And he said to him, We are on our way from Beth-lehem-judah to the inmost parts of the hill-country of Ephraim: I came from there and went to Beth-lehem-judah: now I am on my way back to my house, but no man will take me into his house.

¹⁹But we have dry grass and food for our asses, as well as bread and wine for me, and for the woman, and for the young man with us: we have no need of anything.

²⁰And the old man said, Peace be with you; let all your needs be my care; only do not take your rest in the street.

²¹So he took them into his house and gave the asses food; and after washing their feet they took food and drink.

²²While they were taking their pleasure at the meal, the good-for-nothing men of the town came round the house, giving blows on the door; and they said to the old man, the master of the house, Send out that man who came to your house, so that we may take our pleasure with him.

²³So the man, the master of the house, went out to them, and said, No, my brothers, do not this evil thing; this man has come into my house, and you are not to do him this wrong.

²⁴See, here is my daughter, a virgin, and his servant-wife: I will send them out for you to take them and do with them whatever you will. But do no such thing of shame to this man.

²⁵But the men would not give ear to him: so the man took his woman and sent her out to them; and they took her by force, using her for their pleasure all night till the morning; and when dawn came they let her go.

²⁶Then at the dawn of day the woman came, and, falling down at the door of the man's house where her master was, was stretched there till it was light.

²⁷In the morning her master got up, and opening the door of the house went out to go on his way; and he saw his servant-wife stretched on the earth at the door of the house with her hands on the step.

²⁸And he said to her, Get up and let us be going; but there was no answer; so he took her up and put her on the ass, and went on his way and came to his house.

²⁹And when he had come to his house, he got his knife, and took the woman, cutting her up bone by bone into twelve parts, which he sent through all Israel.

³⁰And he gave orders to the men whom he sent, saying, This is what you are to say to all the men of Israel, Has ever an act like this been done from the day when the children of Israel came out of Egypt to this day? Give thought to it, turning it over in your minds, and give your opinion of it.

20Then all the children of Israel took up arms, and the people came together like one man, from Dan to Beer-sheba, and the land of Gilead, before the Lord at Mizpah.

²And the chiefs of the people, out of all the tribes of Israel, took their places in the meeting of the people of God, four hundred thousand footmen armed with swords.

³(Now the children of Benjamin had word that the children of Israel had gone up to Mizpah.) And the children of Israel said, Make clear how this evil thing took place.

⁴Then the Levite, the husband of the dead woman, said in answer, I came to Gibeah in the land of Benjamin, I and my servant-wife, for the purpose of stopping there for the night.

⁵And the townsmen of Gibeah came together against me, going round the house on all sides by night; it was their purpose to put me to death, and my servant-wife was violently used by them and is dead.

⁶So I took her, cutting her into parts which I sent through all the country of the heritage of Israel: for they have done an act of shame in Israel.

⁷Here you all are, you children of Israel; give now your suggestions about what is to be done.

⁸Then all the people got up as one man and said, Not one of us will go to his tent or go back to his house:

⁹But this is what we will do to Gibeah: we will go up against it by the decision of the Lord;

¹⁰And we will take ten men out of every hundred, through all the tribes of Israel, a hundred out of every thousand, a thousand out of every ten thousand, to get food for the people, so that they may give to Gibeah of Benjamin the right punishment for the act of shame they have done in Israel.

¹¹So all the men of Israel were banded together against the town, united like one man.

¹²And the tribes of Israel sent men through all the tribe of Benjamin saying, What is this evil which has been done among you?

¹³Now give up those good-for-nothing persons in Gibeah so that we may put them to death, clearing away the evil from Israel. But the children of Benjamin would not give ear to the voice of their brothers, the children of Israel.

¹⁴And the children of Benjamin came together from all their towns to Gibeah, to go to war with the children of Israel.

¹⁵And the children of Benjamin who came that day from the towns were twenty-six thousand men armed with swords, in addition to the people of Gibeah, numbering seven hundred of the best fighting-men,

¹⁶Who were left-handed, able to send a stone at a hair without error.

¹⁷And the men of Israel, other than Benjamin, were four hundred thousand in number, all armed with swords; they were all men of war.

¹⁸And they got up and went up to Beth-el to get directions from God, and the children of Israel said, Who is to be the first to go up to the fight against the children of Benjamin? And the Lord said, Judah is to go up first.

¹⁹So the children of Israel got up in the morning and put themselves in position against Gibeah.

²⁰And the men of Israel went out to war against Benjamin (and the men of Israel put their forces in fighting order against them at Gibeah).

²¹Then the children of Benjamin came out from Gibeah, cutting down twenty-two thousand of the Israelites that day.

²²But the people, the men of Israel, taking heart again, put their forces in order and took up the same position as on the first day.

²³Now the children of Israel went up, weeping before the Lord till evening, requesting the Lord and saying, Am I to go forward again to the fight against the children of Benjamin my brother? And the Lord said, Go up against him.

²⁴So the children of Israel went forward against the children of Benjamin the second day.

²⁵And the second day Benjamin went out against them from Gibeah, cutting down eighteen thousand men of the children of Israel, all swordsmen.

²⁶Then all the children of Israel, and all the people, went up to Beth-el, weeping and waiting there before the Lord, going without food all day till evening, and offering burned offerings and peace-offerings before the Lord.

²⁷And the children of Israel made request to the Lord, (for the ark of the agreement of the Lord was there in those days,

²⁸And Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, was in his place before it,) and said, Am I still to go on with the fight against the children of Benjamin my brother, or am I to give it up? And the Lord said, Go on; for tomorrow I will give him into your hands.

²⁹So Israel put men secretly all round Gibeah to make a surprise attack on it.

³⁰And the children of Israel went up against the children of Benjamin on the third day, and put themselves in fighting order against Gibeah as before.

³¹And the children of Benjamin went out against the people, moving away from the town; and as before, at their first attack, they put to death about thirty men of Israel on the highways, of which one goes up to Beth-el and the other to Gibeah, and in the open country.

³²And the children of Benjamin said, They are giving way before us as at first. But the children of Israel said, Let us go in flight and get them away from the town, into the highways.

³³So all the men of Israel got up and put themselves in fighting order at Baal-tamar: and those who had been waiting secretly to make a surprise attack came rushing out of their place on the west of Geba.

³⁴And they came in front of Gibeah, ten thousand of the best men in all Israel, and the fighting became more violent; but the children of Benjamin were not conscious that evil was coming on them.

³⁵Then the Lord sent sudden fear on Benjamin before Israel; and that day the children of Israel put to death twenty-five thousand, one hundred men of Benjamin, all of them swordsmen.

³⁶So the children of Benjamin saw that they were overcome: and the men of Israel had given way before Benjamin, putting their faith in the watchers who were to make the surprise attack on Gibeah.

³⁷And the watchers, rushing on Gibeah and overrunning it, put all the town to the sword without mercy.

³⁸Now the sign fixed between the men of Israel and those making the surprise attack was that when they made a pillar of smoke go up from the town,

³⁹The men of Israel were to make a turn about in the fight. And Benjamin had overcome and put to death about thirty of the men of Israel, and were saying, Certainly they are falling back before us as in the first fight.

⁴⁰Then the sign went up out of the town in the pillar of smoke, and the Benjamites, turning back, saw all the town going up in smoke to heaven.

⁴¹And the men of Israel had made a turn about, and the men of Benjamin were overcome with fear, for they saw that evil had overtaken them.

⁴²So turning their backs on the men of Israel, they went in the direction of the waste land; but the fight overtook them; and those who came out of the town were heading them off and putting them to the sword.

⁴³And crushing Benjamin down, they went after them, driving them from Nohah as far as the east side of Gibeah.

⁴⁴Eighteen thousand men of Benjamin came to their death, all strong men of war.

⁴⁵And turning, they went in flight to the rock of Rimmon in the waste land: and on the highways five thousand of them were cut off by the men of Israel, who, pushing on hard after them to Geba, put to death two thousand more.

⁴⁶So twenty-five thousand of the swordsmen of Benjamin came to their end that day, all strong men of war.

⁴⁷But six hundred men, turning back, went in flight to the rock of Rimmon in the waste land, and were living on the rock of Rimmon for four months.

⁴⁸And the men of Israel, turning again against the children of Benjamin, put to the sword without mercy all the towns and the cattle and everything there was, burning every town which came into their hands.

21Now the men of Israel had taken an oath in Mizpah, saying, Not one of us will give his daughter as a wife to Benjamin.

²And the people came to Beth-el, waiting there till evening before God, and gave themselves up to bitter weeping.

³And they said, O Lord, the God of Israel, why has this fate come on Israel, that today one tribe has been cut off from Israel?

⁴Then on the day after, the people got up early and made an altar there, offering burned offerings and peace-offerings.

⁵And the children of Israel said, Who is there among all the tribes of Israel, who did not come up to the Lord at the meeting of all Israel? For they had taken a great oath that whoever did not come up to Mizpah to the Lord was to be put to death.

⁶And the children of Israel were moved with pity for Benjamin their brother, saying, Today one tribe has been cut off from Israel.

⁷What are we to do about wives for those who are still living? For we have taken an oath by the Lord that we will not give them our daughters for wives.

⁸And they said, Which one of the tribes of Israel did not come up to Mizpah to the Lord? And it was seen that no one had come from Jabesh-gilead to the meeting.

⁹For when the people were numbered, not one man of the people of Jabesh-gilead was present.

¹⁰So they (the meeting) sent twelve thousand of the best fighting-men, and gave them orders, saying, Go and put the people of Jabesh-gilead to the sword without mercy, with their women and their little ones.

¹¹And this is what you are to do: every male, and every woman who has had sex relations with a man, you are to put to the curse, but you are to keep safe the virgins. And they did so.

¹²Now there were among the people of Jabesh-gilead four hundred young virgins who had never had sex relations with a man; these they took to their tents in Shiloh in the land of Canaan.

¹³And all the meeting sent to the men of Benjamin who were in the rock of Rimmon, offering them peace.

¹⁴Then Benjamin came back; and they gave them the women whom they had kept from death among the women of Jabesh-gilead: but still there were not enough for them.

¹⁵And the people were moved with pity for Benjamin, because the Lord had let his wrath loose on the tribes of Israel.

¹⁶Then the responsible men of the meeting said, What are we to do about wives for the rest of them, seeing that the women of Benjamin are dead?

¹⁷And they said, How is the rest of Benjamin to be given offspring so that one tribe of Israel may not be put out of existence,

¹⁸Seeing that we may not give them our daughters as wives? For the children of Israel had taken an oath, saying, Cursed is he who gives a wife to Benjamin.

¹⁹And they said, See, every year there is a feast of the Lord in Shiloh, which is to the north of Beth-el, on the east side of the highway which goes up from Beth-el to Shechem, and on the south of Lebonah.

²⁰And they said to the men of Benjamin, Go into the vine-gardens, waiting there secretly,

²¹And watching; and if the daughters of Shiloh come out to take part in the dances, then come from the vine-gardens and take a wife for every one of you from among the daughters of Shiloh, and go back to the land of Benjamin.

²²And when their fathers or their brothers come and make trouble, you are to say to them, Give them to us as an act of grace; for we did not take them as wives for ourselves in war; and if you yourselves had given them to us you would have been responsible for the broken oath.

²³So the men of Benjamin did this, and got wives for themselves for every one of their number, taking them away by force from the dance; then they went back to their heritage, building up their towns and living in them.

²⁴Then the children of Israel went away from there, every man to his tribe and his family, every man went back to his heritage.

²⁵In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did what seemed right to him.

1Now there was a certain man of Ramathaim, a Zuphite of the hill-country of Ephraim, named Elkanah; he was the son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephraimite:

²And he had two wives, one named Hannah and the other Peninnah: and Peninnah was the mother of children, but Hannah had no children.

³Now this man went up from his town every year to give worship and to make offerings to the Lord of armies in Shiloh. And the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, the priests of the Lord, were there.

⁴And when the day came for Elkanah to make his offering, he gave to Peninnah his wife, and to all her sons and daughters, their part of the feast:

⁵But to Hannah he gave one part, though Hannah was very dear to him, but the Lord had not let her have children.

⁶And the other wife did everything possible to make her unhappy, because the Lord had not let her have children;

⁷And year by year, whenever she went up to the house of the Lord, she kept on attacking her, so that Hannah gave herself up to weeping and would take no food.

⁸Then her husband Elkanah said to her, Hannah, why are you weeping? and why are you taking no food? why is your heart troubled? am I not more to you than ten sons?

⁹So after they had taken food and wine in the guest room, Hannah got up. Now Eli the priest was seated by the pillars of the doorway of the Temple of the Lord.

¹⁰And with grief in her soul, weeping bitterly, she made her prayer to the Lord.

¹¹And she made an oath, and said, O Lord of armies, if you will truly take note of the sorrow of your servant, not turning away from me but keeping me in mind, and will give me a man-child, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and his hair will never be cut.

¹²Now while she was a long time in prayer before the Lord, Eli was watching her mouth.

¹³For Hannah's prayer came from her heart, and though her lips were moving she made no sound: so it seemed to Eli that she was overcome with wine.

¹⁴And Eli said to her, How long are you going to be the worse for drink? Put away the effects of your wine from you.

¹⁵And Hannah, answering him, said, No, my lord, I am a woman whose spirit is broken with sorrow: I have not taken wine or strong drink, but I have been opening my heart before the Lord.

¹⁶Do not take your servant to be a good-for-nothing woman: for my words have come from my stored-up sorrow and pain.

¹⁷Then Eli said to her, Go in peace: and may the God of Israel give you an answer to the prayer you have made to him.

¹⁸And she said, May your servant have grace in your eyes. So the woman went away, and took part in the feast, and her face was no longer sad.

¹⁹And early in the morning they got up, and after worshipping before the Lord they went back to Ramah, to their house: and Elkanah had connection with his wife; and the Lord kept her in mind.

²⁰Now the time came when Hannah, being with child, gave birth to a son; and she gave him the name Samuel, Because, she said, I made a prayer to the Lord for him.

²¹And the man Elkanah with all his family went up to make the year's offering to the Lord, and to give effect to his oath.

²²But Hannah did not go, for she said to her husband, I will not go till the child has been taken from the breast, and then I will take him with me and put him before the Lord, where he may be for ever.

²³And her husband Elkanah said to her, Do whatever seems right to you, but not till you have taken him from the breast; only may the Lord do as he has said. So the woman, waiting there, gave her son milk till he was old enough to be taken from the breast.

²⁴Then when she had done so, she took him with her, with a three-year old ox and an ephah of meal and a skin full of wine, and took him to the house of the Lord at Shiloh: now the child was still very young.

²⁵And when they had made an offering of the ox, they took the child to Eli.

²⁶And she said, O my lord, as your soul is living, my lord, I am that woman who was making a prayer to the Lord here by your side:

²⁷My prayer was for this child; and the Lord has given him to me in answer to my request:

²⁸So I have given him to the Lord; for all his life he is the Lord's. Then he gave the Lord worship there.

2And Hannah, in prayer before the Lord, said, My heart is glad in the Lord, my horn is lifted up in the Lord: my mouth is open wide over my haters; because my joy is in your salvation.

²No other is holy as the Lord, for there is no other God but you: there is no Rock like our God.

³Say no more words of pride; let not uncontrolled sayings come out of your mouths: for the Lord is a God of knowledge, by him acts are judged.

⁴The bows of the men of war are broken, and the feeble are clothed with strength.

⁵Those who were full are offering themselves as servants for bread; those who were in need are at rest; truly, she who had no children has become the mother of seven; and she who had a family is wasted with sorrow.

⁶The Lord is the giver of death and life: sending men down to the underworld and lifting them up.

⁷The Lord gives wealth and takes a man's goods from him: crushing men down and again lifting them up;

⁸Lifting the poor out of the dust, and him who is in need out of the lowest place, to give them their place among rulers, and for their heritage the seat of glory: for the pillars of the earth are the Lord's and he has made them the base of the world.

⁹He will keep the feet of his holy ones, but the evil-doers will come to their end in the dark night, for by strength no man will overcome.

¹⁰Those who make war against the Lord will be broken; against them he will send his thunder from heaven: the Lord will be judge of the ends of the earth, he will give strength to his king, lifting up the horn of him on whom the holy oil has been put.

¹¹Then Elkanah went to Ramah to his house. And the child became the servant of the Lord under the direction of Eli the priest.

¹²Now the sons of Eli were evil and good-for-nothing men, having no knowledge of the Lord.

¹³And the priests' way with the people was this: when any man made an offering, the priest's servant came while the flesh was being cooked, having in his hand a meat-hook with three teeth;

¹⁴This he put into the pot, and everything which came up on the hook the priest took for himself. This they did in Shiloh to all the Israelites who came there.

¹⁵And more than this, before the fat was burned, the priest's servant would come and say to the man who was making the offering, Give me some of the flesh to be cooked for the priest; he has no taste for meat cooked in water, but would have you give it uncooked.

¹⁶And if the man said to him, First let the fat be burned, then take as much as you will; then the servant would say, No, you are to give it to me now, or I will take it by force.

¹⁷And the sin of these young men was very great before the Lord; for they gave no honour to the Lord's offerings.

¹⁸But Samuel did the work of the Lord's house, while he was a child, dressed in a linen ephod.

¹⁹And his mother made him a little robe and took it to him every year when she came with her husband for the year's offering.

²⁰And every year Eli gave Elkanah and his wife a blessing, saying, May the Lord give you offspring by this woman in exchange for the child you have given to the Lord. And they went back to their house.

²¹And the Lord had mercy on Hannah and she gave birth to three sons and two daughters. And the young Samuel became older before the Lord.

²²Now Eli was very old; and he had news from time to time of what his sons were doing to all Israel.

²³And he said to them, Why are you doing such things? for from all this people I get accounts of your evil ways.

²⁴No, my sons, the account which is given me, which the Lord's people are sending about, is not good.

²⁵If one man does wrong to another, God will be his judge: but if a man's sin is against the Lord, who will take up his cause? But they gave no attention to the voice of their father, for it was the Lord's purpose to send destruction on them.

²⁶And the young Samuel, becoming older, had the approval of the Lord and of men.

²⁷And a man of God came to Eli and said to him, The Lord says, Did I let myself be seen by your father's people when they were in Egypt, servants in Pharaoh's house?

²⁸Did I take him out of all the tribes of Israel to be my priest and to go up to my altar to make the smoke of the offerings go up and to take up the ephod? Did I give to your father's family all the offerings made by fire by the children of Israel?

²⁹Why then are you looking with envy on my offerings of meat and of meal which were ordered by my word, honouring your sons before me, and making yourselves fat with all the best of the offerings of Israel, my people?

³⁰For this reason the Lord God of Israel has said, Truly I did say that your family and your father's people would have their place before me for ever: but now the Lord says, Let it not be so; I will give honour to those by whom I am honoured, and those who have no respect for me will be of small value in my eyes.

³¹See, the days are coming when your arm and the arm of your father's people will be cut off;

³²And never again will there be an old man in your family.

³³But one man of your family will not be cut off by my hand, and his eyes will be made dark, and grief will be in his heart: and all the offspring of your family will come to their end by the sword of men.

³⁴And this will be the sign to you, which will come on Hophni and Phinehas, your sons; death will overtake them on the same day.

³⁵And I will make a true priest for myself, one who will do what is in my heart and in my mind: and I will make for him a family which will not come to an end; and his place will be before my holy one for ever.

³⁶Then it will be that the rest of your family, anyone who has not been cut off, will go down on his knees to him for a bit of silver or a bit of bread, and say, Be pleased to put me into one of the priest's places so that I may have a little food.

3Now the young Samuel was the servant of the Lord before Eli. In those days the Lord kept his word secret from men; there was no open vision.

²And at that time, when Eli was resting in his place, (now his eyes were becoming clouded so that he was not able to see,)

³And the light of God was still burning, while Samuel was sleeping in the Temple of the Lord where the ark of God was,

⁴The voice of the Lord said Samuel's name; and he said, Here am I.

⁵And running to Eli he said, Here am I, for you said my name. And Eli said, I did not say your name; go to your rest again. So he went back to his bed.

⁶And again the Lord said, Samuel. And Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, Here am I; for you certainly said my name. But he said in answer, I said nothing, my son; go to your rest again.

⁷Now at that time Samuel had no knowledge of the Lord, and the revelation of the word of the Lord had not come to him.

⁸And for the third time the Lord said Samuel's name. And he got up and went to Eli and said, Here am I; for you certainly said my name. Then it was clear to Eli that the voice which had said the child's name was the Lord's.

⁹So Eli said to Samuel, Go back: and if the voice comes again, let your answer be, Say on, Lord; for the ears of your servant are open. So Samuel went back to his bed.

¹⁰Then the Lord came and said as before, Samuel, Samuel. Then Samuel made answer, Say on, Lord; for the ears of your servant are open.

¹¹And the Lord said to Samuel, See, I will do a thing in Israel at which the ears of everyone hearing of it will be burning.

¹²In that day I will do to Eli everything which I have said about his family, from first to last.

¹³And you are to say to him that I will send punishment on his family for ever, for the sin which he had knowledge of; because his sons have been cursing God and he had no control over them.

¹⁴So I have made an oath to the family of Eli that no offering of meat or of meal which they may make will ever take away the sin of his family.

¹⁵And Samuel kept where he was, not moving till the time came for opening the doors of the house of God in the morning. And fear kept him from giving Eli an account of his vision.

¹⁶Then Eli said, Samuel, my son. And Samuel answering said, Here am I.

¹⁷And he said, What did the Lord say to you? Do not keep it from me: may God's punishment be on you if you keep from me anything he said to you.

¹⁸Then Samuel gave him an account of everything, keeping nothing back. And he said, It is the Lord; let him do what seems good to him.

¹⁹And Samuel became older, and the Lord was with him and let not one of his words be without effect.

²⁰And it was clear to all Israel from Dan to Beer-sheba that Samuel had been made a prophet of the Lord.

²¹And the Lord was seen again in Shiloh; for the Lord gave to Samuel in Shiloh the revelation of his word.

4Now at that time the Philistines came together to make war against Israel, and the men of Israel went out to war against the Philistines and took up their position at the side of Eben-ezer: and the Philistines put their forces in position in Aphek.

²And the Philistines put their forces in order against Israel, and the fighting was hard, and Israel was overcome by the Philistines, who put to the sword about four thousand of their army in the field.

³And when the people came back to their tents, the responsible men of Israel said, Why has the Lord let the Philistines overcome us today? Let us get the ark of the Lord's agreement here from Shiloh, so that it may be with us and give us salvation from the hands of those who are against us.

⁴So the people sent to Shiloh and got the ark of the agreement of the Lord of armies whose resting-place is between the winged ones; and Hophni and Phinehas, the two sons of Eli, were there with the ark of God's agreement.

⁵And when the ark of the Lord's agreement came into the tent-circle, all Israel gave a great cry, so that the earth was sounding with it.

⁶And the Philistines, hearing the noise of their cry, said, What is this great cry among the tents of the Hebrews? Then it became clear to them that the ark of the Lord had come to the tent-circle.

⁷And the Philistines, full of fear, said, God has come into their tents. And they said, Trouble is ours! for never before has such a thing been seen.

⁸Trouble is ours! Who will give us salvation from the hands of these great gods? These are the gods who sent all sorts of blows on the Egyptians in the waste land.

⁹Be strong, O Philistines, be men! Do not be servants to the Hebrews as they have been to you: go forward to the fight without fear.

¹⁰So the Philistines went to the fight, and Israel was overcome, and every man went in flight to his tent: and great was the destruction, for thirty thousand footmen of Israel were put to the sword.

¹¹And the ark of God was taken; and Hophni and Phinehas, the sons of Eli, were put to the sword.

¹²And a man of Benjamin went running from the fight and came to Shiloh the same day with his clothing out of order and earth on his head.

¹³And when he came, Eli was seated by the wayside watching: and in his heart was fear for the ark of God. And when the man came into the town and gave the news, there was a great outcry.

¹⁴And Eli, hearing the noise and the cries, said, What is the reason of this outcry? And the man came quickly and gave the news to Eli.

¹⁵Now Eli was ninety-eight years old, and his eyes were fixed so that he was not able to see.

¹⁶And the man said to Eli, I have come from the army and have come in flight today from the fight. And he said, How did it go, my son?

¹⁷And the man said, Israel went in flight from the Philistines, and there has been great destruction among the people, and your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead, and the ark of God has been taken.

¹⁸And at these words about the ark of God, Eli, falling back off his seat by the side of the doorway into the town, came down on the earth so that his neck was broken and death overtook him, for he was an old man and of great weight. He had been judging Israel for forty years.

¹⁹And his daughter-in-law, the wife of Phinehas, was with child and near the time when she would give birth; and when she had the news that the ark of God had been taken and that her father-in-law and her husband were dead, her pains came on her suddenly and she gave birth.

²⁰And when she was very near death the women who were with her said, Have no fear, for you have given birth to a son. But she made no answer and gave no attention to it.

²¹And she gave the child the name of Ichabod, saying, The glory has gone from Israel: because the ark of God was taken and because of her father-in-law and her husband.

²²And she said, The glory is gone from Israel, for the ark of God has been taken.

5Now the Philistines, having taken the ark of God, took it with them from Eben-ezer to Ashdod.

²They took the ark of God into the house of Dagon and put it by the side of Dagon.

³And when the people of Ashdod got up early on the morning after, they saw that Dagon had come down to the earth on his face before the ark of the Lord. And they took Dagon up and put him in his place again.

⁴And when they got up early on the morning after, Dagon had come down to the earth on his face before the ark of the Lord; and his head and his hands were broken off on the doorstep; only the base was in its place.

⁵So to this day no priest of Dagon, or any who come into Dagon's house, will put his foot on the doorstep of the house of Dagon in Ashdod.

⁶But the hand of the Lord was hard on the people of Ashdod and he sent disease on them through all the country of Ashdod.

⁷And when the men of Ashdod saw how it was, they said, Let not the ark of the God of Israel be with us, for his hand is hard on us and on Dagon our god.

⁸So they sent for all the lords of the Philistines to come together there, and said, What are we to do with the ark of the God of Israel? And their answer was, Let the ark of the God of Israel be taken away to Gath. So they took the ark of the God of Israel away.

⁹But after they had taken it away, the hand of the Lord was stretched out against the town for its destruction: and the signs of disease came out on all the men of the town, small and great.

¹⁰So they sent the ark of God to Ekron. And when the ark of God came to Ekron, the people of the town made an outcry, saying, They have sent the ark of the God of Israel to us for the destruction of us and of our people.

¹¹So they sent and got together all the lords of the Philistines, and they said, Send away the ark of the God of Israel, and let it go back to its place, so that it may not be the cause of death to us and to our people: for there was a great fear of death through all the town; the hand of God was very hard on them there.

¹²And those men who were not overtaken by death were cruelly diseased: and the cry of the town went up to heaven.

6Now the ark of the Lord was in the country of the Philistines for seven months.

²And the Philistines sent for the priests and those who were wise in secret arts, and said to them, What are we to do with the ark of the Lord? How are we to send it away to its place?

³And they said, If you send away the ark of the God of Israel, do not send it without an offering, but send him a sin-offering with it: then you will have peace again, and it will be clear to you why the weight of his hand has not been lifted from you.

⁴Then they said, What sin-offering are we to send to him? And they said, Five gold images of the growths caused by your disease and five gold mice, one for every lord of the Philistines: for the same disease came on you and on your lords.

⁵So make images of the growths caused by your disease and of the mice which are damaging your land; and give glory to the God of Israel: it may be that the weight of his hand will be lifted from you and from your gods and from your land.

⁶Why do you make your hearts hard, like the hearts of Pharaoh and the Egyptians? When he had made sport of them, did they not let the people go, and they went away?

⁷So now, take and make ready a new cart, and two cows which have never come under the yoke, and have the cows yoked to the cart, and take their young ones away from them:

⁸And put the ark of the Lord on the cart, and the gold images which you are sending as a sin-offering in a chest by its side; and send it away so that it may go.

⁹If it goes by the land of Israel to Beth-shemesh, then this great evil is his work; but if not, then we may be certain that the evil was not his doing, but was the working of chance.

¹⁰And the men did so; they took two cows, yoking them to the cart and shutting up their young ones in their living-place:

¹¹And they put the ark of the Lord on the cart and the chest with the gold images.

¹²And the cows took the straight way, by the road to Beth-shemesh; they went by the highway, not turning to the right or to the left, and the sound of their voices was clear on the road; and the lords of the Philistines went after them as far as the edge of Beth-shemesh.

¹³And the people of Beth-shemesh were cutting their grain in the valley, and lifting up their eyes they saw the ark and were full of joy when they saw it.

¹⁴And the cart came into the field of Joshua the Beth-shemite, and came to a stop there by a great stone: and cutting up the wood of the cart they made a burned offering of the cows to the Lord.

¹⁵Then the Levites took down the ark of the Lord and the chest in which were the gold images, and put them on the great stone: and the men of Beth-shemesh made burned offerings and gave worship that day before the Lord.

¹⁶And the five lords of the Philistines, having seen it, went back to Ekron the same day.

¹⁷Now these are the gold images which the Philistines sent as a sin-offering to the Lord; one for Ashdod, one for Gaza, one for Ashkelon, one for Gath, one for Ekron;

¹⁸And the gold mice, one for every town of the Philistines, the property of the five lords, walled towns as well as country places: and the great stone where they put the ark of the Lord is still in the field of Joshua the Beth-shemite to this day.

¹⁹But the Lord sent destruction on seventy men of the people of Beth-shemesh for looking into the ark of the Lord; and great was the sorrow of the people for the destruction which the Lord had sent on them.

²⁰And the men of Beth-shemesh said, Who is able to keep his place before the Lord, this holy God? and to whom may he go from us?

²¹And they sent men to the people living in Kiriath-jearim, saying, The Philistines have sent back the ark of the Lord; come and take it up to your country.

7So the men of Kiriath-jearim came and took the ark of the Lord to the house of Abinadab in Gibeah, and they made his son Eleazar holy and put the ark in his care.

²And the ark was in Kiriath-jearim for a long time, as much as twenty years: and all Israel was searching after the Lord with weeping.

³Then Samuel said to all Israel, If with all your hearts you would come back to the Lord, then put away all the strange gods and the Astartes from among you, and let your hearts be turned to the Lord, and be servants to him only: and he will make you safe from the hands of the Philistines.

⁴So the children of Israel gave up the worship of Baal and Astarte, and became worshippers of the Lord only.

⁵Then Samuel said, Let all Israel come to Mizpah and I will make prayer to the Lord for you.

⁶So they came together to Mizpah, and got water, draining it out before the Lord, and they took no food that day, and they said, We have done evil against the Lord. And Samuel was judge of the children of Israel in Mizpah.

⁷Now when the Philistines had news that the children of Israel had come together at Mizpah, the lords of the Philistines went up against Israel. And the children of Israel, hearing of it, were full of fear.

⁸And the children of Israel said to Samuel, Go on crying to the Lord our God for us to make us safe from the hands of the Philistines.

⁹And Samuel took a young lamb, offering all of it as a burned offering to the Lord; and Samuel made prayers to the Lord for Israel and the Lord gave him an answer.

¹⁰And while Samuel was offering the burned offering, the Philistines came near for the attack on Israel; but at the thunder of the Lord's voice that day the Philistines were overcome with fear, and they gave way before Israel.

¹¹And the men of Israel went out from Mizpah and went after the Philistines, attacking them till they came under Beth-car.

¹²Then Samuel took a stone and put it up between Mizpah and Jeshanah, naming it Eben-ezer, and saying, Up to now the Lord has been our help.

¹³So the Philistines were overcome, and did not come into the country of Israel again: and all the days of Samuel the hand of the Lord was against the Philistines.

¹⁴And the towns which the Philistines had taken were given back to Israel, from Ekron to Gath, and all the country round them Israel made free from the power of the Philistines. And there was peace between Israel and the Amorites.

¹⁵And Samuel was judge of Israel all the days of his life.

¹⁶From year to year he went in turn to Beth-el and Gilgal and Mizpah, judging Israel in all those places.

¹⁷And his base was at Ramah, where his house was; there he was judge of Israel and there he made an altar to the Lord.

8Now when Samuel was old, he made his sons judges over Israel.

²The name of his first son was Joel and the name of his second Abijah: they were judges in Beer-sheba.

³And his sons did not go in his ways, but moved by the love of money took rewards, and were not upright in judging.

⁴Then all the responsible men of Israel got together and went to Samuel at Ramah,

⁵And said to him, See now, you are old, and your sons do not go in your ways: give us a king now to be our judge, so that we may be like the other nations.

⁶But Samuel was not pleased when they said to him, Give us a king to be our judge. And Samuel made prayer to the Lord.

⁷And the Lord said to Samuel, Give ear to the voice of the people and what they say to you: they have not been turned away from you, but they have been turned away from me, not desiring me to be king over them.

⁸As they have done from the first, from the day when I took them out of Egypt till this day, turning away from me and worshipping other gods, so now they are acting in the same way to you.

⁹Give ear now to their voice: but make a serious protest to them, and give them a picture of the sort of king who will be their ruler.

¹⁰And Samuel said all these words of the Lord to the people who were desiring a king.

¹¹And he said, This is the sort of king who will be your ruler: he will take your sons and make them his servants, his horsemen, and drivers of his war-carriages, and they will go running before his war-carriages;

¹²And he will make them captains of thousands and of fifties; some he will put to work ploughing and cutting his grain and making his instruments of war and building his war-carriages.

¹³Your daughters he will take to be makers of perfumes and cooks and bread-makers.

¹⁴He will take your fields and your vine-gardens and your olive-gardens, all the best of them, and give them to his servants.

¹⁵He will take a tenth of your seed and of the fruit of your vines and give it to his servants.

¹⁶He will take your men-servants and your servant-girls, and the best of your oxen and your asses and put them to his work.

¹⁷He will take a tenth of your sheep: and you will be his servants.

¹⁸Then you will be crying out because of your king whom you have taken for yourselves; but the Lord will not give you an answer in that day.

¹⁹But the people gave no attention to the voice of Samuel; and they said, No, but we will have a king over us,

²⁰So that we may be like the other nations, and so that our king may be our judge and go out before us to war.

²¹Then Samuel, after hearing all the people had to say, went and gave an account of it to the Lord.

²²And the Lord said to Samuel, Give ear to their voice and make a king for them. Then Samuel said to the men of Israel, Let every man go back to his town.

9Now there was a man of Benjamin named Kish, the son of Abiel, the son of Zeror, the son of Becorath, the son of Aphiah, a Benjamite, a man of wealth.

²He had a son named Saul, a specially good-looking young man; there was no one better-looking among the children of Israel: he was taller by a head than any other of the people.

³Now the asses of Saul's father Kish had gone wandering away. And Kish said to his son Saul, Take one of the servants with you, and get up and go in search of the asses.

⁴So they went through the hill-country of Ephraim and through the land of Shalishah, but they saw no sign of them: then they went through the land of Shaalim, but they were not there: and they went through the land of the Benjamites, but they did not come across them.

⁵And when they had come to the land of Zuph, Saul said to the servant who was with him, Come, let us go back, or my father may give up caring about the asses and be troubled about us.

⁶But the servant said to him, See now, in this town there is a man of God, who is highly honoured, and everything he says comes true: let us go there now; it may be that he will give us directions about our journey.

⁷Then Saul said to his servant, But if we go, what are we to take the man? all our bread is gone, and we have no offering to take to the man of God: what are we to do?

⁸But the servant said in answer, I have here a fourth part of a shekel of silver: I will give that to the man of God, and he will give us directions about our way.

⁹(In the past in Israel, when a man went to get directions from God, he said, Come let us go to the Seer, for he who now is named Prophet was in those days given the name of Seer.)

¹⁰Then Saul said to his servant, You have said well; come, let us go. So they went to the town where the man of God was.

¹¹And when they were on the way up to the town, they saw some young girls going out to get water and said to them, Is the seer here?

¹²And they said, He is; in fact he is before you: go quickly now, for he has come into the town today, for the people are making an offering in the high place today:

¹³When you come into the town you will see him straight away, before he goes up to the high place for the feast: the people are waiting for his blessing before starting the feast, and after that the guests will take part in it. So go up now and you will see him.

¹⁴So they went up to the town, and when they came inside the town, Samuel came face to face with them on his way to the high place.

¹⁵Now the day before Saul came, the word of God had come to Samuel, saying,

¹⁶Tomorrow about this time I will send you a man from the land of Benjamin, and on him you are to put the holy oil, making him ruler over my people Israel, and he will make my people safe from the hands of the Philistines: for I have seen the sorrow of my people, whose cry has come up to me.

¹⁷And when Samuel saw Saul, the Lord said to him, This is the man of whom I gave you word! he it is who is to have authority over my people.

¹⁸Then Saul came up to Samuel in the doorway of the town and said, Give me directions, if you will be so good, to the house of the seer.

¹⁹Then Samuel said to Saul, I am the seer; go up before me to the high place and take food with me today: and in the morning I will let you go, after opening to you all the secrets of your heart.

²⁰As for your asses which have been wandering for three days, give no thought to them, for they have come back. And for whom are all the desired things in Israel? are they not for you and your father's family?

²¹And Saul said, Am I not a man of Benjamin, the smallest of all the tribes of Israel? and my family the least of the families of Benjamin? why then do you say these words to me?

²²Then Samuel took Saul and his servant into the guest room, and made them take the chief place among all the guests who were there, about thirty persons.

²³And Samuel said to the cook, Give me that part which I gave you orders to keep by you.

²⁴And the cook took up the leg with the fat tail on it, and put it before Saul. And Samuel said, This is the part which has been kept for you: take it as your part of the feast; because it has been kept for you till the right time came and till the guests were present. So that day Saul took food with Samuel.

²⁵And when they had come down from the high place into the town, where a bed was made ready for Saul, he went to rest.

²⁶And about dawn Samuel said to Saul on the roof, Get up so that I may send you away. So Saul got up, and he and Samuel went out together.

²⁷And on their way down to the end of the town, Samuel said to Saul, Give your servant orders to go on in front of us, (so he went on,) but you keep here, so that I may give you the word of God.

10Then Samuel took the bottle of oil, and put the oil on his head and gave him a kiss and said, Is not the Lord with the holy oil making you ruler over Israel, his people? and you will have authority over the people of the Lord, and you will make them safe from the hands of their attackers round about them, and this will be the sign for you:

²When you have gone away from me today, you will see two men by the resting-place of Rachel's body, in the land of Benjamin at Zelzah; and they will say to you, The asses which you went in search of have come back, and now your father, caring no longer for the asses, is troubled about you, saying, What am I to do about my son?

³Then you are to go on from there, and when you come to the oak-tree of Tabor, you will see three men going up to God to Beth-el, one having with him three young goats and another three cakes of bread and another a skin full of wine:

⁴They will say, Peace be with you, and will give you two cakes of bread, which you are to take from them.

⁵After that you will come to Gibeah, the hill of God, where an armed force of the Philistines is stationed: and when you come to the town, you will see a band of prophets coming down from the high place with instruments of music before them; and they will be acting like prophets:

⁶And the spirit of the Lord will come on you with power, and you will be acting like a prophet with them, and will be changed into another man.

⁷And when these signs come to you, see that you take the chance which is offered you; for God is with you.

⁸Then you are to go down before me to Gilgal, where I will come to you, for the offering of burned offerings and peace-offerings: go on waiting there for seven days till I come to you and make clear to you what you have to do.

⁹And it came about, that when he went away from Samuel, God gave him a changed heart: and all those signs took place that day.

¹⁰And when they came to Gibeah, a band of prophets came face to face with him; and the spirit of God came on him with power and he took his place among them as a prophet.

¹¹Now when Saul's old friends saw him among the band of prophets, the people said to one another, What has come to Saul, the son of Kish? Is even Saul among the prophets?

¹²And one of the people of that place said in answer, And who is their father? So it became a common saying, Is even Saul among the prophets?

¹³Then going away from the prophets, he came to the house.

¹⁴And Saul's father's brother said to him and his servant, Where have you been? And he said, Searching for the asses: and when we saw no sign of them, we came to Samuel.

¹⁵Then he said, And what did Samuel say to you?

¹⁶And Saul, answering him, said, He gave us word that the asses had come back. But he said nothing to him of Samuel's words about the kingdom.

¹⁷Then Samuel sent for the people to come together before the Lord at Mizpah;

¹⁸And he said to the children of Israel, The Lord, the God of Israel, has said, I took Israel out of Egypt, and made you free from the hands of the Egyptians and from all the kingdoms which kept you down:

¹⁹But today you are turned away from your God, who himself has been your saviour from all your troubles and sorrows; and you have said to him, Put a king over us. So now, take your places before the Lord by your tribes and by your thousands.

²⁰So Samuel made all the tribes of Israel come near, and the tribe of Benjamin was taken.

²¹Then he made the tribe of Benjamin come near by families, and the family of the Matrites was taken: and from them, Saul, the son of Kish, was taken: but when they went in search of him he was nowhere to be seen.

²²So they put another question to the Lord, Is the man present here? And the answer of the Lord was, He is keeping himself from view among the goods.

²³So they went quickly and made him come out; and when he took his place among the people, he was taller by a head than any of the people.

²⁴And Samuel said to all the people, Do you see the man of the Lord's selection, how there is no other like him among all the people? And all the people with loud cries said, Long life to the king!

²⁵Then Samuel gave the people the laws of the kingdom, writing them in a book which he put in a safe place before the Lord. And Samuel sent all the people away, every man to his house.

²⁶And Saul went to Gibeah, to his house; and with him went the men of war whose hearts had been touched by God.

²⁷But certain good-for-nothing persons said, How is this man to be our saviour? And having no respect for him, they gave him no offering.

11Then about a month after this, Nahash the Ammonite came up and put his forces in position for attacking Jabesh-gilead: and all the men of Jabesh said to Nahash, Make an agreement with us and we will be your servants.

²And Nahash the Ammonite said to them, I will make an agreement with you on this condition, that all your right eyes are put out; so that I may make it a cause of shame to all Israel.

³Then the responsible men of Jabesh said to him, Give us seven days, so that we may send men to every part of Israel: and then, if no one comes to our help, we will come out to you.

⁴So they sent representatives to Saul's town Gibeah, and these gave the news to the people: and all the people gave themselves to weeping.

⁵Now Saul came from the field, driving the oxen before him; and he said, Why are the people weeping? And they gave him word of what the men of Jabesh had said.

⁶And at their words, the spirit of God came on Saul with power, and he became very angry.

⁷And he took two oxen and, cutting them up, sent them through all the land of Israel by the hand of runners, saying, If any man does not come out after Saul and Samuel, this will be done to his oxen. And the fear of the Lord came on the people and they came out like one man.

⁸And he had them numbered in Bezek: the children of Israel were three hundred thousand, and the men of Judah thirty thousand.

⁹Then he said to the representatives who had come, Say to the men of Jabesh-gilead, Tomorrow, by the time the sun is high, you will be made safe. And the representatives came and gave the news to the men of Jabesh; and they were glad.

¹⁰So the men of Jabesh said, Tomorrow we will come out to you, and you may do to us whatever seems good to you.

¹¹Now on the day after, Saul put the people into three bands, and in the morning watch they came to the tents of the Ammonites, and they went on attacking them till the heat of the day: and those who were not put to death were put to flight in every direction, so that no two of them were together.

¹²And the people said to Samuel, Who was it who said, Is Saul to be our king? give the men up, so that we may put them to death.

¹³And Saul said, Not a man is to be put to death today: for today the Lord has made Israel safe.

¹⁴Then Samuel said to the people, Come, let us go to Gilgal and there make the kingdom strong in the hands of Saul.

¹⁵So all the people went to Gilgal; and there in Gilgal they made Saul king before the Lord; and peace-offerings were offered before the Lord; and there Saul and all the men of Israel were glad with great joy.

12And Samuel said to all Israel, You see that I have given ear to everything you said to me, and have made a king over you.

²And now, see, the king is before you: and I am old and grey-headed, and my sons are with you: I have been living before your eyes from my early days till now.

³Here I am: give witness against me before the Lord and before the man on whom he has put the holy oil: whose ox or ass have I taken? to whom have I been untrue? who has been crushed down by me? from whose hand have I taken a price for the blinding of my eyes? I will give it all back to you.

⁴And they said, You have never been untrue to us or cruel to us; you have taken nothing from any man.

⁵Then he said, The Lord is witness against you, and the man on whom he has put the holy oil is witness this day that you have seen no wrong in me. And they said, He is witness.

⁶And Samuel said to the people, The Lord is witness, who gave authority to Moses and Aaron, and who took your fathers up out of the land of Egypt.

⁷Keep your places now, while I take up the argument with you before the Lord, and give you the story of the righteousness of the Lord, which he has made clear by his acts to you and to your fathers.

⁸When Jacob and his sons had come into Egypt, and were crushed by the Egyptians, the prayers of your fathers came up to the Lord, and the Lord sent Moses and Aaron, who took your fathers out of Egypt, and he put them into this place.

⁹But they were false to the Lord their God, and he gave them up into the hands of Sisera, captain of the army of Jabin, king of Hazor, and into the hands of the Philistines, and into the hands of the king of Moab, who made war against them.

¹⁰Then crying out to the Lord, they said, We have done evil, because we have been turned away from the Lord, worshipping the Baals and the Astartes: but now, make us safe from those who are against us and we will be your servants.

¹¹So the Lord sent Jerubbaal and Barak and Jephthah and Samuel and took you out of the power of those who were fighting against you on every side, and made you safe.

¹²And when you saw that Nahash, the king of the Ammonites, was coming against you, you said to me, No more of this; we will have a king for our ruler: when the Lord your God was your king.

¹³Here, then, is the king marked out by you: the Lord has put a king over you.

¹⁴If in the fear of the Lord you are his servants, hearing his voice and not going against the orders of the Lord, but being true to the Lord your God, you and the king ruling over you, then all will be well:

¹⁵But if you do not give ear to the voice of the Lord, but go against his orders, then the hand of the Lord will be against you and against your king for your destruction, as it was against your fathers.

¹⁶Now keep where you are and see this great thing which the Lord will do before your eyes.

¹⁷Is it not now the time of the grain cutting? My cry will go up to the Lord and he will send thunder and rain: so that you may see and be conscious of your great sin which you have done in the eyes of the Lord in desiring a king for yourselves.

¹⁸So Samuel made prayer to the Lord; and the Lord sent thunder and rain that day: and all the people were in fear of the Lord and of Samuel.

¹⁹And all the people said to Samuel, Make prayer for us to the Lord your God so that death may not overtake us: for in addition to all our sins we have done this evil, in desiring a king.

²⁰Then Samuel said to the people, Have no fear: truly you have done evil, but do not be turned away from the Lord; be his servants with all your heart;

²¹And do not go from the right way turning to those false gods in which there is no profit and no salvation, for they are false.

²²For the Lord will not give his people up, because of the honour of his name; for it was the Lord's pleasure to make of you a people for himself.

²³And as for me, never will I go against the orders of the Lord by giving up my prayers for you: but I will go on teaching you the good and right way.

²⁴Only go in the fear of the Lord, and be his true servants with all your heart, keeping in mind what great things he has done for you.

²⁵But if you still do evil, destruction will overtake you and your king.

13***

²And Saul took for himself three thousand men of Israel, of whom he kept two thousand with him in Michmash and in the mountain of Beth-el, and a thousand were with Jonathan in Gibeah in the land of Benjamin: the rest of the people he sent back to their tents.

³And Jonathan made an attack on the armed force of the Philistines stationed at Gibeah; and news was given to the Philistines that the Hebrews were turned against them. And Saul had a horn sounded through all the land,

⁴And all Israel had the news that Saul had made an attack on the Philistines, and that Israel was bitterly hated by the Philistines. And the people came together after Saul to Gilgal.

⁵And the Philistines came together to make war on Israel, three thousand war-carriages and six thousand horsemen and an army of people like the sands of the sea in number: they came up and took up their position in Michmash, to the east of Beth-aven.

⁶When the men of Israel saw the danger they were in, (for the people were troubled,) they took cover in cracks in the hillsides and in the woods and in rocks and holes and hollows.

⁷And a great number of the people had gone over Jordan to the land of Gad and Gilead; but Saul was still in Gilgal, and all the people went after him shaking in fear.

⁸And he went on waiting there for seven days, the time fixed by Samuel: but Samuel did not come to Gilgal; and the people were starting to go away from him.

⁹Then Saul said, Come here and give me the burned offering and the peace-offerings. And he made a burned offering to the Lord.

¹⁰And when the burned offering was ended, Samuel came; and Saul went out to see him and to give him a blessing.

¹¹And Samuel said, What have you done? And Saul said, Because I saw that the people were going away from me, and you had not come at the time which had been fixed, and the Philistines had come together at Michmash;

¹²I said, Now the Philistines will come down on me at Gilgal, and I have made no prayer for help to the Lord: and so, forcing myself to do it, I made a burned offering.

¹³And Samuel said to Saul, You have done a foolish thing: you have not kept the rules which the Lord your God gave you; it was the purpose of the Lord to make your authority over Israel safe for ever.

¹⁴But now, your authority will not go on: the Lord, searching for a man who is pleasing to him in every way, has given him the place of ruler over his people, because you have not done what the Lord gave you orders to do.

¹⁵Then Samuel went up from Gilgal and the rest of the people went up after Saul against the men of war, and they came from Gilgal to Gibeah in the land of Benjamin: and Saul took the number of the people who were with him, about six hundred men.

¹⁶And Saul, with Jonathan his son and the people who were with them, was waiting in Geba in the land of Benjamin: but the tents of the Philistines were in Michmash.

¹⁷And three bands of men came out from the Philistines to make an attack; one band went by the road which goes to Ophrah, into the land of Shual:

¹⁸And another went in the direction of Beth-horon: and another went by the hill looking down on the valley of Zeboiim, in the direction of the waste land.

¹⁹Now there was no iron-worker in all the land of Israel: for the Philistines said, For fear the Hebrews make themselves swords or spears:

²⁰But all the Israelites had to go to the Philistines to get their ploughs and blades and axes and hooks made sharp;

²¹For they had instruments for putting an edge on their ploughs and blades and forks and axes, and for putting iron points on their ox-driving rods.

²²So on the day of the fight at Michmash, not a sword or a spear was to be seen in the hands of any of the people with Saul and Jonathan: only Saul and his son Jonathan had them.

²³And the armed force of the Philistines went out to the narrow way of Michmash.

14Now one day Jonathan, the son of Saul, said to the young man who was with him, looking after his arms, Come, let us go over to the Philistine force over there. But he said nothing to his father.

²And Saul was still waiting in the farthest part of Geba, under the fruit-tree in Migron: there were about six hundred men with him;

³And Ahijah, the son of Ahitub, brother of Ichabod, the son of Phinehas, the son of Eli, the priest of the Lord in Shiloh, who had the ephod. And the people had no idea that Jonathan had gone.

⁴Now between the narrow roads over the mountains by which Jonathan was making his way to the Philistines' forces, there was a sharp overhanging rock on one side, and a sharp rock on the other side: one was named Bozez and the other Seneh.

⁵The one rock went up on the north in front of Michmash and the other on the south in front of Geba.

⁶And Jonathan said to his young servant who had his arms, Come, let us go over to the armies of these men who have no circumcision: it may be that the Lord will give us help, for there is no limit to his power; the Lord is able to give salvation by a great army or by a small band.

⁷And his servant said to him, Do whatever is in your mind: see, I am with you in every impulse of your heart.

⁸Then Jonathan said, Now we will go over to these men and let them see us.

⁹If they say to us, Keep quiet where you are till we come to you; then we will keep our places and not go up to them.

¹⁰But if they say, Come up to us; then we will go up, for the Lord has given them into our hands: and this will be the sign to us.

¹¹And they let the Philistine force see the two of them: and the Philistines said, Look! the Hebrews are coming out of the holes where they have taken cover.

¹²And the armed men of the force gave Jonathan and his servant their answer, saying, Come up here to us, and we will let you see something. Then Jonathan said to his servant, Come up after me: for the Lord has given them up into the hands of Israel.

¹³And Jonathan went up, gripping with his hands and his feet, his servant going up after him; and the Philistines gave way before Jonathan when he made an attack on them, and his servant put them to death after him.

¹⁴And at their first attack, Jonathan and his servant put to the sword about twenty men, all inside the space of half an acre of land.

¹⁵And there was great fear in the tents and in the field and among all the men of the armed force, and the attackers were shaking with fear; even the earth was moved with a great shaking and there was a fear as from God.

¹⁶And the watchmen of Saul, looking out from Geba in the land of Benjamin, saw all the army flowing away and running here and there.

¹⁷Then Saul said to the people who were with him, Let everyone be numbered and let us see who has gone from us. And when they had been numbered, it was seen that Jonathan and his servant were not there.

¹⁸And Saul said to Ahijah, Let the ephod come here. For he went before Israel with the ephod at that time.

¹⁹Now while Saul was talking to the priest, the noise in the tents of the Philistines became louder and louder; and Saul said to the priest, Take back your hand.

²⁰And Saul and all the people with him came together and went forward to the fight: and every man's sword was turned against the man at his side, and there was a very great noise.

²¹Then the Hebrews who had been with the Philistines for some time, and had gone up with them to their tents, turning round were joined to those who were with Saul and Jonathan.

²²And all the men of Israel who had taken cover in the hill-country of Ephraim, hearing that the Philistines had been put to flight, went after them, attacking them.

²³So the Lord made Israel safe that day: and the fight went over to Beth-aven.

²⁴And all the people were with Saul, about twenty thousand men, and the fight was general through all the hill-country of Ephraim; but Saul made a great error that day, by putting the people under an oath, saying, Let that man be cursed who takes food before evening comes and I have given punishment to those who are against me. So the people had not a taste of food.

²⁵And there was honey on the face of the field, and all the people came to the honey, the bees having gone from it;

²⁶But not a man put his hand to his mouth for fear of the curse.

²⁷But Jonathan, having no knowledge of the oath his father had put on the people, stretching out the rod which was in his hand, put the end of it in the honey, and put it to his mouth; then his eyes were made bright.

²⁸Then one of the people said to him, Your father put the people under an oath, saying, Let that man be cursed who takes any food this day. And the people were feeble, needing food.

²⁹Then Jonathan said, My father has made trouble come on the land: now see how bright my eyes have become because I have taken a little of this honey.

³⁰How much more if the people had freely taken their food from the goods of those who were fighting against them! would there not have been much greater destruction among the Philistines?

³¹That day they overcame the Philistines from Michmash to Aijalon: and the people were feeble from need of food.

³²And rushing at the goods taken in the fight, the people took oxen and sheep and young oxen, and put them to death there on the earth, and had a meal, taking the flesh with the blood in it.

³³Then it was said to Saul, See, the people are sinning against the Lord, taking the blood with the flesh. And he said to those who gave him the news, Now let a great stone be rolled to me here.

³⁴And Saul said, Go about among the people and say to them, Let every man come here to me with his ox and his sheep, and put them to death here, and take his meal: do no sin against the Lord by taking the blood with the flesh. So all the people took their oxen with them that night and put them to death there.

³⁵And Saul put up an altar to the Lord: this was the first altar which he put up to the Lord.

³⁶And Saul said, Let us go down after the Philistines by night, attacking them till the morning, till there is not a man of them living. And they said, Do whatever seems right to you. Then the priest said, Let us come near to God.

³⁷And Saul, desiring directions from God, said, Am I to go down after the Philistines? will you give them up into the hands of Israel? But he gave him no answer that day.

³⁸And Saul said, Come near, all you chiefs of the people, and let us get word from God and see in whom is this sin today.

³⁹For, by the living Lord, the saviour of Israel, even if the sinner is Jonathan, my son, death will certainly be his fate. But not a man among all the people gave him any answer.

⁴⁰Then he said to all Israel, You be on one side, and I with Jonathan my son will be on the other side. And the people said to Saul, Do whatever seems good to you.

⁴¹Then Saul said to the Lord, the God of Israel, Why have you not given me an answer today? If the sin is in me or in Jonathan my son, O Lord God of Israel, give Urim, and if it is in your people Israel, give Thummim. And by the decision of the Lord, Saul and Jonathan were marked out, and the people went free.

⁴²And Saul said, Give your decision between my son Jonathan and me. And Jonathan was taken.

⁴³Then Saul said to Jonathan, Give me an account of what you have done. And Jonathan gave him the story and said, Certainly I took a little honey on the end of my rod; and now death is to be my fate.

⁴⁴And Saul said, May God's punishment be on me if death is not your fate, Jonathan.

⁴⁵And the people said to Saul, Is death to come to Jonathan, the worker of this great salvation for Israel? Let it not be so: by the living Lord, not one hair of his head is to be touched, for he has been working with God today. So the people kept Jonathan from death.

⁴⁶Then Saul, turning back, went after the Philistines no longer: and the Philistines went back to their place.

⁴⁷Now when Saul had taken his place as ruler of Israel, he made war on those who were against him on every side, Moab and the Ammonites and Edom and the kings of Zobah and the Philistines: and whichever way he went, he overcame them.

⁴⁸And he did great things, and overcame the Amalekites, and made Israel safe from the hands of their attackers.

⁴⁹Now the sons of Saul were Jonathan and Ishvi and Malchi-shua; and these are the names of his daughters: the older was named Merab and the younger Michal;

⁵⁰The name of Saul's wife was Ahinoam, the daughter of Ahimaaz; the captain of his army was Abner, the son of Ner, brother of Saul's father.

⁵¹Kish, the father of Saul, and Ner, the father of Abner, were sons of Abiel.

⁵²All through the life of Saul there was bitter war against the Philistines; and whenever Saul saw any strong man or any good fighting man, he kept him near himself.

15And Samuel said to Saul, The Lord sent me to put the holy oil on you and to make you king over his people, over Israel: so give ear now to the words of the Lord.

²The Lord of armies says, I will give punishment to Amalek for what he did to Israel, fighting against him on the way when Israel came out of Egypt.

³Go now and put Amalek to the sword, putting to the curse all they have, without mercy: put to death every man and woman, every child and baby at the breast, every ox and sheep, camel and ass.

⁴And Saul sent for the people and had them numbered in Telaim, two hundred thousand footmen and ten thousand men of Judah.

⁵And Saul came to the town of Amalek, and took up his position in the valley secretly.

⁶And Saul said to the Kenites, Go away, take yourselves out from among the Amalekites, or destruction will overtake you with them: for you were kind to the children of Israel when they came out of Egypt. So the Kenites went away from among the Amalekites.

⁷And Saul made an attack on the Amalekites from Havilah on the road to Shur, which is before Egypt.

⁸He took Agag, king of the Amalekites, prisoner, and put all the people to the sword without mercy.

⁹But Saul and the people did not put Agag to death, and they kept the best of the sheep and the oxen and the fat beasts and the lambs, and whatever was good, not desiring to put them to the curse: but everything which was bad and of no use they put to the curse.

¹⁰Then the Lord said to Samuel,

¹¹It is no longer my pleasure for Saul to be king; for he is turned back from going in my ways, and has not done my orders. And Samuel was very sad, crying to the Lord in prayer all night.

¹²And early in the morning he got up and went to Saul; and word was given to Samuel that Saul had come to Carmel and put up a pillar, and had gone from there down to Gilgal.

¹³And Samuel came to Saul; and Saul said to him, May the blessing of the Lord be with you: I have done what was ordered by the Lord.

¹⁴And Samuel said, What then is this sound of the crying of sheep and the noise of oxen which comes to my ears?

¹⁵And Saul said, They have taken them from the Amalekites: for the people have kept the best of the sheep and of the oxen as an offering to the Lord your God; all the rest we have given up to destruction.

¹⁶Then Samuel said to Saul, Say no more! Let me give you word of what the Lord has said to me this night. And he said to him, Say on.

¹⁷And Samuel said, Though you may seem little to yourself, are you not head of the tribes of Israel? for the Lord with the holy oil made you king over Israel,

¹⁸And the Lord sent you on a journey and said, Go and put to the curse those sinners, the Amalekites, fighting against them till every one is dead.

¹⁹Why then did you not do the orders of the Lord, but by violently taking their goods did evil in the eyes of the Lord?

²⁰And Saul said, Truly, I have done the orders of the Lord and have gone the way the Lord sent me; I have taken Agag, the king of Amalek, and have given the Amalekites up to destruction.

²¹But the people took some of their goods, sheep and oxen, the chief of the things which were put to the curse, to make an offering of them to the Lord your God in Gilgal.

²²And Samuel said, Has the Lord as much delight in offerings and burned offerings as in the doing of his orders? Truly, to do his pleasure is better than to make offerings, and to give ear to him than the fat of sheep.

²³For to go against his orders is like the sin of those who make use of secret arts, and pride is like giving worship to images. Because you have put away from you the word of the Lord, he has put you from your place as king.

²⁴And Saul said to Samuel, Great is my sin: for I have gone against the orders of the Lord and against your words: because, fearing the people, I did what they said.

²⁵So now, let my sin have forgiveness, and go back with me to give worship to the Lord.

²⁶And Samuel said to Saul, I will not go back with you: for you have put away from you the word of the Lord, and the Lord has put you from your place as king over Israel.

²⁷And when Samuel was turning round to go away, Saul took the skirt of his robe in his hand, and the cloth came away.

²⁸And Samuel said to him, The Lord has taken away the kingdom of Israel from you this day by force, and has given it to a neighbour of yours who is better than you.

²⁹And further, the Glory of Israel will not say what is false, and his purpose may not be changed: for he is not a man, whose purpose may be changed.

³⁰Then he said, Great is my sin: but still, give me honour now before the heads of my people and before Israel, and come back with me so that I may give worship to the Lord your God.

³¹So Samuel went back after Saul, and Saul gave worship to the Lord.

³²Then Samuel said, Make Agag, the king of the Amalekites, come here to me. And Agag came to him shaking with fear. And Agag said, Truly the pain of death is past.

³³And Samuel said, As your sword has made women without children, so now your mother will be without children among women. And Agag was cut up by Samuel, bone from bone, before the Lord in Gilgal.

³⁴Then Samuel went to Ramah; and Saul went up to his house in Gibeah, in the land of Saul.

³⁵And Samuel never saw Saul again till the day of his death; but Samuel was sorrowing for Saul: and it was no longer the Lord's pleasure for Saul to be king over Israel.

16And the Lord said to Samuel, How long will you go on sorrowing for Saul, seeing that I have put him from his place as king over Israel? Take oil in your vessel and go; I will send you to Jesse, the Beth-lehemite: for I have got a king for myself among his sons.

²And Samuel said, How is it possible for me to go? If Saul gets news of it he will put me to death. And the Lord said, Take a young cow with you and say, I have come to make an offering to the Lord.

³And send for Jesse to be present at the offering, and I will make clear to you what you are to do: and you are to put the holy oil on him whose name I give you.

⁴And Samuel did as the Lord said and came to Beth-lehem. And the responsible men of the town came out to him in fear and said, Do you come in peace?

⁵And he said, In peace: I have come to make an offering to the Lord: make yourselves clean and come with me to make the offering. And he made Jesse and his sons clean, and sent for them to be present at the offering.

⁶Now when they came, looking at Eliab, he said, Clearly the man of the Lord's selection is before him.

⁷But the Lord said to Samuel, Do not take note of his face or how tall he is, because I will not have him: for the Lord's view is not man's; man takes note of the outer form, but the Lord sees the heart.

⁸Then Jesse sent for Abinadab and made him come before Samuel. And he said, The Lord has not taken this one.

⁹Then Jesse made Shammah come before him. And he said, The Lord has not taken this one.

¹⁰And Jesse made his seven sons come before Samuel. And Samuel said to Jesse, The Lord has not taken any of these.

¹¹Then Samuel said to Jesse, Are all your children here? And he said, There is still the youngest, and he is looking after the sheep. And Samuel said to Jesse, Send and make him come here: for we will not take our seats till he is here.

¹²So he sent and made him come in. Now he had red hair and beautiful eyes and pleasing looks. And the Lord said, Come, put the oil on him, for this is he.

¹³Then Samuel took the bottle of oil, and put the oil on him there among his brothers: and from that day the spirit of the Lord came on David with power. So Samuel went back to Ramah.

¹⁴Now the spirit of the Lord had gone from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord was troubling him.

¹⁵And Saul's servants said to him, See now, an evil spirit from God is troubling you.

¹⁶Now give orders to your servants who are here before you to go in search of a man who is an expert player on a corded instrument: and it will be that when the evil spirit from God is on you, he will make music for you on his instrument, and you will get well.

¹⁷And Saul said to his servants, Then get me a man who is an expert player, and make him come to me.

¹⁸Then one of the servants in answer said, I have seen a son of Jesse, the Beth-lehemite, who is expert at playing, and a strong man and a man of war; and he is wise in his words, and pleasing in looks, and the Lord is with him.

¹⁹So Saul sent his servants to Jesse and said, Send me your son David who is with the sheep.

²⁰And Jesse took five cakes of bread and a skin of wine and a young goat and sent them to Saul by David.

²¹And David came to Saul, waiting before him: and he became very dear to Saul, who made him his servant, giving him the care of his arms.

²²And Saul sent to Jesse saying, Let David be with me, for he is pleasing to me.

²³And whenever the evil spirit from God came on Saul, David took his instrument and made music: so new life came to Saul, and he got well, and the evil spirit went away from him.

17Now the Philistines got their armies together for war, and came together at Socoh in the land of Judah, and took up their position between Socoh and Azekah in Ephes-dammim.

²And Saul and the men of Israel came together and took up their position in the valley of Elah, and put their forces in order against the Philistines.

³The Philistines were stationed on the mountain on one side and Israel on the mountain on the other side: and there was a valley between them.

⁴And a fighter came out from the tents of the Philistines, named Goliath of Gath; he was more than six cubits tall.

⁵And he had a head-dress of brass on his head, and he was dressed in a coat of metal, the weight of which was five thousand shekels of brass.

⁶His legs were covered with plates of brass and hanging on his back was a javelin of brass.

⁷The stem of his spear was as long as a cloth-worker's rod, and its head was made of six hundred shekels' weight of iron: and one went before him with his body-cover.

⁸He took up his position and in a loud voice said to the armies of Israel, Why have you come out to make war? Am I not a Philistine and you servants of Saul? Send out a man for yourselves and let him come down to me.

⁹If he is able to have a fight with me and overcome me, then we will be your servants: but if I am able to overcome him, then you will be our servants and do work for us.

¹⁰And the Philistine said, I have put to shame the armies of Israel this day; give me a man so that we may have a fight together.

¹¹And Saul and all Israel, hearing those words of the Philistine, were troubled and full of fear.

¹²Now David was the son of that Ephrathite of Beth-lehem-judah named Jesse, who had eight sons; and he was an old man in Saul's day, and far on in years.

¹³And the three oldest sons of Jesse had gone with Saul to the fight: the names of the three who went to the fight were Eliab, the oldest, and Abinadab the second, and Shammah the third.

¹⁴And David was the youngest: and the three oldest were with Saul's army.

¹⁵Now David went to and from Saul, looking after his father's sheep at Beth-lehem.

¹⁶And the Philistine came near every morning and evening for forty days.

¹⁷And Jesse said to his son David, Take now for your brothers an ephah of this dry grain and these ten cakes of bread, and go quickly with them to the tents to your brothers;

¹⁸And take these ten cheeses to the captain of their thousand, and see how your brothers are and come back with a sign to say how they are.

¹⁹Now Saul, and they, and all the men of Israel were in the valley of Elah, fighting with the Philistines.

²⁰And David got up early in the morning, and, giving the sheep into the care of a keeper, took the things and went as Jesse had said; and he came to the lines where the carts were, when the army was going out to the fight giving their war-cry.

²¹And Israel and the Philistines had put their forces in position, army against army.

²²And David gave his parcels into the hands of the keeper of the army stores, and went running to the army and came to his brothers to get knowledge about them.

²³And while he was talking to them, the fighter, the Philistine of Gath, Goliath by name, came out from the Philistines' lines and said the same words, in David's hearing.

²⁴And all the men of Israel, when they saw him, went in flight, overcome with fear.

²⁵And the men of Israel said, Have you seen this man? Clearly he has come out to put shame on Israel: and it is certain that if any man overcomes him, the king will give that man great wealth, and will give him his daughter, and make his father's family free in Israel.

²⁶And David said to the men near him, What will be done to the man who overcomes this Philistine and takes away the shame from Israel? for who is this Philistine, a man without circumcision, that he has put shame on the armies of the living God?

²⁷And the people gave him this answer, So it will be done to the man who overcomes him.

²⁸And Eliab, his oldest brother, hearing what David said to the men, was moved to wrath against David, and said, Why have you come here? Into whose care have you given that little flock of sheep in the waste land? I have knowledge of your pride and the evil of your heart, you have come down to see the fight.

²⁹And David said, What have I done now? was it not only a word?

³⁰And turning away from him to one of the other men, he said the same words: and the people gave him the same answer.

³¹And, hearing what David said, they gave Saul word of it: and he sent for him.

³²And David said to Saul, Let no man's heart become feeble because of him; I, your servant, will go out and have a fight with this Philistine.

³³And Saul said to David, You are not able to go out against this Philistine and have a fight with him: for you are only a boy, and he has been a man of war from his earliest days.

³⁴And David said to Saul, Your servant has been keeper of his father's sheep; and if a lion or a bear came and took a lamb from the flock,

³⁵I went out after him, and overcame him, and took it out of his mouth: and if, turning on me, he came at me, I took him by the hair and overcame him and put him to death.

³⁶Your servant has overcome lion and bear: and the fate of this Philistine, who is without circumcision, will be like theirs, seeing that he has put shame on the armies of the living God.

³⁷And David said, The Lord, who kept me safe from the grip of the lion and the bear, will be my saviour from the hands of this Philistine. And Saul said to David, Go! and may the Lord be with you.

³⁸Then Saul gave David his clothing of war, and put a head-dress of brass on his head and had him clothed with a coat of metal.

³⁹And David took Saul's sword and put the band round him over the metal coat, and was unable to go forward; for he was not used to them. Then David said to Saul, It is not possible for me to go out with these, for I am not used to them. So David took them off.

⁴⁰Then he took his stick in his hand, and got five smooth stones from the bed of the stream and put them in a bag such as is used by sheep-keepers; and in his hand was a leather band used for sending stones: and so he went in the direction of the Philistine.

⁴¹And the Philistine came nearer to David; and the man who had his body-cover went before him.

⁴²And when the Philistine, taking note, saw David, he had a poor opinion of him: for he was only a boy, red-haired and good-looking.

⁴³And the Philistine said to David, Am I a dog, that you come out to me with sticks? And the Philistine put curses on David by all his gods.

⁴⁴And the Philistine said to David, Come here to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field.

⁴⁵Then David said to the Philistine, You come to me with a sword and a spear and a javelin: but I come to you in the name of the Lord of armies, the God of the armies of Israel on which you have put shame.

⁴⁶This day the Lord will give you up into my hands, and I will overcome you, and take your head off you; and I will give the bodies of the Philistine army to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth today, so that all the earth may see that Israel has a God;

⁴⁷And all these people who are here today may see that the Lord does not give salvation by sword and spear: for the fight is the Lord's, and he will give you up into our hands.

⁴⁸Now when the Philistine made a move and came near to David, David quickly went at a run in the direction of the army, meeting the Philistine face to face.

⁴⁹And David put his hand in his bag and took out a stone and sent it from his leather band straight at the Philistine, and the stone went deep into his brow, and he went down to the earth, falling on his face.

⁵⁰So David overcame the Philistine with his leather band and a stone, wounding the Philistine and causing his death: but David had no sword in his hand.

⁵¹So running up to the Philistine and putting his foot on him, David took his sword out of its cover, and put him to death, cutting off his head with it. And when the Philistines saw that their fighter was dead, they went in flight.

⁵²And the men of Israel and of Judah got up, and gave a cry, and went after the Philistines as far as Gath and the town doors of Ekron. And the wounded of the Philistines were falling down by the road from Shaaraim all the way to Gath and Ekron.

⁵³Then the children of Israel came back from going after the Philistines, and took their goods from the tents.

⁵⁴And David took the head of the Philistine to Jerusalem, but the metal war-dress and the arms he put in his tent.

⁵⁵And when Saul saw David going out against the Philistine, he said to Abner, the captain of the army, Abner, whose son is this young man? And Abner said, On your life, O king, I have no idea.

⁵⁶And the king said, Make search and see whose son this young man is.

⁵⁷And when David was coming back after the destruction of the Philistine, Abner took him to Saul, with the head of the Philistine in his hand.

⁵⁸And Saul said to him, Young man, whose son are you? And David in answer said, I am the son of your servant Jesse of Beth-lehem.

18Now after David's talk with Saul was ended, the soul of Jonathan was joined with the soul of David, and David became as dear to him as his very life.

²And that day Saul took David and would not let him go back to his father's house.

³Then Jonathan and David made an agreement together, because of Jonathan's love for David.

⁴And Jonathan took off the robe he had on and gave it to David, with all his military dress, even to his sword and his bow and the band round his body.

⁵And David went wherever Saul sent him, and did wisely: and Saul put him at the head of his men of war, and this was pleasing to all the people as well as to Saul's servants.

⁶Now on their way, when David came back after the destruction of the Philistine, the women came out of all the towns of Israel, with songs and dances, meeting David with melody and joy and instruments of music.

⁷And the women, answering one another in their song, said, Saul has put to death his thousands and David his tens of thousands.

⁸And Saul was very angry and this saying was unpleasing to him; and he said, They have given David credit for tens of thousands, and to me for only thousands: what more is there for him but the kingdom?

⁹And from that day Saul was looking with envy on David.

¹⁰Now on the day after, an evil spirit from God came on Saul with great force and he was acting like a prophet among the men of his house, while David was making music for him, as he did day by day: and Saul had his spear in his hand.

¹¹And Saul, balancing the spear in his hand, said, I will give David a blow, pinning him to the wall. And David got away from him twice.

¹²And Saul went in fear of David, because the Lord was with David and had gone away from Saul.

¹³So Saul sent him away, and made him a captain over a thousand; and he went about his business before the people.

¹⁴And in all his undertakings David did wisely; and the Lord was with him.

¹⁵And when Saul saw how wisely he did, he was in fear of him.

¹⁶But David was loved by all Israel and Judah, for he went out and came in before them.

¹⁷And Saul said to David, Here is my oldest daughter Merab, whom I will give you for your wife: only be strong for me, fighting in the Lord's wars. For Saul said, Let it not be through me that his fate comes to him, but through the Philistines.

¹⁸And David said to Saul, Who am I, and what is my father's family in Israel, that I am to be son-in-law to the king?

¹⁹But when the time came to give Merab, Saul's daughter, to David, she was given to Adriel of Meholath.

²⁰And Saul's daughter Michal was in love with David: and Saul had word of it and was pleased.

²¹And Saul said, I will give her to him, so that she may be a cause of danger to him, and so that the hands of the Philistines may be against him. So Saul said to David, Today you are to become my son-in-law for the second time.

²²And Saul gave his servants orders saying, Have talk with David secretly and say to him, See how the king has delight in you, and how you are loved by all his servants: then be the king's son-in-law.

²³And Saul's servants said these things to David. And David said, Does it seem to you a small thing to be the king's son-in-law, seeing that I am a poor man, of no great name?

²⁴And the servants of Saul gave him an account of what David had said.

²⁵And Saul said, Then say to David, The king has no desire for any bride-price, but only for the private parts of a hundred Philistines so that the king may get the better of his haters. But it was in Saul's mind that David might come to his end by the hands of the Philistines.

²⁶And when his servants said these words to David, he was well pleased to be the son-in-law of the king. And the days were still not past.

²⁷So David and his men got up and went, and put to death two hundred of the Philistines; and David took their private parts and gave the full number of them to the king, so that he might be the king's son-in-law. And Saul gave him his daughter Michal for his wife.

²⁸And it was clear to Saul that the Lord was with David; and he was loved by all Israel.

²⁹And Saul's fear of David became all the greater, and he went on hating him, day by day.

³⁰Then the rulers of the Philistines went out to war: and whenever they went out, David did more wisely than all the other servants of Saul, so that his name became greatly honoured.

19And Saul gave orders to his son Jonathan and to all his servants to put David to death. But Saul's son Jonathan had great delight in David.

²And Jonathan said to David, Saul, my father, is purposing your death: so now, take care in the morning, and keep yourself safe in a secret place:

³And I will go out and take my place by my father's side in the field near where you are; and I will get into talk with my father about you, and when I see how things are, I will give you word.

⁴And Jonathan gave his father Saul a good account of David, and said to him, Let not the king do wrong against his servant, against David; because he has done you no wrong, and all his acts have had a good outcome for you:

⁵For he put his life in danger and overcame the Philistine, and the Lord gave all Israel salvation: you saw it and were glad: why then are you sinning against him who has done no wrong, desiring the death of David without cause?

⁶And Saul gave ear to the voice of Jonathan, and said with an oath, By the living Lord, he is not to be put to death.

⁷Then Jonathan sent for David and gave him word of all these things. And Jonathan took David to Saul, who kept him by his side as in the past.

⁸And there was war again: and David went out fighting the Philistines, causing great destruction among them; and they went in flight before him.

⁹And an evil spirit from the Lord came on Saul, when he was seated in his house with his spear in his hand; and David made music for him.

¹⁰And Saul would have sent his spear through him, pinning him to the wall, but he got away and the spear went into the wall: and that night David went in flight and got away.

¹¹Then in that night Saul sent men to David's house to keep watch on him so as to put him to death in the morning: and David's wife Michal said to him, If you do not go away to a safe place tonight you will be put to death in the morning.

¹²So Michal let David down through the window, and he went in flight and got away.

¹³Then Michal took the image and put it in the bed, with a cushion of goat's hair at its head, and she put clothing over it.

¹⁴And when Saul sent men to take David, she said, He is ill.

¹⁵And Saul sent his men to see David, saying, Do not come back without him, take him in his bed, so that I may put him to death.

¹⁶And when the men came in, there was the image in the bed, with the cushion of goat's hair at its head

¹⁷And Saul said to Michal, why have you been false to me, letting my hater go and get safely away? And in answer Michal said to Saul, He said to me, Let me go, or I will put you to death.

¹⁸So David went in flight and got away and came to Ramah, to Samuel, and gave him an account of all Saul had done to him. And he and Samuel went and were living in Naioth.

¹⁹And word was given to Saul that David was at Naioth in Ramah.

²⁰And Saul sent men to take David; and when they saw the band of prophets at work, with Samuel in his place at their head, the spirit of God came on Saul's men, and they became like prophets.

²¹And Saul, having news of this, sent other men, who in the same way became like prophets. And a third time Saul sent men, and they like the others became like prophets.

²²Then he himself went to Ramah, and came to the great water-spring in Secu; and questioning the people he said, Where are Samuel and David? And one said, They are at Naioth in Ramah.

²³And he went on from there to Naioth in Ramah: and the spirit of God came on him, and he went on, acting like a prophet, till he came to Naioth in Ramah.

²⁴And he took off his clothing, acting like a prophet before Samuel, and falling down he was stretched out, without his clothing, all that day and all that night. This is the reason for the saying, Is even Saul among the prophets?

20And David went in flight from Naioth in Ramah and came to Jonathan and said, What have I done? What is my crime and my sin against your father that he is attempting to take my life?

²And he said to him, Far be the thought: you will not be put to death: see, my father does nothing, great or small, without giving me word of it: would he keep this secret from me? It is not so.

³But David took his oath again and said, Your father sees that I am dear to you; so he says to himself, Let Jonathan have no idea of this, for it will be a grief to him; but as the Lord is living, and as your soul is living, there is only a step between me and death.

⁴Then Jonathan said to David, Whatever your desire is, I will do it for you.

⁵And David said to Jonathan, Tomorrow is the new moon, and I will not be seated with the king at his table: but let me go to a safe place in the country till the evening.

⁶And if your father takes note of the fact that I am away, say, David made a request to me for himself that he might go to Beth-lehem, to his town: for it is the time when his family make their offering year by year.

⁷If he says, It is well, your servant will be at peace: but if he is angry, then it will be clear to you that he has an evil purpose in mind against me.

⁸So, then, be kind to your servant; for you have been united with your servant in an agreement made before the Lord: but if there is any wrongdoing in me, put me to death yourself; why take me to your father?

⁹And Jonathan said, Do not have such a thought: for if I saw that my father was designing evil against you, would I not give you word of it?

¹⁰Then David said to Jonathan, Who will give me word if your father gives you a rough answer?

¹¹And Jonathan said to David, Come, let us go out into the country. And the two of them went out together into the open country.

¹²And Jonathan said to David, May the Lord, the God of Israel, be witness; when I have had a chance of talking to my father, about this time tomorrow, if his feelings to David are good, will I not send and give you the news?

¹³May the Lord's punishment be on Jonathan, if it is my father's pleasure to do you evil and I do not give you word of it and send you away so that you may go in peace: and may the Lord be with you, as he has been with my father.

¹⁴And may you, while I am still living, O may you be kind to me, as the Lord is kind, and keep me from death!

¹⁵And let not your mercy ever be cut off from my family, even when the Lord has sent destruction on all David's haters, cutting them off from the face of the earth.

¹⁶And if it comes about that the name of Jonathan is cut off from the family of David, the Lord will make David responsible.

¹⁷And Jonathan again took an oath to David, because of his love for him: for David was as dear to him as his very soul.

¹⁸Then Jonathan said to him, Tomorrow is the new moon: and it will be seen that you are not present, for there will be no one in your seat.

¹⁹And on the third day it will be specially noted, and you will go to the place where you took cover when the other business was in hand, waiting by the hill over there.

²⁰And on the third day I will send arrows from my bow against its side as if at a mark.

²¹And I will send my boy to have a look for the arrow. And if I say to him, See, the arrow is on this side of you; take it up! then you may come; for there is peace for you and no evil, by the living Lord.

²²But if I say to the boy, See, the arrow has gone past you: then go on your way, for the Lord has sent you away.

²³As for what you and I were talking of, the Lord is between you and me for ever.

²⁴So David went to a secret place in the country: and when the new moon came, the king took his place at the feast.

²⁵And the king took his seat, as at other times, by the wall: and Jonathan was in front, and Abner was seated by Saul's side, but there was no one in David's seat.

²⁶But Saul said nothing that day, for his thought was, Something has taken place making him unclean; it is clear that he is not clean.

²⁷And on the day after the new moon, that is, the second day, there was still no one in David's seat: and Saul said to his son Jonathan, Why has the son of Jesse not come to the feast yesterday or today?

²⁸And answering Saul, Jonathan said, He made a request to me that he might go to Beth-lehem,

²⁹Saying, Our family is making an offering in the town, and my brothers have given me orders to be there: so now, if I have grace in your eyes, let me go away and see my brothers. This is why he has not come to the king's table.

³⁰Then Saul was moved to wrath against Jonathan, and he said to him, You son of an evil and uncontrolled woman, have I not seen how you have given your love to the son of Jesse, to your shame and the shame of your mother?

³¹For while the son of Jesse is living on the earth, your position is unsafe and your kingdom is in danger. So make him come here to me, for it is certainly right for him to be put to death.

³²And Jonathan, answering his father Saul, said to him, Why is he to be put to death? What has he done?

³³And Saul, pointing his spear at him, made an attempt to give him a wound: from which it was clear to Jonathan that his father's purpose was to put David to death.

³⁴So Jonathan got up from the table, burning with wrath, and took no part in the feast the second day of the month, being full of grief for David because his father had put shame on him.

³⁵Now in the morning, Jonathan went out into the fields at the time he had said to David, and he had a little boy with him.

³⁶And he said to the boy, Go and get the arrow I let loose from my bow. And while the boy was running, he sent an arrow past him.

³⁷And when the boy came to the place where the arrow was, Jonathan, crying out after the boy, said, Has it not gone past you?

³⁸And Jonathan went on crying out after the boy, Be quick, do not keep waiting about, go quickly. And Jonathan's boy got the arrow and came back to his master.

³⁹But the boy had no idea what was going on; only Jonathan and David had knowledge of it.

⁴⁰And Jonathan gave his bow and arrows to the boy, and said to him, Take these and go back to the town.

⁴¹And when the boy had gone, David came from his secret place by the hill, and falling to the earth went down on his face three times: and they gave one another a kiss, weeping together, till David's grief was the greater.

⁴²And Jonathan said to David, Go in peace, for we two have taken an oath, in the name of the Lord, saying, The Lord will be between me and you, and between my seed and your seed for ever. Then David went away, and Jonathan went into the town.

21Then David came to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest: and Ahimelech was full of fear at meeting David, and said to him, Why are you by yourself, having no man with you?

²And David said to Ahimelech the priest, The king has given me orders and has said to me, Say nothing to anyone about the business on which I am sending you and the orders I have given you: and a certain place has been fixed to which the young men are to go.

³So now, if you have here five cakes of bread, give them into my hand, or whatever you have.

⁴And the priest, answering David, said, I have no common bread here but there is holy bread; if only the young men have kept themselves from women.

⁵And David in answer said to the priest, Certainly women have been kept from us; and as has been done before when I have gone out the arms of the young men were made holy, even though it was a common journey; how much more today will their arms be made holy.

⁶So the priest gave him the holy bread: there was no other, only the holy bread which had been taken from before the Lord, so that new bread might be put in its place on the day when it was taken away.

⁷Now a certain man of the servants of Saul was there that day, kept back before the Lord; his name was Doeg, an Edomite, the strongest of Saul's runners.

⁸And David said to Ahimelech, Have you no sword or spear with you here? for I have come without my sword and other arms, because the king's business had to be done quickly.

⁹And the priest said, The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you put to death in the valley of Elah, is here folded in a cloth at the back of the ephod: take that, if you will, for there is no other sword here. And David said, there is no other sword like that; give it to me.

¹⁰Then David got up and went in flight that day for fear of Saul, and went to Achish, the king of Gath.

¹¹And the servants of Achish said to him, Is not this David, the king of the land? did they not make songs about him in their dances, saying, Saul has put to death thousands, and David tens of thousands?

¹²And David took these words to heart, fearing Achish, the king of Gath.

¹³So changing his behaviour before them, he made it seem as if he was off his head, hammering on the doors of the town, and letting the water from his mouth go down his chin.

¹⁴Then Achish said to his servants, Look! the man is clearly off his head; why have you let him come before me?

¹⁵Are there not enough unbalanced men about me, that you have let this person come and do such tricks before me? is such a man to come into my house?

22So David went away from there and took cover in a strong place at Adullam; and his brothers and all his father's people, hearing of it, went down to him there.

²And everyone who was in trouble, and everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was bitter in soul, came together to him, and he became captain over them: about four hundred men were joined to him.

³And from there David went to Mizpeh in the land of Moab: and he said to the king of Moab, Let my father and mother come and make their living-place with you till it is clear to me what God will do for me.

⁴And he took them to the king of Moab and they went on living with him while David was in his safe place.

⁵And the prophet Gad said to David, Do not go on living in this place but go into the land of Judah. Then David went away and came to the woodland of Hereth.

⁶And news was given to Saul that David had been seen, and the men who were with him: now Saul was in Gibeah, seated under the tree in the high place, with his spear in his hand, and all his servants were in their places before him.

⁷Then Saul said to his servants who were there about him, Give ear now, you Benjamites; will the son of Jesse give to every one of you fields and vine-gardens, will he make you all captains of hundreds and captains of thousands;

⁸That all of you have made designs against me, and not one of you gave me word when my son made an agreement with the son of Jesse, and not one of you has pity for me or has made my eyes open to the fact that my servant has been moved by my son against me, as at this day?

⁹Then Doeg, the Edomite, who was by the side of the servants of Saul, in answer said, I saw the son of Jesse coming to Nob, to Ahimelech, the son of Ahitub.

¹⁰And he got directions from the Lord for him, and gave him food, and put in his hand the sword of Goliath the Philistine.

¹¹Then the king sent for Ahimelech the priest, the son of Ahitub, and for all the men of his father's family who were priests in Nob: and they all came to the king.

¹²And Saul said, Give ear now, O son of Ahitub. And answering he said, Here I am, my lord.

¹³And Saul said to him, Why have you made designs against me with the son of Jesse, giving him food and a sword and getting directions from the Lord for him, and helping him to take up arms against me, and to be on the watch to make a secret attack on me as he is doing now?

¹⁴Then Ahimelech answering said to the king, Who among all your servants is so true to you as David, who is the king's son-in-law, and is a captain of your armed men, and has a place of honour in your house?

¹⁵Is this the first time I have got directions from God for him? Far be the thought! let the king make no such statement against his servant or my father's family, for your servant has no knowledge, great or small, of this thing.

¹⁶And the king said, You will certainly be put to death, Ahimelech, you and all your father's family.

¹⁷Then the king said to the runners who were waiting near him, Put the priests of the Lord to death; because they are on David's side, and having knowledge of his flight, did not give me word of it. But the king's servants would not put out their hands to make an attack on the Lord's priests.

¹⁸Then the king said to Doeg, You are to put the priests to death. And Doeg the Edomite, turning on the priests and attacking them, put to death that day eighty-five men who took up the ephod.

¹⁹And Nob, the town of the priests, he put to the sword, all the men and women, children and babies at the breast, and oxen and asses and sheep.

²⁰And Abiathar, one of the sons of Ahimelech, the son of Ahitub, got away and went in flight after David;

²¹And gave him the news of how Saul had put to death the Lord's priests.

²²And David said to Abiathar, I was certain that day, when Doeg the Edomite was there, that he would take the news to Saul: I am responsible for the lives of all your father's family.

²³Keep here with me and have no fear; for he who has designs on my life has designs on yours: but with me you will be safe.

23And they sent word to David, saying, The Philistines are fighting against Keilah and taking the grain from the grain-floors.

²So David, questioning the Lord, said, Am I to go and make an attack on these Philistines? And the Lord said to David, Go and make an attack on the Philistines so that Keilah may be kept from falling into their hands.

³And David's men said to him, Even here in Judah we are full of fear: how much more then if we go to Keilah against the armies of the Philistines?

⁴Then David put the question to the Lord again, and the Lord answering said, Up! go down to Keilah; for I will give the Philistines into your hands.

⁵So David and his men went to Keilah, and had a fight with the Philistines, and took away their cattle, and put them to the sword with great destruction. So David was the saviour of the people of Keilah.

⁶Now when Abiathar, the son of Ahimelech, went in flight to David, he came down to Keilah with the ephod in his hand.

⁷And news was given to Saul that David had come to Keilah. And Saul said, Now God has given him into my hands; for by going into a walled town with locked doors, he has let himself be shut in.

⁸And Saul sent for all the people to come to the fight, and go down to Keilah to make an attack on David and his men.

⁹And it was clear to David that Saul had evil designs against him, and he said to Abiathar the priest, Come here with the ephod.

¹⁰Then David said, O Lord, the God of Israel, news has been given to your servant that it is Saul's purpose to come to Keilah and send destruction on the town because of me.

¹¹And now, is it true, as they have said to me, that Saul is coming? O Lord, the God of Israel, give ear to your servant, and say if these things are so. And the Lord said, He is coming down.

¹²Then David said, Will the men of Keilah give me and my men up to Saul? and the Lord said, They will give you up.

¹³Then David and his men, about six hundred of them, went out of Keilah, and got away wherever they were able to go. And Saul, hearing that David had got away from Keilah, did not go there.

¹⁴And David kept in the waste land, in safe places, waiting in the hill-country in the waste land of Ziph. And Saul was searching for him every day, but God did not give him up into his hands.

¹⁵And David was full of fear, in the knowledge that Saul had come out to take his life; and David was in the waste land of Ziph, in Horesh.

¹⁶And Saul's son Jonathan went to David in Horesh, and made his hands strong in God;

¹⁷And said to him, Have no fear, for Saul my father will not get you into his power; and you will be king of Israel, and I will be by your side, and my father Saul is certain of this.

¹⁸And the two of them made an agreement before the Lord: and David went on living in Horesh, and Jonathan went back to his house.

¹⁹Then the Ziphites came up to Gibeah to see Saul, and said, Is not David living secretly among us in the strong places in Horesh, in the hill of Hachilah to the south of the waste land?

²⁰So now, O king, have your soul's desire and come down, and we, for our part, will give him up into the king's hands.

²¹And Saul said, The Lord's blessing will be yours, for you have had pity on me.

²²Go now, and take more steps, and see where he is living: for they say that he is expert in deceit.

²³So take care to get knowledge of all the secret places where he is taking cover, and be certain to come back to me, and I will go with you: and without doubt, if he is anywhere in the land, I will get him, among all the families of Judah.

²⁴And they went back and came to Ziph before Saul: but David and his men were in the waste land of Maon, in the dry land south of the waste land.

²⁵And Saul and his men went in search of him. And David had word of it, so he came down to the rock in the waste land of Maon. And Saul, hearing of this, went after David into the waste land of Maon.

²⁶And Saul and his men went on one side of the mountain, and David and his men went on the other: and David's purpose was to get away as quickly as possible, for fear of Saul; for Saul and his men were making a circle round David and his men in order to take them.

²⁷But a man came to Saul saying, Be quick and come; for the Philistines have made an attack on the land.

²⁸So turning back from going after David, Saul went against the Philistines: so that place was named Sela-hammah-lekoth.

²⁹And from there, David went up and took cover in the safe place of En-gedi.

24Now when Saul came back from fighting the Philistines, news was given him that David was in the waste land of En-gedi.

²Then Saul took three thousand of the best men out of all Israel, and went in search of David and his men on the rocks of the mountain goats.

³And on the way he came to a place where sheep were kept, where there was a hollow in the rock; and Saul went in for a private purpose. Now David and his men were in the deepest part of the hollow.

⁴And David's men said to him, Now is the time when the Lord says to you, I will give up your hater into your hands to do with him whatever seems good to you. Then David, getting up, took the skirt of Saul's robe in his hand, cutting off the end of it without his knowledge.

⁵And later, David was full of regret for cutting off Saul's skirt.

⁶And David said to his men, Before the Lord, never let it be said that my hand was lifted up against my lord, the man of the Lord's selection, for the Lord's holy oil has been put on him.

⁷So with these words David kept his servants back, and did not let them make an attack on Saul. And Saul got up and went on his way.

⁸And after that David came out of the hollow rock, and crying after Saul said, My lord the king. And when Saul gave a look back, David went down on his face and gave him honour.

⁹And David said to Saul, Why do you give any attention to those who say that it is my desire to do you wrong?

¹⁰Look! you have seen today how the Lord gave you up into my hands even now in the hollow of the rocks: and some would have had me put you to death, but I had pity on you: for I said, Never will my hand be lifted up against my lord, who has been marked with the holy oil.

¹¹And see, my father, see the skirt of your robe in my hand: for the fact that I took off the skirt of your robe and did not put you to death is witness that I have no evil purpose, and I have done you no wrong, though you are waiting for my life to take it.

¹²May the Lord be judge between me and you, and may the Lord give me my rights against you, but my hand will never be lifted up against you.

¹³There is an old saying, From the evil-doer comes evil: but my hand will never be lifted up against you.

¹⁴After whom has the king of Israel come out? for whom are you searching? for a dead dog, an insect.

¹⁵So let the Lord be judge, and give a decision between me and you, and see and give support to my cause, and keep me from falling into your hands.

¹⁶Now when David had said these words to Saul, Saul said, Is this your voice, David, my son? And Saul was overcome with weeping.

¹⁷And he said to David, You are right and I am wrong: for you have given me back good, but I have given you evil.

¹⁸And you have made clear to me how good you have been to me today: because, when the Lord gave me up into your hands, you did not put me to death.

¹⁹If a man comes across his hater, will he let him get away safe? so may you be rewarded by the Lord for what you have done for me today.

²⁰And now I am certain that you will be king, and that the kingdom of Israel will be made strong under your authority.

²¹So give me your oath by the Lord, that you will not put an end to my seed after me or let my name be cut off from my father's family.

²²And David gave Saul his oath. And Saul went back to his house; but David and his men went up to their safe place.

25And death came to Samuel; and all Israel came together, weeping for him, and put his body in its resting-place in his house at Ramah. Then David went down to the waste land of Maon.

²Now there was a man in Maon whose business was in Carmel; he was a great man and had three thousand sheep and a thousand goats: and he was cutting the wool of his sheep in Carmel.

³Now this man was named Nabal, and his wife's name was Abigail: she was a woman of good sense and pleasing looks: but the man was cruel and evil in his ways; he was of the family of Caleb.

⁴And David had word in the waste land that Nabal was cutting the wool of his sheep.

⁵And David sent ten young men, and said to them, Go up to Carmel and go to Nabal, and say kind words to him in my name;

⁶And say this to my brother, May all be well for you: peace be to you and your house and all you have.

⁷I have had word that you have wool-cutters: now the keepers of your sheep have been with us, and we have done them no evil, and taken nothing of theirs while they were in Carmel.

⁸If your young men are questioned they will say the same thing. So now, let my young men have grace in your eyes, for we are come at a good time; please give anything you may have by you to your servants and to your son David.

⁹And when David's young men came, they said all this to Nabal, in David's name, and said nothing more.

¹⁰And Nabal gave them his answer and said, Who is David? who is the son of Jesse? there are a number of servants in these days running away from their masters.

¹¹Am I to take my bread and my wine and the meat I have got ready for my wool-cutters and give it to men coming from I have no idea where?

¹²So David's young men, turning away, went back and gave him an account of everything he had said.

¹³And David said to his men, Put on your swords, every one of you. And every man put on his sword; and David did the same; and about four hundred men went up with David, and two hundred kept watch over their goods.

¹⁴But one of the young men said to Nabal's wife Abigail, David sent men from the waste land to say kind words to our master, and he gave them a rough answer.

¹⁵But these men have been very good to us; they did us no wrong and nothing of ours was touched while we were with them in the fields:

¹⁶But day and night they were like a wall round us while we were with them, looking after the sheep.

¹⁷So now, give thought to what you are going to do; for evil is in store for our master and all his house: for he is such a good-for-nothing person that it is not possible to say anything to him.

¹⁸Then Abigail quickly took two hundred cakes of bread and two skins full of wine and five sheep ready for cooking and five measures of dry grain and a hundred parcels of dry grapes and two hundred cakes of figs, and put them on asses.

¹⁹And she said to her young men, Go on in front of me and I will come after you. But she said nothing to her husband Nabal.

²⁰Now while she was going down under cover of the mountain on her ass, David and his men came down against her, and suddenly she came face to face with them.

²¹Now David had said, What was the use of my taking care of this man's goods in the waste land, so that there was no loss of anything which was his? he has only given me back evil for good.

²²May God's punishment be on David, if when morning comes there is so much as one male of his people still living.

²³And when Abigail saw David, she quickly got off her ass, falling down on her face before him.

²⁴And falling at his feet she said, May the wrong be on me, my lord, on me: let your servant say a word to you, and give ear to the words of your servant.

²⁵Let my lord give no attention to Nabal, that good-for-nothing: for as his name is, so is he, a man without sense: but I, your servant, did not see the young men whom my lord sent.

²⁶So now, my lord, by the living God and by your living soul, seeing that the Lord has kept you from the crime of blood and from taking into your hands the punishment for your wrongs, may all your haters, and those who would do evil to my lord, be like Nabal.

²⁷And let this offering, which your servant gives to my lord, be given to the young men who are with my lord.

²⁸And may the sin of your servant have forgiveness: for the Lord will certainly make your family strong, because my lord is fighting in the Lord's war; and no evil will be seen in you all your days.

²⁹And though a man has taken up arms against you, putting your life in danger, still the soul of my lord will be kept safe among the band of the living with the Lord your God; and the souls of those who are against you he will send violently away from him, like stones from a bag.

³⁰And when the Lord has done for my lord all those good things which he has said he will do for you, and has made you a ruler over Israel;

³¹Then you will have no cause for grief, and my lord's heart will not be troubled because you have taken life without cause and have yourself given punishment for your wrongs: and when the Lord has been good to you, then give a thought to your servant.

³²And David said to Abigail, May the Lord, the God of Israel, be praised, who sent you to me today:

³³A blessing on your good sense and on you, who have kept me today from the crime of blood and from taking into my hands the punishment for my wrongs.

³⁴For truly, by the living Lord, the God of Israel, who has kept me from doing you evil, if you had not been so quick in coming to me and meeting me, by dawn there would not have been in Nabal's house so much as one male living.

³⁵Then David took from her hands her offering: and he said to her, Go back to your house in peace; see, I have given ear to your voice, and taken your offering with respect.

³⁶And Abigail went back to Nabal; and he was feasting in his house like a king; and Nabal's heart was full of joy, for he had taken much wine; so she said nothing to him till dawn came.

³⁷And in the morning, when the effect of the wine was gone, Nabal's wife gave him an account of all these things, and all the heart went out of him, and he became like stone.

³⁸And about ten days after, the Lord sent disease on Nabal and death came to him.

³⁹And David, hearing that Nabal was dead, said, May the Lord be praised, who has taken up my cause against Nabal for the shame which he put on me, and has kept back his servant from evil, and has sent on Nabal's head the reward of his evil-doing. And David sent word to Abigail, desiring to take her as his wife.

⁴⁰And when David's servants came to Carmel, to Abigail, they said to her, David has sent us to you to take you to him as his wife.

⁴¹And she got up, and going down on her face to the earth, said, See, I am ready to be a servant-girl, washing the feet of the servants of my lord.

⁴²Then Abigail got up quickly and went on her ass, with five of her young women, after the men whom David had sent; and she became David's wife.

⁴³And David had taken Ahinoam of Jezreel, to be his wife; these two were his wives.

⁴⁴Now Saul had given his daughter Michal, David's wife, to Palti the son of Laish of Gallim.

26And the Ziphites came to Saul at Gibeah, and said, Is not David waiting secretly near us in the hill of Hachilah, before the waste land?

²Then Saul went down to the waste land of Ziph, taking with him three thousand of the best men of Israel, to make search for David in the waste land of Ziph.

³And Saul put up his tents on the hill of Hachilah, which is in front of the waste land on the road. But David was in the waste land, and he saw that Saul was coming after him.

⁴And so David sent out watchers, and got word from them that Saul was certainly coming.

⁵And David got up and came to the place where Saul's tents were: and David had a view of the place where Saul was sleeping with Abner, the son of Ner, the captain of his army: and Saul was sleeping inside the ring of carts, and the tents of the people were all round him.

⁶Then David said to Ahimelech the Hittite, and to Abishai, the son of Zeruiah, brother of Joab, Who will go down with me to the tents of Saul? And Abishai said, I will go down with you.

⁷So David and Abishai came down to the army by night: and Saul was sleeping inside the ring of carts with his spear planted in the earth by his head: and Abner and the people were sleeping round him.

⁸Then Abishai said to David, God has given up your hater into your hands today; now let me give him one blow through to the earth with his spear, and there will be no need to give him a second.

⁹And David said to Abishai Do not put him to death; for who, without sin, may put out his hand against the man on whom the Lord has put the holy oil?

¹⁰And David said, By the living Lord, the Lord will send destruction on him; the natural day of his death will come, or he will go into the fight and come to his end.

¹¹Never will my hand be stretched out against the man marked with the holy oil; but take the spear which is by his head and the vessel of water, and let us go.

¹²So David took the spear and the vessel of water from Saul's head; and they got away without any man seeing them, or being conscious of their coming, or awaking; for they were all sleeping because a deep sleep from the Lord had come on them.

¹³Then David went over to the other side, and took his place on the top of a mountain some distance away, with a great space between them;

¹⁴And crying out to the people and to Abner, the son of Ner, David said, Have you no answer to give, Abner? Then Abner said, Who is that crying out to the king?

¹⁵And David said to Abner, Are you not a man of war? is there any other like you in Israel? why then have you not kept watch over your lord the king? for one of the people came in to put the king your lord to death.

¹⁶What you have done is not good. By the living Lord, death is the right fate for you, because you have not kept watch over your lord, the man on whom the Lord has put the holy oil. Now see, where is the king's spear, and the vessel of water which was by his head?

¹⁷And Saul, conscious that the voice was David's, said, Is that your voice, David, my son? And David said, It is my voice, O my lord king.

¹⁸And he said, Why does my lord go armed against his servant? what have I done? or what evil is there in me?

¹⁹Let my lord the king give ear now to the words of his servant. If it is the Lord who is moving you against me, let him take an offering: but if it is the children of men, may they be cursed before the Lord, for driving me out today and keeping me from my place in the heritage of the Lord, saying, Go, be the servant of other gods.

²⁰Then do not let my blood be drained out on the earth away from the face of the Lord: for the king of Israel has come out to take my life, like one going after birds in the mountains.

²¹Then Saul said, I have done wrong: come back to me, David my son: I will do you no more wrong, because my life was dear to you today truly, I have been foolish and my error is very great.

²²Then David said, Here is the king's spear! let one of the young men come over and get it.

²³And the Lord will give to every man the reward of his righteousness and his faith: because the Lord gave you into my hands today, and I would not put out my hand against the man who has been marked with the holy oil.

²⁴And so, as your life was dear to me today, may my life be dear to the Lord, and may he make me free from all my troubles.

²⁵Then Saul said to David, May a blessing be on you, David, my son; you will do great things and without doubt you will overcome. Then David went on his way, and Saul went back to his place.

27And David said to himself, Some day death will come to me by the hand of Saul: the only thing for me to do is to get away into the land of the Philistines; then Saul will give up hope of taking me in any part of the land of Israel: and so I may be able to get away from him.

²So David and the six hundred men who were with him went over to Achish, the son of Maoch, king of Gath.

³And David and his men were living with Achish at Gath; every man had his family with him, and David had his two wives, Ahinoam of Jezreel, and Abigail of Carmel, who had been the wife of Nabal.

⁴And Saul, hearing that David had gone to Gath, went after him no longer.

⁵Then David said to Achish, If now I have grace in your eyes, let me have a place in one of the smaller towns of your land, to be my living-place; for it is not right for your servant to be living with you in the king's town.

⁶So Achish straight away gave him Ziklag: and for that reason Ziklag has been the property of the kings of Judah to this day.

⁷And David was living in the land of the Philistines for the space of a year and four months.

⁸And David and his men went up and made attacks on the Geshurites and the Girzites and the Amalekites; for these were the people who were living in the land from Telam on the way to Shur, as far as Egypt.

⁹And David again and again made attacks on the land till not a man or a woman was still living; and he took away the sheep and the oxen and the asses and the camels and the clothing; and he came back to Achish.

¹⁰And every time Achish said, Where have you been fighting today? David said, Against the South of Judah and the South of the Jerahmeelites and the South of the Kenites.

¹¹Not one living man or woman did David ever take back with him to Gath, fearing that they might give an account of what had taken place, and say, This is what David did, and so has he been doing all the time while he has been living in the land of the Philistines.

¹²And Achish had belief in what David said, saying, He has made himself hated by all his people Israel, and so he will be my servant for ever.

28Now in those days the Philistines got their forces together to make war on Israel. And Achish said to David, Certainly you and your men are to go out with me to the fight.

²And David said to Achish, You will see now what your servant will do. And Achish said to David, Then I will make you keeper of my head for ever.

³Now Samuel was dead, and all Israel, after weeping for him, had put his body in its last resting-place in Ramah, his town. And Saul had put away from the land all those who had control of spirits and who made use of secret arts.

⁴And the Philistines came together and put their forces in position in Shunem; and Saul got all Israel together and they took up their positions in Gilboa.

⁵And when Saul saw the Philistine army he was troubled, and his heart was moved with fear.

⁶And when Saul went for directions to the Lord, the Lord gave him no answer, by a dream or by the Urim or by the prophets.

⁷Then Saul said to his servants, Get me a woman who has control of a spirit so that I may go to her and get directions. And his servants said to him, There is such a woman at En-dor.

⁸So Saul, putting on other clothing, so that he might not be seen to be the king, took two men with him and went to the woman by night; and he said, Now, with the help of the spirit which you have, make the person whose name I will give you come up.

⁹And the woman said to him, But you have knowledge of what Saul has done, how he has put away out of the land those who have control of spirits and the users of secret arts: why would you, by a trick, put me in danger of death?

¹⁰And Saul made an oath to her by the Lord, saying, By the living Lord, no punishment will come to you for this.

¹¹Then the woman said, Who am I to let you see? And he said, Make Samuel come up for me.

¹²And the woman saw that it was Saul, and she gave a loud cry, and said to Saul, Why have you made use of deceit? for you are Saul.

¹³And the king said to her, Have no fear: what do you see? And the woman said to Saul, I see a god coming up out of the earth.

¹⁴And he said to her, What is his form? And she said, It is an old man coming up covered with a robe. And Saul saw that it was Samuel, and with his face bent down to the earth he gave him honour.

¹⁵And Samuel said to Saul, Why have you made me come up, troubling my rest? And Saul in answer said, I am in great danger; for the Philistines are making war on me, and God has gone away from me and will no longer give me any answer, by the prophets or by dreams: so I have sent for you to make clear to me what I am to do.

¹⁶And Samuel said, Why do you put your questions to me, seeing that God has gone away from you and is on the side of him who is against you?

¹⁷And the Lord himself has done what I said: the Lord has taken the kingdom out of your hand and given it to your neighbour David;

¹⁸Because you did not do what the Lord said, and did not give effect to his burning wrath against Amalek. So the Lord has done this thing to you today.

¹⁹And more than this, the Lord will give Israel up with you into the hands of the Philistines: and tomorrow you and your sons will be with me: and the Lord will give up the army of Israel into the hands of the Philistines.

²⁰Then Saul went down flat on the earth, and was full of fear because of Samuel's words: and there was no strength in him, for he had taken no food all that day or all that night.

²¹And the woman came to Saul and saw that he was in great trouble, and said to him, See now, your servant has given ear to your words, and I have put my life in danger by doing what you said.

²²So now, give ear to the voice of your servant, and let me give you a little bread; and take some food to give you strength when you go on your way.

²³But he would not, saying, I have no desire for food. But his servants, together with the woman, made him take food, and he gave way to them. So he got up from the earth, and took his seat on the bed.

²⁴And the woman had in the house a young cow, made fat for food; and she put it to death straight away; and she took meal and got it mixed and made unleavened bread;

²⁵And she put it before Saul and his servants, and they had a meal. Then they got up and went away the same night.

29Now the Philistines got all their army together at Aphek: and the Israelites put their forces in position by the fountain in Jezreel.

²And the lords of the Philistines went on with their hundreds and their thousands, and David and his men came after with Achish.

³Then the rulers of the Philistines said, What are these Hebrews doing here? And Achish said to the rulers of the Philistines, Is this not David, the servant of Saul the king of Israel, who has been with me for a year or two, and I have never seen any wrong in him from the time when he came to me till now?

⁴But the rulers of the Philistines were angry with him, and said to him, Make the man go back to the place you have given him; do not let him go down with us to the fight, or he may be turned against us and be false to us: for how will this man make peace with his lord? will it not be with the heads of these men?

⁵Is this not David, who was named in their songs, when in the dance they said to one another, Saul has put to death thousands, and David tens of thousands?

⁶Then Achish sent for David and said to him, By the living Lord, you are upright, and everything you have done with me in the army has been pleasing to me: I have seen no evil in you from the day when you came to me till now: but still, the lords are not pleased with you.

⁷So now go back, and go in peace, so that you do not make the lords of the Philistines angry.

⁸And David said to Achish, But what have I done? what have you seen in your servant while I have been with you till this day, that I may not go and take up arms against those who are now making war on my lord the king?

⁹And Achish in answer said, It is true that in my eyes you are good, like an angel of God: but still, the rulers of the Philistines have said, He is not to go up with us to the fight.

¹⁰So get up early in the morning, with the servants of your lord who are with you, and go to the place I have given you, and have no evil design in your heart, for you are good in my eyes; but when there is light enough in the morning, go away.

¹¹So David and his men got up early in the morning to go back to the land of the Philistines. And the Philistines went up to Jezreel.

30Now when David and his men came to Ziklag on the third day, the Amalekites had made an attack on the South and on Ziklag, and had overcome Ziklag and put it on fire;

²And had made the women and all who were there, small and great, prisoners: they had not put any of them to death, but had taken them all away.

³And when David and his men came to the town, they saw that it had been burned down, and their wives and their sons and daughters had been made prisoners.

⁴Then David and the people who were with him gave themselves up to weeping till they were able to go on weeping no longer.

⁵And David's two wives, Ahinoam of Jezreel and Abigail, the wife of Nabal of Carmel, had been made prisoners.

⁶And David was greatly troubled; for the people were talking of stoning him, because their hearts were bitter, every man sorrowing for his sons and his daughters: but David made himself strong in the Lord his God.

⁷And David said to Abiathar the priest, the son of Ahimelech, Come here to me with the ephod. And Abiathar took the ephod to David.

⁸Then David, questioning the Lord, said, Am I to go after this band? will I be able to overtake them? And in answer he said, Go after them, for you will certainly overtake them, and get back everything.

⁹So David went, and his six hundred men went with him, and they came to the stream Besor.

¹⁰And David, with four hundred men, went on: but two hundred of them were overcome with weariness, and not able to go across the stream.

¹¹And in the fields they saw an Egyptian whom they took to David, and they gave him bread, and he had a meal, and they gave him water for drink;

¹²And they gave him part of a cake of figs and some dry grapes; and after the food, his spirit came back to him, for he had had no food or drink for three days and nights.

¹³And David said to him, Whose man are you and where do you come from? And he said, I am a young man of Egypt, servant to an Amalekite; and my master went on without me because three days back I became ill.

¹⁴We made an attack on the south part of the country of the Cherethites, and on the land which is Judah's, and on the south of Caleb; and we put Ziklag on fire.

¹⁵And David said to him, Will you take me down to this band? And he said, If you give me your oath that you will not put me to death or give me up to my master, I will take you to them.

¹⁶And when he had taken him down, they saw them all, seated about on all sides, feasting and drinking among all the mass of goods which they had taken from the land of the Philistines and the land of Judah.

¹⁷And David went on fighting them from evening till the evening of the day after; and not one of them got away but only four hundred young men who went in flight on camels.

¹⁸And David got back everything the Amalekites had taken; and he got back his two wives.

¹⁹There was no loss of anything, small or great, sons or daughters or goods or anything which they had taken away: David got it all back.

²⁰And they took all the flocks and herds, and driving them in front of him, said, These are David's.

²¹And David came to the two hundred men, who because of weariness had not gone with him, but were waiting at the stream Besor: and they went out, meeting David and the people who were with him; and when they came near them, they said, How are you?

²²Then the bad and good-for-nothing men among those who went with David said, Because they did not go with us, we will give them nothing of the goods which we have got back, but only to every man his wife and children, so that he may take them and go.

²³Then David said, You are not to do this, my brothers, after what the Lord has given us, who has kept us safe and given up the band which came against us into our hands.

²⁴Who is going to give any attention to you in this question? for an equal part will be given to him who went to the fight and to him who was waiting by the goods: they are all to have the same.

²⁵And so he made it a rule and an order for Israel from that day till now.

²⁶And when David came to Ziklag, he sent some of the goods to the responsible men of Judah, and to his friends, saying, Here is an offering for you from the goods of those who were fighting against the Lord;

²⁷He sent to those who were in Beth-el, and in Ramah of the South, and in Jattir;

²⁸And to those in Arara and Eshtemoa

²⁹and Carmel and in the towns of the Jerahmeelites, and in the towns of the Kenites;

³⁰And to those who were in Hormah and in Bor-ashan and in Athach;

³¹And in Hebron, and to all the places where David and his men had been living.

31Now the Philistines were fighting against Israel: and the men of Israel went in flight before the Philistines, falling down wounded in Mount Gilboa.

²And the Philistines overtook Saul and his sons; and they put to death Jonathan and Abinadab and Malchi-shua, the sons of Saul.

³And the fight was going badly for Saul, and the archers came across him, and he was wounded by the archers.

⁴Then Saul said to the servant who had the care of his arms, Take out your sword and put it through me, before these men without circumcision come and make sport of me. But his servant, full of fear, would not do so. Then Saul took out his sword, and falling on it, put an end to himself.

⁵And when his servant saw that Saul was dead, he did the same, and was united with him in death.

⁶So death overtook Saul and his three sons and his servant on the same day.

⁷And when the men of Israel across the valley and on the other side of Jordan saw that the army of Israel was in flight and that Saul and his sons were dead, they came out of their towns and went in flight; and the Philistines came and took them for themselves.

⁸Now on the day after, when the Philistines came to take their goods from the dead, they saw Saul and his three sons dead on the earth in Mount Gilboa.

⁹And cutting off his head and taking away his war-dress, they sent word into the land of the Philistines round about, to take the news to their gods and to the people.

¹⁰His war-dress they put in the house of Astarte; and his body was fixed on the wall of Beth-shan.

¹¹And when the people of Jabesh-gilead had news of what the Philistines had done to Saul,

¹²All the fighting men got up and, travelling all night, took Saul's body and the bodies of his sons from the wall of Beth-shan; and they came to Jabesh and had them burned there.

¹³And their bones they put in the earth under a tree in Jabesh; and for seven days they took no food.

1Now after the death of Saul, when David, having come back from the destruction of the Amalekites, had been in Ziklag for two days;

²On the third day a man came from Saul's tents, with his clothing out of order and earth on his head: and when he came to David, he went down on the earth and gave him honour.

³And David said to him, Where have you come from? And he said, I have come in flight from the tents of Israel.

⁴And David said to him, How did things go? Give me the news. And in answer he said, The people have gone in flight from the fight, and a great number of them are dead; and Saul and his son Jonathan are dead.

⁵And David said to the young man who gave him the news, Why are you certain that Saul and his son Jonathan are dead?

⁶And the young man said, I came by chance to Mount Gilboa, and I saw Saul supporting himself on his spear; and the war-carriages and horsemen overtook him.

⁷And looking back, he saw me and gave a cry to me. And answering him I said, Here am I.

⁸And he said to me, Who are you? And I said, I am an Amalekite.

⁹Then he said to me, Come here to my side, and put me to death, for the pain of death has me in its grip but my life is still strong in me.

¹⁰So I put my foot on him and gave him his death-blow, because I was certain that he would not go on living after his fall: and I took the crown from his head and the band from his arm, and I have them here for my lord.

¹¹Then David gave way to bitter grief, and so did all the men who were with him:

¹²And till evening they gave themselves to sorrow and weeping, and took no food, weeping for Saul and for Jonathan, his son, and for the people of the Lord and for the men of Israel; because they had come to their end by the sword.

¹³And David said to the young man who had given him the news, Where do you come from? And he said, I am the son of a man from a strange land; I am an Amalekite.

¹⁴And David said to him, Had you no fear of stretching out your hand to put to death the one marked with the holy oil?

¹⁵And David sent for one of his young men and said, Go near and put an end to him. And he put him to death.

¹⁶And David said to him, May your blood be on your head; for your mouth has given witness against you, saying, I have put to death the man marked with the holy oil.

¹⁷Then David made this song of grief for Saul and Jonathan, his son:

¹⁸(It is recorded in the book of Jashar for teaching to the sons of Judah) and he said:

¹⁹The glory, O Israel, is dead on your high places! How have the great ones been made low!

²⁰Give no news of it in Gath, let it not be said in the streets of Ashkelon; or the daughters of the Philistines will be glad, the daughters of men without circumcision will be uplifted in joy.

²¹O mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew or rain on you, you fields of death: for there the arms of the strong have been shamed, the arms of Saul, as if he had not been marked with the holy oil.

²²From the blood of the dead, from the fat of the strong, the bow of Jonathan was not turned back, the sword of Saul did not come back unused.

²³Saul and Jonathan were loved and pleasing; in their lives and in their death they were not parted; they went more quickly than eagles, they were stronger than lions.

²⁴O daughters of Israel, have sorrow for Saul, by whom you were delicately clothed in robes of red, with ornaments of gold on your dresses.

²⁵How have the great ones been made low in the fight! Jonathan is dead on your high places.

²⁶I am full of grief for you, my brother Jonathan: very dear have you been to me: your love for me was a wonder, greater than the love of women.

²⁷How have the great ones been made low, and the arms of war broken!

2Now after this, David, questioning the Lord, said, Am I to go up into any of the towns of Judah? And the Lord said to him, Go up. And David said, Where am I to go? And he said, To Hebron.

²So David went there, taking with him his two wives, Ahinoam of Jezreel, and Abigail, the wife of Nabal of Carmel.

³And David took all his men with him, every man with his family: and they were living in the towns round Hebron.

⁴And the men of Judah came there, and with the holy oil made David king over the people of Judah. And word came to David that it was the men of Jabesh-gilead who put Saul's body in its last resting-place.

⁵And David sent to the men of Jabesh-gilead and said to them, May the Lord give you his blessing, because you have done this kind act to Saul your lord, and have put his body to rest!

⁶May the Lord be good and true to you: and I myself will see that your kind act is rewarded, because you have done this thing.

⁷Then let your hands be strong, and have no fear: though Saul your lord is dead, the people of Judah have made me their king.

⁸Now Abner, the son of Ner, captain of Saul's army, had taken Saul's son Ish-bosheth over to Mahanaim,

⁹And made him king over Gilead and the Asherites and over Jezreel and Ephraim and Benjamin, that is, over all Israel.

¹⁰(Saul's son Ish-bosheth was forty years old when he became king over Israel, and he was ruler for two years.) But Judah was on the side of David.

¹¹And the time when David was king in Hebron over the people of Judah was seven years and six months.

¹²And Abner, the son of Ner, with the servants of Saul's son Ish-bosheth, went out from Mahanaim to Gibeon.

¹³And Joab, the son of Zeruiah, and the servants of David, went out and came face to face with them by the pool of Gibeon; and they took up their position, facing one another on opposite sides of the pool.

¹⁴And Abner said to Joab, Let the young men give a test of their strength before us. And Joab said, Let them do so.

¹⁵So they got up and went over by number: twelve for Benjamin and Ish-bosheth and twelve of the servants of David.

¹⁶And every one got the other by the head, driving his sword into the other's side, so they all went down together: and that place was named the Field of Sides, and it is in Gibeon.

¹⁷And there was hard fighting that day; and Abner and the men of Israel gave way before the servants of David.

¹⁸There were three sons of Zeruiah there, Joab and Abishai and Asahel: and Asahel was as quick-footed as a roe of the fields.

¹⁹Asahel went running after Abner, not turning to the right or to the left.

²⁰Then Abner, looking back, said, Is it you, Asahel? And he said, It is I.

²¹And Abner said, Then go to the right or to the left and put your hands on one of the fighting-men and take his arms. But Asahel would not be turned away from going after Abner.

²²Then again Abner said to Asahel, Go to one side, do not keep on coming after me: why will you make me put an end to you? for then I will be shamed before your brother Joab.

²³But still he did not go to one side: so Abner gave him a back blow in the stomach with his spear, so that the spear came out at his back; and he went down on the earth, wounded to death: and all those who came to the place where Asahel went down dead, came to a stop.

²⁴But Joab and Abishai went after Abner: and the sun went down when they came to the hill of Ammah, which is to the east of the road through the waste land of Geba.

²⁵And the men of Benjamin came together after Abner in one band, and took their places on the top of a hill.

²⁶Then crying out to Joab, Abner said, Are fighting and destruction to go on for ever? do you not see that the end will only be bitter? how long will it be before you send the people back and make them give up attacking their countrymen?

²⁷And Joab said, By the living God, if you had not given the word, the people would have gone on attacking their countrymen till the morning.

²⁸So Joab had a horn sounded, and all the people came to a stop, and gave up going after Israel and fighting them.

²⁹And all that night Abner and his men went through the Arabah; they went over Jordan and through all Bithron and came to Mahanaim.

³⁰And Joab came back from fighting Abner: and when he had got all his men together, it was seen that nineteen of David's men, in addition to Asahel, were not with them.

³¹But David's men had put to death three hundred and sixty of the men of Benjamin and of Abner's men

³²And they took Asahel's body and put it in the last resting-place of his father in Beth-lehem. And Joab and his men, travelling all night, came to Hebron at dawn.

3Now there was a long war between Saul's people and David's people; and David became stronger and stronger, but those on Saul's side became more and more feeble.

²While David was in Hebron he became the father of sons: the oldest was Amnon, son of Ahinoam of Jezreel;

³And the second, Chileab, whose mother was Abigail, the wife of Nabal the Carmelite; and the third, Absalom, son of Maacah, the daughter of Talmai, king of Geshur;

⁴And the fourth, Adonijah, the son of Haggith; and the fifth, Shephatiah, the son of Abital;

⁵And the sixth, Ithream, whose mother was David's wife Eglah. These were the sons of David, whose birth took place in Hebron.

⁶Now while there was war between Saul's people and David's people, Abner was making himself strong among the supporters of Saul.

⁷Now Saul had among his wives a woman named Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah: and Ish-bosheth said to Abner, Why have you taken my father's wife?

⁸And Abner was very angry at the words of Ish-bosheth, and he said, Am I a dog's head of Judah? I am this day doing all in my power for the cause of your father Saul and for his brothers and his friends, and have not given you up into the hands of David, and now you say I have done wrong with a woman.

⁹May God's punishment be on Abner, if I do not for David as the Lord in his oath has said,

¹⁰And if I do not take away the kingdom from the family of Saul and make David ruler over Israel and Judah from Dan as far as Beer-sheba!

¹¹And so great was Ish-bosheth's fear of Abner that he was not able to say a word in answer.

¹²And Abner sent men to David at Hebron, saying, Make an agreement with me, and I will give you my support in getting all Israel on your side.

¹³And he said, It is well; I will make an agreement with you, but on one condition, which is, that when you come before me, Saul's daughter Michal is to come with you; till she comes you will not see my face.

¹⁴And David sent men to Saul's son Ish-bosheth, saying, Give me back Michal, my wife, whom I made mine for the price of the private parts of a hundred Philistines.

¹⁵So Ish-bosheth sent and took her from her husband Paltiel, the son of Laish.

¹⁶And her husband went with her as far as Bahurim, weeping while he went. Then Abner said to him, Go back. And he went back.

¹⁷Then Abner had a talk with the chief men of Israel, saying, In the past it was your desire to make David your king: so now, do it:

¹⁸For the Lord has said of David, By the hand of my servant David I will make my people Israel safe from the Philistines, and from all who are against them.

¹⁹And Abner said the same things to Benjamin: and he went to David in Hebron to make clear to him what seemed good to Israel and to all the people of Benjamin.

²⁰So Abner, with twenty men, came to Hebron, to David. And David made a feast for Abner and the men who were with him.

²¹And Abner said to David, Now I will go, and make all Israel come to my lord the king, so that they may make an agreement with you, and your kingdom may be as wide as your heart's desire. Then David sent Abner away and he went in peace.

²²Now the servants of David and Joab had been out attacking a band of armed men, and they came back with a great store of goods taken in the fight: but Abner was no longer in Hebron with David, for he had sent him away and he had gone in peace.

²³When Joab and his men came, news was given them that Abner, the son of Ner, had come to the king, who had let him go away again in peace.

²⁴Then Joab came to the king, and said, What have you done? when Abner came to you why did you send him away and let him go?

²⁵Is it not clear to you that Abner, the son of Ner, came with deceit to get knowledge of your going out and your coming in and of all you are doing?

²⁶And when Joab had come out from David, he sent men after Abner, and they overtook him at the water-spring of Sirah, and made him come back with them: but David had no knowledge of it.

²⁷And when Abner was back in Hebron, Joab took him on one side by the doorway of the town to have a word with him quietly, and there he gave him a wound in the stomach, causing his death in payment for the death of his brother Asahel.

²⁸And when David had word of it he said, May I and my kingdom be clear for ever in the eyes of the Lord from the blood of Abner, the son of Ner:

²⁹May it come on the head of Joab and all his father's family: among the men of Joab's family may there ever be some who are diseased or lepers, or who do the work of women, or are put to the sword, or are wasted from need of food!

³⁰So Joab and Abishai his brother put Abner to death, because he had put to death their brother Asahel in the fight at Gibeon.

³¹And David said to Joab and all the people who were with him, Go in grief and put haircloth about you, in sorrow for Abner. And King David went after the dead body.

³²And they put Abner's body to rest in Hebron; and the king and all the people were weeping loudly by the resting-place of Abner's body.

³³And the king made a song of grief for Abner and said, Was the death of Abner to be like the death of a foolish man?

³⁴Your hands were free, your feet were not chained: like the downfall of a man before evil men, so was your fall. And the weeping of the people over him went on again.

³⁵And the people came to make David take food, while it was still day, but David with an oath said, May God's punishment be on me if I take a taste of bread or any other thing till the sun has gone down!

³⁶And all the people took note of it and were pleased: like everything the king did, it was pleasing to the people.

³⁷So it was clear to Israel and to all the people on that day that the king was not responsible for the death of Abner, the son of Ner.

³⁸And the king said to his servants, Do you not see that a chief and a great man has come to his end today in Israel?

³⁹While I, though I am crowned king, have little strength, and these men, the sons of Zeruiah, are out of my control: may the Lord give to the evil-doer the reward of his evil-doing!

4And when Saul's son Ish-bosheth had news that Abner was dead in Hebron, his hands became feeble, and all the Israelites were troubled.

²And Saul's son had two men, captains of bands, one named Baanah and the other Rechab, sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, of the tribe of Benjamin; (for Beeroth was at one time taken to be part of Benjamin:

³But the people of Beeroth had gone in flight to Gittaim, where they have been living to this day.)

⁴Now Jonathan, Saul's son, had a son whose feet were damaged. He was five years old when news of the death of Saul and Jonathan came from Jezreel, and the woman who took care of him took him up and went in flight: and while she was getting him away as quickly as she was able, he had a fall and his feet were damaged. His name was Mephibosheth.

⁵And Rechab and Baanah, the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, went out and came to the house of Ish-bosheth in the heat of the day, when he was resting in the middle of the day. Now the woman who kept the door was cleaning grain, and sleep overcame her.

⁶And Rechab and his brother Baanah got in without being seen.

⁷And when they came into the house, Ish-bosheth was stretched on his bed in his bedroom; and they made an attack on him and put him to death, and, cutting off his head, they took it with them and went by the road through the Arabah all night.

⁸And they took the head of Ish-bosheth to David in Hebron, and said to the king, Here is the head of Ish-bosheth, the son of Saul your hater, who would have taken your life; the Lord has taken payment for the wrongs of my lord the king from Saul and his seed today.

⁹And David made answer to Rechab and his brother Baanah, the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, and said to them, By the living Lord, who has kept me safe from all my trouble,

¹⁰When one came to me with the news of Saul's death, in the belief that it would be good news, I took him and put him to death in Ziklag, which was the reward I gave him for his news:

¹¹How much more, when evil men have put an upright person to death, in his house, sleeping on his bed, will I take payment from you for his blood, and have you cut off from the earth?

¹²And David gave orders to his young men and they put them to death, cutting off their hands and their feet and hanging them up by the side of the pool in Hebron. But they took the head of Ish-bosheth and put it in its last resting-place with Abner's body in Hebron.

5Then all the tribes of Israel came to David in Hebron and said, Truly, we are your bone and your flesh.

²In the past when Saul was king over us, it was you who went at the head of Israel when they went out or came in: and the Lord said to you, You are to be the keeper of my people Israel and their ruler.

³So all the responsible men of Israel came to the king at Hebron; and King David made an agreement with them in Hebron before the Lord: and they put the holy oil on David and made him king over Israel.

⁴David was thirty years old when he became king, and he was king for forty years,

⁵Ruling over Judah in Hebron for seven years and six months, and in Jerusalem, over all Israel and Judah, for thirty-three years.

⁶And the king and his men went to Jerusalem against the Jebusites, the people of the land: and they said to David, You will not come in here, but the blind and the feeble-footed will keep you out; for they said, David will not be able to come in here.

⁷But David took the strong place of Zion, which is the town of David.

⁸And that day David said, Whoever makes an attack on the Jebusites, let him go up by the water-pipe, and put to death all the blind and feeble-footed who are hated by David. And this is why they say, The blind and feeble-footed may not come into the house.

⁹So David took the strong tower for his living-place, naming it the town of David. And David took in hand the building of the town all round, starting from the Millo.

¹⁰And David became greater and greater; for the Lord, the God of armies, was with him.

¹¹And Hiram, king of Tyre, sent men to David, with cedar-trees and woodworkers and stoneworkers: and they made David a house.

¹²And David saw that the Lord had made his position safe as king over Israel, and that he had made his kingdom great because of his people Israel.

¹³And David took more women and wives in Jerusalem, after he had come from Hebron: and he had more sons and daughters.

¹⁴These are the names of those whose birth took place in Jerusalem: Shammua and Shobab and Nathan and Solomon

¹⁵And Ibhar and Elishua and Nepheg and Japhia

¹⁶And Elishama and Eliada and Eliphelet.

¹⁷And when the Philistines had news that David had been made king over Israel, they all went up in search of David; and David, hearing of it, went down to the strong place.

¹⁸And when the Philistines came, they went in every direction in the valley of Rephaim.

¹⁹And David, desiring directions from the Lord, said, Am I to go up against the Philistines? will you give them up into my hands? And the Lord said, Go up, for I will certainly give up the Philistines into your hands.

²⁰And David went to Baal-perazim, and overcame them there; and he said, The Lord has let the forces fighting against me be broken before me as a wall is broken by rushing waters. So that place was named Baal-perazim.

²¹And the Philistines, when they went in flight, did not take their images with them, and David and his men took them away.

²²And the Philistines came up again, and went in every direction in the valley of Rephaim.

²³And when David went for directions to the Lord, he said, You are not to go up against them in front; but make a circle round them from the back and come on them opposite the spice-trees.

²⁴Then at the sound of footsteps in the tops of the trees, go forward quickly, for the Lord has gone out before you to overcome the army of the Philistines.

²⁵And David did as the Lord had said; and he overcame the Philistines, attacking them from Gibeon to near Gezer.

6And David got together all the fighting-men of Israel to the number of thirty thousand;

²And David, and all the people who were with him, went to Baal of Judah to get the ark of God, over which the holy name is named, the name of the Lord of armies, whose place is between the winged ones.

³And they put the ark of God on a new cart and took it out of the house of Abinadab which was on the hill: and Uzzah and Ahio, the sons of Abinadab, were the drivers of the cart.

⁴And Uzzah went by the side of the ark, while Ahio went before it.

⁵And David and all the men of Israel made melody before the Lord with all their power, with songs and with corded instruments and instruments of brass.

⁶And when they came to Nacon's grain-floor, Uzzah put his hand on the ark of God to keep it safe in its place, for the oxen were out of control.

⁷And the wrath of the Lord, burning against Uzzah, sent destruction on him because he had put his hand on the ark, and death came to him there by the ark of God.

⁸And David was angry because of the Lord's outburst of wrath against Uzzah: and he gave that place the name Perez-uzzah, which is its name to this day.

⁹And such was David's fear of the Lord that day, that he said, How may I let the ark of God come to me?

¹⁰So David did not let the ark of the Lord come back to him to the town of David: but had it turned away and put into the house of Obed-edom the Gittite.

¹¹And the ark of the Lord was in the house of Obed-edom the Gittite for three months: and the Lord sent a blessing on Obed-edom and all his family.

¹²And they said to King David, The blessing of the Lord is on the family of Obed-edom and on all he has, because of the ark of God. And David went and took the ark of God from the house of Obed-edom into the town of David with joy.

¹³And when those who were lifting the ark of the Lord had gone six steps, he made an offering of an ox and a fat young beast.

¹⁴And David, clothed in a linen ephod, was dancing before the Lord with all his strength.

¹⁵So David and all the men of Israel took up the ark of the Lord with cries of joy and sounding of horns.

¹⁶And when the ark of the Lord came into the town of David, Michal, Saul's daughter, looking out of the window, saw King David dancing and jumping before the Lord; and to her mind he seemed foolish.

¹⁷And they took in the ark of the Lord, and put it in its place inside the tent which David had put up for it: and David made burned offerings and peace-offerings to the Lord.

¹⁸And after David had made the burned offerings and the peace-offerings, he gave the people a blessing in the name of the Lord of armies.

¹⁹And he gave to every man and woman among all the people, among all the masses of Israel, a cake of bread and a measure of wine and a cake of dry grapes. Then all the people went away, every man to his house.

²⁰Then David came back to give a blessing to his family. And Michal, Saul's daughter, came out to him and said, How full of glory was the king of Israel today, who let himself be seen uncovered by his servant-girls like a foolish person uncovering himself without shame!

²¹And David said to Michal, I was dancing before the Lord, who put me over your father and all his sons, to make me a ruler over the people of the Lord, over his people Israel: and I will go on playing before the Lord;

²²And I will do even worse than this, and make myself even lower in your eyes: but the servant-girls of whom you were talking will give me honour.

²³And Michal, Saul's daughter, had no child till the day of her death.

7Now when the king was living in his house, and the Lord had given him rest from war on every side;

²The king said to Nathan the prophet, See now, I am living in a house of cedar, but the ark of God is housed inside the curtains of a tent.

³And Nathan said to the king, Go and do whatever is in your heart; for the Lord is with you.

⁴Now that night the word of the Lord came to Nathan, saying,

⁵Go and say to my servant David, The Lord says, Are you to be the builder of a house, a living-place for me?

⁶For from the day when I took the children of Israel up out of Egypt till this day, I have had no house, but have gone from place to place in a tent.

⁷In all the places where I went with all the children of Israel, did I ever say to any of the judges of Israel, to whom I gave the care of my people Israel, Why have you not made me a house of cedar?

⁸Then say these words to my servant David, The Lord of armies says, I took you from the fields, from keeping the sheep, so that you might be a ruler over my people, over my people Israel:

⁹And I have been with you wherever you went, cutting off before you all those who were against you; and I will make your name great, like the name of the greatest ones of the earth.

¹⁰And I will make a resting-place for my people Israel, planting them there, so that they may be living in the place which is theirs, and never again be moved; and never again will they be troubled by evil men as they were at the first,

¹¹From the time when I put judges over my people Israel; and I will give you peace from all who are against you. And the Lord says to you that he will make you the head of a line of kings.

¹²And when the time comes for you to go to rest with your fathers, I will put in your place your seed after you, the offspring of your body, and I will make his kingdom strong.

¹³He will be the builder of a house for my name, and I will make the seat of his authority certain for ever.

¹⁴I will be to him a father and he will be to me a son: if he does wrong, I will give him punishment with the rod of men and with the blows of the children of men;

¹⁵But my mercy will not be taken away from him, as I took it from him who was before you.

¹⁶And your family and your kingdom will keep their place before me for ever: the seat of your authority will never be overturned.

¹⁷So Nathan gave David an account of all these words and this vision.

¹⁸Then David the king went in and took his seat before the Lord, and said, Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my family, that you have been my guide till now?

¹⁹And this was only a small thing to you, O Lord God; but your words have even been about the far-off future of your servant's family, O Lord God!

²⁰What more may David say to you? for you have knowledge of your servant, O Lord God.

²¹Because of your word and from your heart, you have done all this great work, and let your servant see it.

²²Truly you are great, O Lord God: there is no one like you and no other God but you, as is clear from everything which has come to our ears.

²³And what other nation in the earth, like your people Israel, did a god go out to take for himself, to be his people, and to make a name for himself, and to do great and strange things for them, driving out a nation and its gods from before his people?

²⁴But you took and made strong for yourself your people Israel, to be your people for ever; and you, Lord, became their God.

²⁵And now, O Lord God, may the word which you have said about your servant and about his family, be made certain for ever, and may you do as you have said!

²⁶And let your name be made great for ever, and let men say, The Lord of armies is God over Israel: and let the family of David your servant be made strong before you!

²⁷For you, O Lord of armies, the God of Israel, have clearly said to your servant, I will make you the head of a family of kings: and so it has come into your servant's heart to make this prayer to you.

²⁸And now, O Lord God, you are God and your words are true and you have said you will give your servant this good thing;

²⁹So may it be your pleasure to give your blessing to the family of your servant, so that it may go on for ever before you: (for you, O Lord God, have said it,) and may your blessing be on your servant's family line for ever!

8And it came about after this that David made an attack on the Philistines and overcame them; and David took the authority of the mother-town from the hands of the Philistines.

²And he overcame the Moabites, and he had them measured with a line when they were stretched out on the earth; marking out two lines for death and one full line for life. So the Moabites became servants to David and gave him offerings.

³And David overcame Hadadezer, the son of Rehob, king of Zobah, when he went to make his power seen by the River.

⁴And David took from him one thousand, seven hundred horsemen and twenty thousand footmen: and David had the leg-muscles of the horses cut, only keeping enough of them for a hundred war-carriages.

⁵And when the Aramaeans of Damascus came to the help of Hadadezer, king of Zobah, David put to the sword twenty-two thousand of the Aramaeans.

⁶And David put armed forces in Aram of Damascus: and the Aramaeans became servants to David and gave him offerings. And the Lord made David overcome wherever he went.

⁷And David took their gold body-covers from the servants of Hadadezer and took them to Jerusalem.

⁸And from Tebah and Berothai, towns of Hadadezer, King David took a great store of brass.

⁹And when Tou, king of Hamath, had news that David had overcome all the army of Hadadezer,

¹⁰He sent his son Hadoram to David, with words of peace and blessing, because he had overcome Hadadezer in the fight, for Hadadezer had wars with Tou; and Hadoram took with him vessels of silver and gold and brass:

¹¹These King David made holy to the Lord, together with the silver and gold which he had taken from the nations he had overcome--

¹²The nations of Edom and Moab, and the children of Ammon and the Philistines and the Amalekites and the goods he had taken from Hadadezer, the son of Rehob, king of Zobah.

¹³And David got great honour for himself, when he came back, by the destruction of Edom in the valley of Salt, to the number of eighteen thousand men.

¹⁴And he put armed forces in Edom; all through Edom he had armed forces stationed, and all the Edomites became servants to David. And the Lord made David overcome wherever he went.

¹⁵And David was king over all Israel, judging and giving right decisions for all his people.

¹⁶And Joab, the son of Zeruiah, was chief of the army; and Jehoshaphat, the son of Ahilud, was keeper of the records;

¹⁷And Zadok and Abiathar, the son of Ahimelech, the son of Ahitub, were priests; and Seraiah was the scribe;

¹⁸And Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, was over the Cherethites and the Pelethites; and David's sons were priests.

9And David said, Is there still anyone of Saul's family living, so that I may be a friend to him, because of Jonathan?

²Now there was of Saul's people a servant named Ziba, and they sent him to David; and the king said to him, Are you Ziba? And he said, I am.

³And the king said, Is there anyone of Saul's family still living, to whom I may be a friend in God's name? And Ziba said, There is a son of Jonathan, whose feet are damaged.

⁴And the king said to him, Where is he? And Ziba said to the king, He is in the house of Machir, the son of Ammiel, in Lo-debar.

⁵Then King David sent, and had him taken from Lo-debar, from the house of Machir, the son of Ammiel.

⁶And Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, came to David, and falling down on his face, gave him honour. And David said, Mephibosheth. And answering he said, Your servant is here.

⁷And David said to him, Have no fear: for truly I will be good to you, because of your father Jonathan, and I will give back to you all the land which was Saul's; and you will have a place at my table at all times.

⁸And he went down on his face before the king, and said, What is your servant, for you to take note of a dead dog such as I am?

⁹Then the king sent for Ziba, Saul's servant, and said to him, All the property of Saul and of his family I have given to your master's son.

¹⁰And you and your sons and your servants are to take care of the land for him, and get in the fruit of it, so that your master's son may have food: but Mephibosheth, your master's son, will have a place at my table at all times. Now Ziba had fifteen sons and twenty servants.

¹¹Then Ziba said to the king, Every order which you have given to your servant will be done. As for Mephibosheth, he had a place at David's table, like one of the king's sons.

¹²And Mephibosheth had a young son named Mica. And all the people living in the house of Ziba were servants to Mephibosheth.

¹³So Mephibosheth went on living in Jerusalem; for he took all his meals at the king's table; and he had not the use of his feet.

10Now after this, death came to the king of the children of Ammon, and Hanun, his son, became king in his place.

²And David said, I will be a friend to Hanun, the son of Nahash, as his father was a friend to me. So David sent his servants, to give him words of comfort on account of his father. And David's servants came into the land of the children of Ammon.

³But the chiefs of the children of Ammon said to Hanun their lord, Does it seem to you that David is honouring your father by sending comforters to you? has he not sent his servants to go through the town and make secret observation of it, and overcome it?

⁴So Hanun took David's servants, and after cutting off half the hair on their chins, and cutting off the skirts of their robes up to the middle, he sent them away.

⁵When David had news of it, he sent men out with the purpose of meeting them on their way, for the men were greatly shamed: and the king said, Go to Jericho till your hair is long again, and then come back.

⁶And when the children of Ammon saw that they had made themselves hated by David, they sent to the Aramaeans of Beth-rehob and Zobah, and got for payment twenty thousand footmen, and they got from the king of Maacah a thousand men, and from Tob twelve thousand.

⁷And hearing of this, David sent Joab and all the army and the best fighting-men.

⁸And the children of Ammon came out and put their forces in position at the way into the town: and the Aramaeans of Zobah and of Rehob, with the men of Tob and Maacah, were by themselves in the field.

⁹Now when Joab saw that their forces were in position against him in front and at his back, he took the best of the men of Israel and put them in line against the Aramaeans;

¹⁰And the rest of the people he put in position against the children of Ammon, with Abishai, his brother, at their head.

¹¹And he said, If the Aramaeans are stronger and get the better of me, then you are to come to my help; but if the children of Ammon get the better of you, I will come to your help.

¹²Take heart, and let us be strong for our people and for the towns of our God, and may the Lord do what seems good to him.

¹³Then Joab and the people with him went forward to the fight against the Aramaeans, and they went in flight before him.

¹⁴And when the children of Ammon saw the flight of the Aramaeans, they themselves went in flight from Abishai, and came into the town. So Joab went back from fighting the children of Ammon and came to Jerusalem.

¹⁵And when the Aramaeans saw that Israel had overcome them, they got themselves together.

¹⁶And Hadadezer sent for the Aramaeans who were on the other side of the River: and they came to Helam, with Shobach, the captain of Hadadezer's army, at their head.

¹⁷And word of this was given to David: and he got all Israel together and went over Jordan and came to Helam. And the Aramaeans put their forces in position against David, and made an attack on him.

¹⁸And the Aramaeans went in flight before Israel; and David put to the sword the men of seven hundred Aramaean war-carriages and forty thousand footmen, and Shobach, the captain of the army, was wounded, and came to his death there.

¹⁹And when all the kings who were servants of Hadadezer saw that they were overcome by Israel, they made peace with Israel and became their servants. So the Aramaeans, in fear, gave no more help to the children of Ammon.

11Now in the spring, at the time when kings go out to war, David sent Joab and his servants and all Israel with him; and they made waste the land of the children of Ammon, and took up their position before Rabbah, shutting it in. But David was still at Jerusalem.

²Now one evening, David got up from his bed, and while he was walking on the roof of the king's house, he saw from there a woman bathing; and the woman was very beautiful.

³And David sent to get knowledge who the woman was. And one said, Is this not Bath-sheba, the daughter of Eliam and wife of Uriah the Hittite?

⁴And David sent and took her; and she came to him, and he took her to his bed: (for she had been made clean;) then she went back to her house.

⁵And the woman became with child; and she sent word to David that she was with child.

⁶And David sent to Joab saying, Send Uriah the Hittite to me. And Joab sent Uriah to David.

⁷And when Uriah came to him, David put questions to him about how Joab and the people were, and how the war was going.

⁸And David said to Uriah, Go down to your house and let your feet be washed. And Uriah went away from the king's house, and an offering from the king was sent after him.

⁹But Uriah took his rest at the door of the king's house, with all the servants of his lord, and did not go down to his house.

¹⁰And when word was given to David that Uriah had not gone down to his house, David said to Uriah, Have you not come from a journey? why did you not go down to your house?

¹¹And Uriah said to David, Israel and Judah with the ark are living in tents, and my lord Joab and the other servants of my lord are sleeping in the open field; and am I to go to my house and take food and drink, and go to bed with my wife? By the living Lord, and by the life of your soul, I will not do such a thing.

¹²And David said to Uriah, Be here today, and after that I will let you go. So Uriah was in Jerusalem that day and the day after.

¹³And when David sent for him, he took meat and drink with him, and David made him the worse for drink: and when evening came, he went to rest on his bed with the servants of his lord, but he did not go down to his house.

¹⁴Now in the morning, David gave Uriah a letter to take to Joab.

¹⁵And in the letter he said, Take care to put Uriah in the very front of the line, where the fighting is most violent, and go back from him, so that he may be overcome and put to death.

¹⁶So while Joab was watching the town, he put Uriah in the place where it was clear to him the best fighters were.

¹⁷And the men of the town went out and had a fight with Joab: and a number of David's men came to their death in the fight, and with them Uriah the Hittite.

¹⁸Then Joab sent David news of everything which had taken place in the war:

¹⁹And he gave orders to the man who took the news, saying, After you have given the king all the news about the war,

²⁰If the king is angry and says, Why did you go so near the town for the fight? was it not certain that their archers would be on the wall?

²¹Who put Abimelech, the son of Jerubbaal, to death? did not a woman send a great stone down on him from the wall, putting him to death at Thebez? why did you go so near the wall? Then say to him, Your servant Uriah the Hittite is among the dead.

²²So the man went, and came to David, and gave him all the news which Joab had sent him to give; then David was angry with Joab and said, Why did you go so near the town for the fight? was it not certain that their archers would be on the wall? who put Abimelech, the son of Jerubbaal, to death? did not a woman send a great stone down on him from the wall, putting him to death at Thebez? why did you go so near the wall?

²³And the man said to David, Truly the men got the better of us, and came out against us into the open country, but we sent them back to the very doors of the town.

²⁴And the archers sent their arrows at your servants from the wall, and some of the king's servants are dead, and among them is your servant Uriah the Hittite.

²⁵Then David said to the man, Go and say to Joab, Do not let this be a grief to you; for one man may come to his death by the sword like another: put up an even stronger fight against the town, and take it: and do you put heart into him.

²⁶And when the wife of Uriah had news that her husband was dead, she gave herself up to weeping for him.

²⁷And when the days of weeping were past, David sent for her, and took her into his house, and she became his wife and gave him a son. But the Lord was not pleased with the thing David had done.

12And the Lord sent Nathan to David. And Nathan came to him and said, There were two men in the same town: one a man of great wealth, and the other a poor man.

²The man of wealth had great numbers of flocks and herds;

³But the poor man had only one little she-lamb, which he had got and taken care of: from its birth it had been with him like one of his children; his meat was its food, and from his cup it took its drink, resting in his arms, and it was like a daughter to him.

⁴Now a traveller came to the house of the man of wealth, but he would not take anything from his flock or his herd to make a meal for the traveller who had come to him, but he took the poor man's lamb and made it ready for the man who had come.

⁵And David was full of wrath against that man; and he said to Nathan, By the living Lord, death is the right punishment for the man who has done this:

⁶And he will have to give back four times the value of the lamb, because he has done this and because he had no pity.

⁷And Nathan said to David, You are that man. The Lord God of Israel says, I made you king over Israel, putting holy oil on you, and I kept you safe from the hands of Saul;

⁸I gave you your master's daughter and your master's wives for yourself, and I gave you the daughters of Israel and Judah; and if that had not been enough, I would have given you such and such things.

⁹Why then have you had no respect for the word of the Lord, doing what is evil in his eyes? You have put Uriah the Hittite to death with the sword, and have taken his wife to be your wife; you have put him to death with the sword of the children of Ammon.

¹⁰So now the sword will never be turned away from your family; because you have had no respect for me, and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.

¹¹The Lord says, From those of your family I will send evil against you, and before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to your neighbour, and he will take your wives to his bed by the light of this sun.

¹²You did it secretly; but I will do this thing before all Israel and in the light of the sun.

¹³And David said to Nathan, Great is my sin against the Lord. And Nathan said to David, The Lord has put away your sin; death will not come on you.

¹⁴But still, because you have had no respect for the Lord, death will certainly overtake the child who has newly come to birth.

¹⁵Then Nathan went back to his house. And the hand of the Lord was on David's son, the child of Uriah's wife, and it became very ill.

¹⁶So David made prayer to God for the child; and he took no food day after day, and went in and, stretching himself out on the earth, was there all night.

¹⁷And the chief men of his house got up and went to his side to make him get up from the earth, but he would not; and he would not take food with them.

¹⁸And then on the seventh day the child's death took place. And David's servants were in fear of giving him the news of the child's death: for they said, Truly, while the child was still living he gave no attention when we said anything to him: what will he do to himself if we give him word that the child is dead?

¹⁹But when David saw that his servants were talking together quietly, he was certain that the child was dead: and he said to his servants, Is the child dead? and they said, He is.

²⁰Then David got up from the earth, and after washing and rubbing himself with oil and changing his clothing, he went into the house of the Lord and gave worship: then he went back to his house, and at his order they put food before him and he had a meal.

²¹Then his servants said to him, Why have you been acting in this way? you were weeping and going without food while the child was still living; but when the child was dead, you got up and had a meal.

²²And he said, While the child was still living I went without food and gave myself up to weeping: for I said, Who is able to say that the Lord will not have mercy on me and give the child life?

²³But now that the child is dead there is no reason for me to go without food; am I able to make him come back to life? I will go to him, but he will never come back to me.

²⁴And David gave comfort to his wife Bath-sheba, and he went in to her and had connection with her: and she had a son to whom she gave the name Solomon. And he was dear to the Lord.

²⁵And he sent word by Nathan the prophet, who gave him the name Jedidiah, by the word of the Lord.

²⁶Now Joab was fighting against Rabbah, in the land of the children of Ammon, and he took the water-town.

²⁷And Joab sent men to David, saying, I have made war against Rabbah and have taken the water-town.

²⁸So now, get the rest of the people together, and put them in position against the town and take it, for if I take it, it will be named after my name.

²⁹Then David got all the people together and went to Rabbah and made war on it and took it.

³⁰And he took the crown of Milcom from his head; the weight of it was a talent of gold, and in it were stones of great price; and it was put on David's head. And he took a great store of goods from the town.

³¹And he took the people out of the town and put them to work with wood-cutting instruments, and iron grain-crushers, and iron axes, and at brick-making: this he did to all the towns of the children of Ammon. Then David and all the people went back to Jerusalem.

13Now after this, it came about that Absalom, David's son, had a beautiful sister, whose name was Tamar; and David's son Amnon was in love with her.

²And he was so deeply in love that he became ill because of his sister Tamar; for she was a virgin, and so it seemed hard to Amnon to do anything to her.

³But Amnon had a friend whose name was Jonadab, the son of Shimeah, David's brother: and Jonadab was a very wise man.

⁴And he said to him, O son of the king, why are you getting thinner day by day? will you not say what your trouble is? And Amnon said to him, I am in love with Tamar, my brother Absalom's sister.

⁵Then Jonadab said to him, Go to your bed, and let it seem that you are ill: and when your father comes to see you, say to him, Let my sister Tamar come and give me bread, and get the food ready before my eyes, so that I may see it and take it from her hand.

⁶So Amnon went to bed and made himself seem ill: and when the king came to see him, Amnon said to the king, Please let my sister Tamar come and make me one or two cakes before my eyes, so that I may take food from her hand.

⁷Then David sent to the house for Tamar and said, Go now to your brother Amnon's house and get a meal for him.

⁸So Tamar went to her brother Amnon's house; and he was in bed. And she took paste and made cakes before his eyes, cooking them over the fire.

⁹And she took the cooking-pot, and put the cakes before him, but he would not take them. And Amnon said, Let everyone go away from me. So they all went out.

¹⁰Then Amnon said to Tamar, Take the food and come into my bedroom, so that I may take it from your hand. So Tamar took the cakes she had made and went with them into her brother Amnon's bedroom.

¹¹And when she took them to give them to him, he put his arms round her and said, Come to bed, my sister.

¹²And answering him, she said, O my brother, do not put shame on me; it is not right for such a thing to be done in Israel: do not this evil thing.

¹³What will become of me in my shame? and as for you, you will be looked down on with disgust by all Israel. Now then, go and make your request to the king, for he will not keep me from you.

¹⁴But he would not give attention to what she said: but being stronger than she, he took her by force, and had connection with her.

¹⁵Then Amnon was full of hate for her, hating her with a hate greater than his earlier love for her. And he said to her, Get up and be gone.

¹⁶And she said to him, Not so, my brother, for this great wrong in sending me away is worse than what you did to me before. But he gave no attention to her.

¹⁷Then he gave a cry to the servant who was waiting on him and said, Put this woman out, and let the door be locked after her.

¹⁸Now she had on a long robe, such as in past times the king's virgin daughters were dressed in. Then the servant put her out, locking the door after her.

¹⁹And Tamar, in her grief, put dust on her head; and she put her hand on her head and went away crying loudly.

²⁰And her brother Absalom said to her, Has your brother Amnon been with you? but now, let there be an end to your crying, my sister: he is your brother, do not take this thing to heart. So Tamar went on living uncomforted in her brother's house.

²¹But when King David had news of all these things he was very angry; but he did not make trouble for Amnon his son, for he was dear to David, being his oldest son.

²²But Absalom said nothing to his brother Amnon, good or bad: for he was full of hate for him, because he had taken his sister Tamar by force.

²³Now after two full years, Absalom had men cutting the wool of his sheep in Baal-hazor, which is near Ephraim: and he sent for all the king's sons to come to his feast.

²⁴And Absalom came to the king and said, See now, your servant is cutting the wool of his sheep; will the king and his servants be pleased to come?

²⁵And the king said to Absalom, No, my son, let us not all go, or the number will be over-great for you. And he made his request again, but he would not go, but he gave him his blessing.

²⁶Then Absalom said, If you will not go, then let my brother Amnon go with us. And the king said to him, Is there any reason for him to go with you?

²⁷But Absalom went on requesting him till he let Amnon and all the king's sons go with him. And Absalom made a great feast like a feast for a king.

²⁸Now Absalom had given orders to his servants, saying, Now take note when Amnon's heart is glad with wine; and when I say to you, Make an attack on Amnon, then put him to death without fear: have I not given you orders? be strong and without fear.

²⁹So Absalom's servants did to Amnon as Absalom had given them orders. Then all the king's sons got up, and every man got on his beast and went in flight.

³⁰Now while they were on their way, news was given to David that Absalom had put to death all the sons of the king and that not one of them was still living.

³¹Then the king got up in great grief, stretching himself out on the earth: and all his servants were by his side, with their clothing parted.

³²And Jonadab, the son of Shimeah, David's brother, said, Let not my lord have the idea that all the sons of the king have been put to death; for only Amnon is dead: this has been purposed by Absalom from the day when he took his sister Tamar by force.

³³So now, let not my lord the king take this thing to heart, with the idea that all the king's sons are dead: for only Amnon is dead.

³⁴But Absalom went in flight. And the young man who kept the watch, lifting up his eyes, saw that a great band of people was coming down the slope by the way of the Horons; and the watchman came and gave word to the king, saying, I saw men coming down by the way of the Horons, from the hillside.

³⁵And Jonadab said to the king, See, the king's sons are coming; as your servant said, so it is.

³⁶And while he was talking, the king's sons came, with weeping and loud cries: and the king and all his servants were weeping bitterly.

³⁷So Absalom went in flight and came to Talmai, the son of Ammihud, the king of Geshur, where he was for three years.

³⁸And the king was sorrowing for his son all the time.

³⁹And the heart of David was wasted with desire for Absalom: for he was comforted for the death of Amnon.

14Now it was clear to Joab, the son of Zeruiah, that the king's heart was turning to Absalom.

²And Joab sent to Tekoa and got from there a wise woman, and said to her, Now make yourself seem like one given up to grief, and put on the clothing of sorrow, not using any sweet oil for your body, but looking like one who for a long time has been weeping for the dead:

³And come to the king and say these words to him. So Joab gave her words to say.

⁴And the woman of Tekoa came to the king, and falling on her face, gave him honour and said, Give me help, O king.

⁵And the king said to her, What is your trouble? And her answer was, Truly I am a widow, and my husband is dead.

⁶And I had two sons, and the two of them had a fight in the field, and there was no one to come between them, and one with a blow put the other to death.

⁷And now all the family is turned against me, your servant, saying, Give up him who was the cause of his brother's death, so that we may put him to death in payment for the life of his brother, whose life he took; and we will put an end to the one who will get the heritage: so they will put out my last burning coal, and my husband will have no name or offspring on the face of the earth.

⁸And the king said to the woman, Go to your house and I will give orders about this.

⁹And the woman of Tekoa said to the king, My lord, O king, may the sin be on me and on my family, and may the king and the seat of his kingdom be clear of sin!

¹⁰And the king said, If anyone says anything to you, make him come to me, and he will do you no more damage.

¹¹Then she said, Let the king keep in mind the Lord your God, so that he who gives punishment for blood may be kept back from further destruction and that no one may send death on my son. And he said, By the living Lord, not a hair of your son's head will come to the earth.

¹²Then the woman said, Will the king let his servant say one word more? And he said, Say on.

¹³And the woman said, Why have you had such a thought about the people of God? (for in saying these very words the king has put himself in the wrong because he has not taken back the one whom he sent far away.)

¹⁴For death comes to us all, and we are like water drained out on the earth, which it is not possible to take up again; and God will not take away the life of the man whose purpose is that he who has been sent away may not be completely cut off from him.

¹⁵And now it is my fear of the people which has made me come to say these words to my lord the king: and your servant said, I will put my cause before the king, and it may be that he will give effect to my request.

¹⁶For the king will give ear, and take his servant out of the power of the man whose purpose is the destruction of me and my son together from the heritage of God.

¹⁷Then your servant said, May the word of my lord the king give me peace! for my lord the king is as the angel of God in his hearing of good and bad: and may the Lord your God be with you!

¹⁸Then the king said to the woman, Now give me an answer to the question I am going to put to you; keep nothing back. And the woman said, Let my lord the king say on.

¹⁹And the king said, Is not the hand of Joab with you in all this? And the woman in answer said, By the life of your soul, my lord the king, it is not possible for anyone to go to the right hand or to the left from anything said by the king: your servant Joab gave me orders, and put all these words in my mouth:

²⁰This he did, hoping that the face of this business might be changed: and my lord is wise, with the wisdom of the angel of God, having knowledge of everything on earth.

²¹And the king said to Joab, See now, I will do this thing: go then and Come back with the young man Absalom.

²²Then Joab, falling down on his face on the earth, gave the king honour and blessing; and Joab said, Today it is clear to your servant that I have grace in your eyes, my lord king, because the king has given effect to the request of his servant.

²³So Joab got up and went to Geshur and came back again to Jerusalem with Absalom.

²⁴And the king said, Let him go to his house, but let him not see my face. So Absalom went back to his house and did not see the face of the king.

²⁵Now in all Israel there was no one so greatly to be praised for his beautiful form as Absalom: from his feet to the crown of his head he was completely beautiful.

²⁶And when he had his hair cut, (which he did at the end of every year, because of the weight of his hair;) the weight of the hair was two hundred shekels by the king's weight.

²⁷And Absalom was the father of three sons and of one daughter named Tamar, who was very beautiful.

²⁸For two full years Absalom was living in Jerusalem without ever seeing the face of the king.

²⁹Then Absalom sent for Joab to send him to the king, but he would not come to him: and he sent again a second time, but he would not come.

³⁰So he said to his servants, See, Joab's field is near mine, and he has barley in it; go and put it on fire. And Absalom's servants put the field on fire.

³¹Then Joab came to Absalom in his house and said to him, Why have your servants put my field on fire?

³²And Absalom's answer was, See, I sent to you saying, Come here, so that I may send you to the king to say, Why have I come back from Geshur? it would be better for me to be there still: let me now see the king's face, and if there is any sin in me, let him put me to death.

³³So Joab went to the king and said these words to him: and when the king had sent for him, Absalom came, and went down on his face on the earth before the king: and the king gave him a kiss.

15Now after this, Absalom got for himself a carriage and horses, and fifty runners to go before him.

²And Absalom got up early, morning after morning, and took his place at the side of the public meeting-place: and when any man had a cause which had to come to the king to be judged, then Absalom, crying out to him, said, What is your town? and he would say, Your servant is of one of the tribes of Israel.

³And Absalom would say to him, See, your cause is true and right; but no man has been named by the king to give you a hearing.

⁴And more than this, Absalom said, If only I was made judge in the land, so that every man who has any cause or question might come to me, and I would give a right decision for him!

⁵And if any man came near to give him honour, he took him by the hand and gave him a kiss.

⁶And this Absalom did to everyone in Israel who came to the king to have his cause judged: so Absalom, like a thief, took away the hearts of the men of Israel.

⁷Now at the end of four years, Absalom said to the king, Let me go to Hebron and give effect to the oath which I made to the Lord:

⁸For while I was living in Geshur in Aram, your servant made an oath, saying, If ever the Lord lets me come back to Jerusalem, I will give him worship in Hebron.

⁹And the king said to him, Go in peace. So he got up and went to Hebron.

¹⁰But Absalom at the same time sent watchers through all the tribes of Israel to say, At the sound of the horn you are to say, Absalom is king in Hebron.

¹¹And with Absalom, at his request, went two hundred men from Jerusalem, who were completely unconscious of his designs.

¹²And Absalom sent for Ahithophel the Gilonite, one of David's helpers, from Giloh his town, while he was making the offerings. And the design against David became strong, for more and more people were joined to Absalom.

¹³And one came to David and said, The hearts of the men of Israel have gone after Absalom.

¹⁴And David said to all his servants who were with him at Jerusalem, Come, let us go in flight, or not one of us will be safe from Absalom: let us go without loss of time, or he will overtake us quickly and send evil on us, and put the town to the sword.

¹⁵And the king's servants said to the king, See, your servants are ready to do whatever the king says is to be done.

¹⁶So the king went out, taking with him all the people of his house, but for ten of his women, who were to take care of the house.

¹⁷And the king went out, and all his servants went after him, and made a stop at the Far House.

¹⁸And all the people went on by his side; and all the Cherethites and all the Pelethites and all the men of Ittai of Gath, six hundred men who came after him from Gath, went on before the king.

¹⁹Then the king said to Ittai the Gittite, Why are you coming with us? go back and keep with the king: for you are a man of another country, you are far from the land of your birth.

²⁰It was only yesterday you came to us; why then am I to make you go up and down with us? for I have to go where I may; go back then, and take your countrymen with you, and may the Lord's mercy and good faith be with you.

²¹And Ittai the Gittite in answer said, By the living Lord, and by the life of my lord the king, in whatever place my lord the king may be, for life or death, there will your servant be.

²²And David said to Ittai, Go forward, then. And Ittai the Gittite went on, with all his men and all the little ones he had with him.

²³And there was great weeping in all the country when all the people went through; and the king himself was waiting in the Kidron valley and all the people went by him in the direction of the olive-tree on the edge of the waste land.

²⁴Then Zadok came, and Abiathar, and with them the ark of God's agreement: and they put down the ark of God, till all the people from the town had gone by.

²⁵And the king said to Zadok, Take the ark of God back into the town: if I have grace in the eyes of the Lord, he will let me come back and see it and his House again:

²⁶But if he says, I have no delight in you: then, here I am; let him do to me what seems good to him.

²⁷The king said further to Zadok the priest, See, you and Abiathar are to go back to the town in peace, with your two sons, Ahimaaz, your son, and Jonathan, the son of Abiathar.

²⁸See, I will be waiting at the way across the river, in the waste land, till I get news from you.

²⁹So Zadok and Abiathar took the ark of God back to Jerusalem, and did not go away from there.

³⁰And David went up the slopes of the Mount of Olives weeping all the way, with his head covered and no shoes on his feet: and all the people who were with him, covering their heads, went up weeping.

³¹And word came to David, saying, Ahithophel is among those who are joined to Absalom. And David said, O Lord, let the wisdom of Ahithophel be made foolish.

³²Now when David had come to the top of the slope, where they gave worship to God, Hushai the Archite came to him in great grief with dust on his head:

³³David said to him, If you go on with me, you will be a trouble to me:

³⁴But if you go back to the town and say to Absalom, I will be your servant, O king; as in the past I have been your father's servant, so now I will be yours: then you will be able to keep Ahithophel's designs against me from being put into effect.

³⁵And have you not there Zadok and Abiathar the priests? so whatever comes to your ears from the king's house, give word of it to Zadok and Abiathar the priests.

³⁶See, they have with them their two sons, Ahimaaz, Zadok's son, and Jonathan, the son of Abiathar; by them you may send word to me of everything which comes to your ears.

³⁷So Hushai, David's friend, went into the town, and Absalom came to Jerusalem.

16And when David had gone a little way past the top of the slope, Ziba, the servant of Mephibosheth, came to him, with two asses on which were two hundred cakes of bread and a hundred stems of dry grapes and a hundred summer fruits and a skin of wine.

²And David said to Ziba, What is your reason for this? And Ziba said, The asses are for the use of the king's people, and the bread and the fruit are food for the young men; and the wine is for drink for those who are overcome by weariness in the waste land.

³And the king said, And where is your master's son? And Ziba said, He is still at Jerusalem: for he said, Today Israel will give back to me the kingdom of my father.

⁴Then the king said to Ziba, Truly everything which was Mephibosheth's is yours. And Ziba said, I give honour to my lord, may I have grace in your eyes, my lord, O king!

⁵And when King David came to Bahurim, a man of Saul's family named Shimei, the son of Gera, came out from there, calling curses after him.

⁶And he sent stones at David and at all the king's servants and at all the people and at all the men of war by his side, on the right hand and on the left.

⁷And Shimei said, with curses, Be gone, be gone, you man of blood, you good-for-nothing:

⁸The Lord has sent punishment on you for all the blood of the family of Saul, whose kingdom you have taken; and the Lord has given the kingdom to Absalom, your son: now you yourself are taken in your evil, because you are a man of blood.

⁹Then Abishai, the son of Zeruiah, said to the king, Is this dead dog to go on cursing my lord the king? let me go over and take off his head.

¹⁰And the king said, What have I to do with you, you sons of Zeruiah? Let him go on cursing, for the Lord has said, Put a curse on David, and who then may say, Why have you done so?

¹¹And David said to Abishai and to all his servants, You see how my son, the offspring of my body, has made designs against my life: how much more then may this Benjamite do so? Let him be, and let him go on cursing; for the Lord has given him orders.

¹²It may be that the Lord will take note of my wrongs, and give me back good in answer to his cursing of me today.

¹³So David and his men went on their way: and Shimei went by the hillside parallel with them, cursing and sending stones and dust at him.

¹⁴And the king and his people came tired to Jordan, and took their rest there.

¹⁵And Absalom and the men of Israel came to Jerusalem, and Ahithophel was with him.

¹⁶Then Hushai the Archite, David's friend, came to Absalom and said, Long life to the king, long life to the king!

¹⁷And Absalom said, Is this your love for your friend? why did you not go with your friend?

¹⁸And Hushai said to Absalom, Not so; I am for that man whom the Lord and this people and all the men of Israel have taken as king, and I will take my place with him.

¹⁹And more than this! where is my place as a servant? is it not before his son? as I have been your father's servant, so will I be yours.

²⁰Then Absalom said to Ahithophel, Give your opinion now, what are we to do?

²¹And Ahithophel said to Absalom, Go in to your father's women who are here looking after his house; then all Israel will have the news that you are hated by your father, and the hands of your supporters will be strong.

²²So they put up the tent for Absalom on the top of the house, and Absalom went in to his father's women before the eyes of all Israel.

²³In those days the opinions of Ahithophel were valued as highly as if through him a man might get direction from God; so were they valued by David as much as by Absalom.

17Then Ahithophel said to Absalom, Let me take out twelve thousand men and this very night I will go after David:

²And I will come up with him when he is tired and feeble, and make him full of fear: and all the people with him will go in flight; and I will make an attack on the king only:

³And I will make all the people come back to you as a bride comes back to her husband: it is the life of only one man you are going after; so all the people will be at peace.

⁴And the saying was pleasing to Absalom and to the responsible men of Israel.

⁵Then Absalom said, Now send for Hushai the Archite, and let us give ear to what he has to say.

⁶And when Hushai came, Absalom said to him, This is what Ahithophel has said: are we to do as he says? if not, what is your suggestion?

⁷And Hushai said to Absalom, Ahithophel's idea is not a good one at this time.

⁸Hushai said further, You have knowledge of your father and his men, that they are men of war, and that their feelings are bitter, like those of a bear in the field whose young ones have been taken from her: and your father is a man of war, and will not take his night's rest with the people;

⁹But he will certainly have taken cover now in some hole or secret place; and if some of our people, at the first attack, are overcome, then any hearing of it will say, There is destruction among the people who are on Absalom's side.

¹⁰Then even the strongest, whose heart is like the heart of a lion, will become like water; for all Israel is conscious that your father is a man of war, and those who are with him are strong and without fear.

¹¹But my suggestion is that all Israel, from Dan as far as Beer-sheba, comes together to you, a great army like the sands of the sea in number; and that you yourself go out among them.

¹²Then we will come on him in some place, wherever he may be, falling on him as the dew comes on the earth: and of him and all the men who are with him not one will get away with his life.

¹³And if he has gone into some town, then let all Israel take strong cords to that town, and we will have it pulled into the valley, till not one small stone is to be seen there.

¹⁴Then Absalom and all the men of Israel said, Hushai's suggestion is better than that of Ahithophel. For it was the purpose of the Lord to make the wise designs of Ahithophel without effect, so that the Lord might send evil on Absalom.

¹⁵Then Hushai said to Zadok and Abiathar, the priests, This is the suggestion made by Ahithophel to Absalom and the responsible men of Israel, and this is what I said to them.

¹⁶So now send the news quickly to David, and say, Do not take your night's rest by the way across the river to the waste land, but be certain to go over; or the king and all the people with him will come to destruction.

¹⁷Now Jonathan and Ahimaaz were waiting by En-rogel; and a servant-girl went from time to time and gave them news and they went with the news to King David, for it was not wise for them to let themselves be seen coming into the town.

¹⁸But a boy saw them, and gave word of it to Absalom: so the two of them went away quickly, and came to the house of a man in Bahurim who had a water-hole in his garden, and they went down into it.

¹⁹And a woman put a cover over the hole, and put crushed grain on top of it, and no one had any knowledge of it.

²⁰And Absalom's servants came to the woman at the house and said, Where are Ahimaaz and Jonathan? And the woman said to them, They have gone from here to the stream. And after searching for them, and seeing nothing of them, they went back to Jerusalem.

²¹Then after the servants had gone away, they came up out of the water-hole and went to give King David the news; and they said, Get up and go quickly over the water, for such and such are Ahithophel's designs against you.

²²So David and all the people who were with him went up over Jordan: when dawn came, every one of them had gone over Jordan.

²³Now when Ahithophel saw that his suggestion was not acted on, he got his ass ready, and went back to his house, to the town where he came from, and having put his house in order, he put himself to death by hanging; so he came to his end and was put in the resting-place of his father.

²⁴And David came to Mahanaim. And Absalom, with all the men of Israel, went over Jordan.

²⁵And Absalom put Amasa at the head of the army in place of Joab. Now Amasa was the son of a man named Ithra the Ishmaelite, who had been the lover of Abigail, the daughter of Jesse, sister of Zeruiah, Joab's mother.

²⁶And Israel and Absalom put up their tents in the land of Gilead.

²⁷Now when David had come to Mahanaim, Shobi, the son of Nahash of Rabbah, the Ammonite, and Machir, the son of Ammiel of Lo-debar, and Barzillai the Gileadite of Rogelim,

²⁸Came with beds and basins and pots, and grain and meal, and all sorts of dry foods,

²⁹And honey and butter and sheep and milk-cheeses, for David and his people: for they said, This people is in the waste land, needing food and drink and rest.

18And David had the people who were with him numbered, and he put over them captains of thousands and captains of hundreds.

²And David sent the people out, a third of them under the orders of Joab, and a third under the orders of Abishai, son of Zeruiah, Joab's brother, and a third under Ittai the Gittite. And the king said to the people, And I myself will certainly go out with you.

³But the people said, It is better for you not to go out: for if we are put to flight, they will not give a thought to us, and if death overtakes half of us, it will be nothing to them: but you are of more value than ten thousand of us: so it is better for you to be ready to come to our help from this town.

⁴And the king said to them, I will do whatever seems best to you. So the king took his place by the door of the town, and all the people went out by hundreds and by thousands.

⁵And the king gave orders to Joab and Abishai and Ittai, saying, Because of me, be gentle to the young man Absalom. And this order about Absalom was given in the hearing of all the people.

⁶So the people went out into the field against Israel, and the fight took place in the woods of Ephraim.

⁷And the people of Israel were overcome there by the servants of David, and there was a great destruction that day, and twenty thousand men were put to the sword.

⁸And the fighting went on over all the face of the country: and the woods were responsible for more deaths than the sword.

⁹And Absalom came across some of David's men. And Absalom was seated on his mule, and the mule went under the thick branches of a great tree, and his head became fixed in the tree and he was lifted up between earth and heaven, and the beast under him went on.

¹⁰And a certain man saw it and said to Joab, I saw Absalom hanging in a tree.

¹¹And Joab said to the man who had given him the news, If you saw this, why did you not put your sword through him, and I would have given you ten bits of silver and a band for your robe?

¹²And the man said to Joab, Even if you gave me a thousand bits of silver, I would not put out my hand against the king's son: for in our hearing the king gave orders to you and Abishai and Ittai, saying, Take care that the young man Absalom is not touched.

¹³And if I had falsely put him to death (and nothing may be kept secret from the king), you would have had nothing to do with me.

¹⁴Then Joab said, I would have made it safe for you. And he took three spears in his hand, and put them through Absalom's heart, while he was still living, in the branches of the tree.

¹⁵And ten young men, servants of Joab, came round Absalom and put an end to him.

¹⁶And Joab had the horn sounded, and the people came back from going after Israel, for Joab kept them back.

¹⁷And they took Absalom's body and put it into a great hole in the wood, and put a great mass of stones over it: and every man of Israel went in flight to his tent.

¹⁸Now Absalom, before his death, had put up for himself a pillar in the king's valley, naming it after himself; for he said, I have no son to keep my name in memory: and to this day it is named Absalom's pillar.

¹⁹Then Ahimaaz, the son of Zadok, said, Let me go and give the king news of how the Lord has done right in his cause against those who took up arms against him.

²⁰And Joab said, You will take no news today; another day you may give him the news, but you will take no news today, because the king's son is dead.

²¹Then Joab said to the Cushite, Go and give the king word of what you have seen. And the Cushite, making a sign of respect to Joab, went off running.

²²Then Ahimaaz, the son of Zadok, said to Joab again, Whatever may come of it, let me go after the Cushite. And Joab said, Why have you a desire to go, my son, seeing that you will get no reward for your news?

²³Whatever may come of it, he said, I will go. Then he said to him, Go. So Ahimaaz went running by the lowland road and overtook the Cushite.

²⁴Now David was seated between the two town doors; and the watchman went up to the roof of the doorways, on the wall, and, lifting up his eyes, saw a man running by himself.

²⁵And the watchman gave news of it to the king. And the king said, If he is coming by himself, then he has news. And the man was travelling quickly, and came near.

²⁶Then the watchman saw another man running: and crying out in the direction of the door he said, Here is another man running by himself. And the king said, He, like the other, comes with news.

²⁷And the watchman said, It seems to me that the running of the first is like the running of Ahimaaz, the son of Zadok. And the king said, He is a good man, and his news will be good.

²⁸And Ahimaaz, crying out to the king, said, It is well. And falling down before the king, with his face to the earth, he said, May the Lord your God be praised, who has given up the men who took up arms against my lord the king!

²⁹And the king said, Is it well with the young man Absalom? And Ahimaaz said in answer, When Joab sent me, your servant, I saw a great outcry going on, but I had no knowledge of what it was.

³⁰And the king said, Get back and take your place here. So turning to one side, he took his place there.

³¹And then the Cushite came and said, I have news for my lord the king: today the Lord has done right in your cause against all those who took up arms against you.

³²And the king said to the Cushite, Is the young man Absalom safe? And the Cushite said in answer, May all the king's haters and those who do evil against the king, be as that young man is!

³³Then the king was much moved, and went up into the room over the door, weeping, and saying, O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! if only my life might have been given for yours, O Absalom, my son, my son!

19And word was given to Joab that the king was weeping and sorrowing for Absalom.

²And the salvation of that day was changed to sorrow for all the people: for it was said to the people, The king is in bitter grief for his son.

³And the people made their way back to the town quietly and secretly, as those who are shamed go secretly when they go in flight from the war.

⁴But the king, covering his face, gave a great cry, O my son Absalom, O Absalom, my son, my son!

⁵And Joab came into the house to the king and said, Today you have put to shame the faces of all your servants who even now have kept you and your sons and your daughters and your wives and all your women safe from death;

⁶For your haters, it seems, are dear to you, and your friends are hated. For you have made it clear that captains and servants are nothing to you: and now I see that if Absalom was living and we had all been dead today, it would have been right in your eyes.

⁷So get up now, and go out and say some kind words to your servants; for, by the Lord, I give you my oath, that if you do not go out, not one of them will keep with you tonight; and that will be worse for you than all the evil which has overtaken you from your earliest years.

⁸Then the king got up and took his seat near the town-door. And word was given to all the people that the king was in the public place: and all the people came before the king. Now all the men of Israel had gone back in flight to their tents.

⁹And through all the tribes of Israel the people were having arguments, saying, The king made us safe from the hands of those who were against us and made us free from the hands of the Philistines; and now he has gone in flight from the land, because of Absalom.

¹⁰And Absalom, whom we made a ruler over us, is dead in the fight. So now why do you say nothing about getting the king back? And word of what all Israel was saying came to the king.

¹¹And King David sent word to Zadok and Abiathar, the priests, Say to the responsible men of Judah, Why are you the last to take steps to get the king back to his house?

¹²You are my brothers, my bone and my flesh; why are you the last to get the king back again?

¹³And say to Amasa, Are you not my bone and my flesh? May God's punishment be on me, if I do not make you chief of the army before me at all times in place of Joab!

¹⁴And the hearts of the men of Judah were moved like one man; so that they sent to the king, saying, Come back, with all your servants.

¹⁵So the king came back, and came as far as Jordan. And Judah came to Gilgal, meeting the king there, to take him back with them over Jordan.

¹⁶And Shimei, the son of Gera, the Benjamite from Bahurim, got up quickly and went down with the men of Judah for the purpose of meeting King David;

¹⁷And with him a thousand men of Benjamin, and Ziba, the servant of Saul, with his fifteen sons and twenty servants, came rushing to Jordan before the king,

¹⁸And kept going across the river to take the people of the king's house over, and to do whatever was desired by the king. And Shimei, the son of Gera, went down on his face in the dust before the king, when he was about to go over Jordan,

¹⁹And said to him, Let me not be judged as a sinner in your eyes, O my lord, and do not keep in mind the wrong I did on the day when my lord the king went out of Jerusalem, or take it to heart.

²⁰For your servant is conscious of his sin: and so, as you see, I have come today, the first of all the sons of Joseph, for the purpose of meeting my lord the king.

²¹But Abishai, the son of Zeruiah, said, Is not death the right fate for Shimei, because he has been cursing the one marked by the holy oil?

²²And David said, What have I to do with you, you sons of Zeruiah, that you put yourselves against me today? is it right for any man in Israel to be put to death today? for I am certain today that I am king in Israel.

²³So the king said to Shimei, You will not be put to death. And the king gave him his oath.

²⁴And Mephibosheth, the son of Saul's son, came down for the purpose of meeting the king; his feet had not been cared for or his hair cut or his clothing washed from the day when the king went away till the day when he came back in peace.

²⁵Now when he had come from Jerusalem to see the king, the king said to him, Why did you not come with me, Mephibosheth?

²⁶And he said in answer, Because of the deceit of my servant, my lord king: for I, your servant, said to him, You are to make ready an ass and on it I will go with the king, for your servant has not the use of his feet.

²⁷He has given you a false account of me: but my lord the king is like the angel of God: do then whatever seems good to you.

²⁸For all my father's family were only dead men before my lord the king: and still you put your servant among those whose place is at the king's table. What right then have I to say anything more to the king?

²⁹And the king said, Say nothing more about these things. I say, Let there be a division of the land between Ziba and you.

³⁰And Mephibosheth said, Let him take it all, now that my lord the king has come back to his house in peace!

³¹And Barzillai the Gileadite came down from Rogelim; and he went on as far as Jordan with the king to take him across Jordan.

³²Now Barzillai was a very old man, as much as eighty years old: and he had given the king everything he had need of, while he was at Mahanaim, for he was a very great man.

³³And the king said to Barzillai, Come over with me, and I will take care of you in Jerusalem.

³⁴And Barzillai said to the king, How much of my life is still before me, for me to go up to Jerusalem with the king?

³⁵I am now eighty years old: good and bad are the same to me; have meat and drink any taste for me now? am I able to take pleasure in the voices of men or women in song? why then am I to be a trouble to my lord the king?

³⁶Your servant's desire was only to take the king over Jordan; why is the king to give me such a reward?

³⁷Let your servant now go back again, so that when death comes to me, it may be in my town and by the resting-place of my father and mother. But here is your servant Chimham: let him go with my lord the king, and do for him what seems good to you.

³⁸And the king said in answer, Let Chimham go over with me, and I will do for him whatever seems good to you: and whatever your desire is, I will do it for you.

³⁹Then all the people went over Jordan, and the king went over: and the king gave Barzillai a kiss, with his blessing; and he went back to his place.

⁴⁰So the king went over to Gilgal, and Chimham went with him: and all the people of Judah, as well as half the people of Israel, took the king on his way.

⁴¹Then the men of Israel came to the king and said, Why have our countrymen of Judah taken you away in secret and come over Jordan with the king and all his family, because all his people are David's men?

⁴²And all the men of Judah gave this answer to the men of Israel, Because the king is our near relation: why then are you angry about this? have we taken any of the king's food, or has he given us any offering?

⁴³And in answer to the men of Judah, the men of Israel said, We have ten parts in the king, and we are the first in order of birth: why did you make nothing of us? and were we not the first to make suggestions for getting the king back? And the words of the men of Judah were more violent than the words of the men of Israel.

20Now by chance there was present a good-for-nothing person named Sheba, the son of Bichri, a Benjamite: and he, sounding the horn, said, We have no part in David, or any interest in the son of Jesse: let every man go to his tent, O Israel.

²So all the men of Israel, turning away from David, went after Sheba, the son of Bichri: but the men of Judah were true to their king, going with him from Jordan as far as Jerusalem.

³And David came to his house at Jerusalem: and the king took the ten women to whom he had given the care of the house, and had them shut up, and gave them the necessaries of life, but did not go near them. So they were shut up till the day of their death, living as widows.

⁴Then the king said to Amasa, Get all the men of Judah together, and in three days be here yourself.

⁵So Amasa went to get all the men of Judah together, but he took longer than the time David had given him.

⁶And David said to Abishai, Sheba, the son of Bichri, will do us more damage than Absalom did; so take some of your lord's servants and go after him, before he makes himself safe in the walled towns, and gets away before our eyes.

⁷So there went after Abishai, Joab and the Cherethites and the Pelethites and all the fighting-men; they went out of Jerusalem to overtake Sheba, the son of Bichri.

⁸When they were at the great stone which is in Gibeon, Amasa came face to face with them. Now Joab had on his war-dress, and round him a band from which his sword was hanging in its cover; and while he was walking, it came out, falling to the earth.

⁹And Joab said to Amasa, Is it well, my brother? And with his right hand he took him by the hair of his chin to give him a kiss.

¹⁰But Amasa did not see danger from the sword which was now in Joab's left hand, and Joab put it through his stomach so that his inside came out on to the earth, and he did not give him another blow. So Joab and his brother Abishai went on after Sheba, the son of Bichri.

¹¹And one of Joab's young men, taking his place at Amasa's side, said, Whoever is for Joab and for David, let him go after Joab!

¹²And Amasa was stretched out in a pool of blood in the middle of the highway. And when the man saw that all the people were stopping, he took Amasa out of the highway and put him in a field, with a cloth over him, when he saw that everyone who went by came to a stop.

¹³When he had been taken off the road, all the people went on after Joab in search of Sheba, the son of Bichri.

¹⁴And Sheba went through all the tribes of Israel, to Abel of Beth-maacah; and all the Bichrites came together and went in after him.

¹⁵And Joab and his men got him shut up in Abel of Beth-maacah, and put up an earthwork against the town: and all Joab's men did their best to get the wall broken down.

¹⁶Then a wise woman got up on the wall, and crying out from the town, said, Give ear, give ear; say now to Joab, Come near, so that I may have talk with you.

¹⁷And he came near, and the woman said, Are you Joab? And he said in answer, I am. Then she said, Give ear to your servant's words. And he said, I am giving ear.

¹⁸Then she said, In the old days, there was a saying, Let them put the question in Abel and in Dan, saying, Has what was ordered by men of good faith in Israel ever come to an end?

¹⁹Your purpose is the destruction of a mother-town in Israel: why would you put an end to the heritage of the Lord?

²⁰And Joab, answering her, said, Far, far be it from me to be a cause of death or destruction;

²¹Not so: but a man of the hill-country of Ephraim, Sheba, son of Bichri, by name, has taken up arms against the king, against David: give up this man only, and I will go away from the town. And the woman said to Joab, His head will be dropped over the wall to you.

²²Then the woman in her wisdom had talk with all the town. And they had Sheba's head cut off and sent out to Joab. And he had the horn sounded, and sent them all away from the town, every man to his tent. And Joab went back to Jerusalem to the king.

²³Now Joab was over all the army; and Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, was at the head of the Cherethites and the Pelethites;

²⁴And Adoram was overseer of the forced work; and Jehoshaphat, the son of Ahilud, was the recorder;

²⁵And Sheva was the scribe, and Zadok and Abiathar were priests;

²⁶And in addition, Ira the Jairite was a priest to David.

21In the days of David they were short of food for three years, year after year; and David went before the Lord for directions. And the Lord said, On Saul and on his family there is blood, because he put the Gibeonites to death.

²Then the king sent for the Gibeonites; (now the Gibeonites were not of the children of Israel, but were the last of the Amorites, to whom the children of Israel had given an oath; but Saul, in his passion for the children of Israel and Judah, had made an attempt on their lives:)

³So David said to the Gibeonites, What may I do for you? how am I to make up to you for your wrongs, so that you may give a blessing to the heritage of the Lord?

⁴And the Gibeonites said to him, It is not a question of silver and gold between us and Saul or his family; and it is not in our power to put to death any man in Israel. And he said, Say, then, what am I to do for you?

⁵And they said to the king, As for the man by whom we were wasted, and who made designs against us to have us completely cut off from the land of Israel,

⁶Let seven men of his family be given up to us and we will put an end to them by hanging them before the Lord in Gibeon, on the hill of the Lord. And the king said, I will give them.

⁷But the king did not give up Mephibosheth, the son of Saul's son Jonathan, because of the Lord's oath made between David and Jonathan, the son of Saul.

⁸But the king took Armoni and Mephibosheth, the two sons of Saul to whom Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, had given birth; and the five sons of Saul's daughter Merab, whose father was Adriel, the son of Barzillai the Meholathite:

⁹And he gave them up to the Gibeonites, and they put them to death, hanging them on the mountain before the Lord; all seven came to their end together in the first days of the grain-cutting, at the start of the cutting of the barley.

¹⁰And Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, took haircloth, placing it on the rock as a bed for herself, from the start of the grain-cutting till rain came down on them from heaven; and she did not let the birds of the air come near them by day, or the beasts of the field by night.

¹¹And news was given to David of what Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, one of Saul's wives, had done.

¹²And David went and took the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan from the men of Jabesh-gilead, who had taken them away secretly from the public place of Beth-shan, where the Philistines had put them, hanging up the bodies there on the day when they put Saul to death in Gilboa:

¹³And he took the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan from that place; and they got together the bones of those who had been put to death by hanging.

¹⁴And they put them with the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan in the resting-place of Kish, his father, in Zela in the country of Benjamin; they did all the king had given them orders to do. And after that, God gave ear to their prayers for the land.

¹⁵And the Philistines went to war again with Israel; and David went down with his people, and while they were at Gob they had a fight with the Philistines:

¹⁶And there came against David one of the offspring of the Rephaim, whose spear was three hundred shekels of brass in weight, and having a new sword, he made an attempt to put David to death.

¹⁷But Abishai, the son of Zeruiah, came to his help, and, turning on the Philistine, gave him his death-blow. Then David's men took an oath, and said, Never again are you to go out with us to the fight, so that you may not put out the light of Israel.

¹⁸Now after this there was war with the Philistines again at Gob, and Sibbecai the Hushathite put to death Saph, one of the offspring of the Rephaim.

¹⁹And again there was war with the Philistines at Gob, and Elhanan, the son of Jair the Beth-lehemite, put to death Goliath the Gittite, the stem of whose spear was like a cloth-worker's rod.

²⁰And again there was war at Gath, where there was a very tall man, who had twenty-four fingers and toes, six fingers on his hands and six toes on his feet; he was one of the offspring of the Rephaim.

²¹And when he was purposing to put shame on Israel, Jonathan, the son of Shimei, David's brother, put him to death.

²²These four were of the offspring of the Rephaim in Gath; and they came to their end by the hands of David and his servants.

22And David made a song to the Lord in these words, on the day when the Lord made him free from the hands of all his haters, and from the hand of Saul:

²And he said, The Lord is my Rock, my walled town, and my saviour, even mine;

³My God, my Rock, in him will I put my faith; my breastplate, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower, and my safe place; my saviour, who keeps me safe from the violent man.

⁴I will send up my cry to the Lord, who is to be praised; so will I be made safe from those who are against me.

⁵For the waves of death came round me, and the seas of evil put me in fear;

⁶The cords of hell were round me: the nets of death came on me.

⁷In my trouble my voice went up to the Lord, and my cry to my God: my voice came to his hearing in his holy Temple, and my prayer came to his ears.

⁸Then the earth was moved with a violent shock; the bases of heaven were moved and shaking, because he was angry.

⁹There went up a smoke from his nose, and a fire of destruction from his mouth: coals were lighted by it.

¹⁰The heavens were bent, so that he might come down; and it was dark under his feet.

¹¹And he went through the air, seated on a storm-cloud: going quickly on the wings of the wind.

¹²And he made the dark his tent round him, a mass of waters, thick clouds of the skies.

¹³Before his shining light his dark clouds went past, raining ice and coals of fire.

¹⁴The Lord made thunder in the heavens, and the voice of the Highest was sounding out.

¹⁵And he sent out his arrows, driving them in all directions; by his flames of fire they were troubled.

¹⁶Then the deep beds of the sea were seen, and the bases of the world were uncovered, because of the Lord's wrath, because of the breath of his mouth.

¹⁷He sent from on high, he took me, pulling me out of great waters.

¹⁸He made me free from my strong hater, from those who were against me, because they were stronger than I.

¹⁹They came on me in the day of my trouble: but the Lord was my support.

²⁰He took me out into a wide place; he was my saviour because he had delight in me.

²¹The Lord gives me the reward of my righteousness, because my hands are clean before him.

²²For I have kept the ways of the Lord; I have not been turned away in sin from my God.

²³For all his decisions were before me, and I did not put away his laws from me.

²⁴And I was upright before him, and I kept myself from sin.

²⁵Because of this the Lord has given me the reward of my righteousness, because my hands are clean in his eyes.

²⁶On him who has mercy you will have mercy; to the upright you will be upright;

²⁷He who is holy will see that you are holy; but to the man whose way is not straight you will be a hard judge.

²⁸For you are the saviour of those who are in trouble; but your eyes are on men of pride, to make them low.

²⁹For you are my light, O Lord; and the Lord will make the dark bright for me.

³⁰By your help I have made a way through the wall which was shutting me in: by the help of my God I have gone over a wall.

³¹As for God, his way is all good: the word of the Lord is tested; he is a safe cover for all those who put their faith in him.

³²For who is God but the Lord? and who is a Rock but our God?

³³God puts a strong band about me, guiding me in a straight way.

³⁴He makes my feet like roes' feet, and puts me on high places.

³⁵He makes my hands expert in war, so that a bow of brass is bent by my arms.

³⁶You have given me the breastplate of your salvation, and your mercy has made me great.

³⁷You have made my steps wide under me, so that my feet make no slip.

³⁸I go after my haters and overtake them; not turning back till they are all overcome.

³⁹I have sent destruction on them and given them wounds, so that they are not able to get up: they are stretched under my feet.

⁴⁰For I have been armed by you with strength for the fight: you have made low under me those who came out against me.

⁴¹By you their backs are turned in flight, so that my haters are cut off.

⁴²They were crying out, but there was no one to come to their help: even to the Lord, but he gave them no answer.

⁴³Then they were crushed as small as the dust of the earth, stamped down under my feet like the waste of the streets.

⁴⁴You have made me free from the fightings of my people; you have made me the head of the nations: a people of whom I had no knowledge will be my servants.

⁴⁵Men of other countries will, with false hearts, put themselves under my authority: from the time when my name comes to their ears, they will be ruled by me.

⁴⁶They will be wasted away, they will come out of their secret places shaking with fear.

⁴⁷The Lord is living; praise be to my Rock, and let the God of my salvation be honoured:

⁴⁸It is God who sends punishment on my haters, and puts peoples under my rule.

⁴⁹He makes me free from my haters: I am lifted up over those who come up against me: you have made me free from the violent man.

⁵⁰Because of this I will give you praise, O Lord, among the nations, and will make a song of praise to your name.

⁵¹Great salvation does he give to his king; he has mercy on the king of his selection, David, and on his seed for ever.

23Now these are the last words of David. David, the son of Jesse, says, the man who was lifted up on high, the man on whom the God of Jacob put the holy oil, the loved one of Israel's songs, says:

²The spirit of the Lord had voice through me, his word was on my tongue.

³The God of Israel said, the word of the Rock of Israel came to me: When an upright king is ruling over men, when he is ruling in the fear of God,

⁴It is as the light of the morning, when the sun comes up, a morning without clouds; making young grass come to life from the earth.

⁵For is not my house so with God? For he has made with me an eternal agreement, ordered in all things and certain: as for all my salvation and all my desire, will he not give it increase?

⁶But the evil-doers, all of them, will be like thorns to be pushed away, because they may not be gripped in the hand:

⁷But anyone touching them has to be armed with iron and the rod of a spear; and they will be burned with fire, every one of them.

⁸These are the names of David's men of war: Ishbaal the Hachmonite, chief of the three; his axe was lifted up against eight hundred put to death at one time.

⁹After him was Eleazar, the son of Dodai the Ahohite, one of the three great fighters, who was with David in Pas-dammim when the Philistines came together there for the fight; and when the men of Israel had gone in flight,

¹⁰He was with David and went on fighting the Philistines till his hand became tired and stiff from gripping his sword: and that day the Lord gave a great salvation, and the people came back after him only to take the goods of the Philistines.

¹¹After him was Shammah, the son of Ela the Hararite. And the Philistines came together in Lehi, where there was a bit of land full of seed; and the people went in flight from the Philistines.

¹²But he kept his place in the middle of the bit of land, and kept back their attack and overcame the Philistines: and the Lord gave a great salvation.

¹³And three of the thirty went down at the start of the grain-cutting, and they came to David at the strong place of Adullam; and the band of Philistines had taken up their position in the valley of Rephaim.

¹⁴And at that time David had taken cover in the strong place, and an armed force of the Philistines was in Beth-lehem.

¹⁵And David, moved by a strong desire, said, If only someone would give me a drink of water from the water-hole of Beth-lehem, by the doorway into the town!

¹⁶And the three men, forcing their way through the Philistine army, got water from the water-hole of Beth-lehem, by the doorway into the town, and took it back to David: but he would not take it, but, draining it out, made an offering of it to the Lord.

¹⁷And he said, Far be it from me, O Lord, to do this; how may I take as my drink the life-blood of men who have put their lives in danger? So he would not take it. These things did the three great men of war.

¹⁸And Abishai, the brother of Joab, the son of Zeruiah, was chief of the thirty. He put to death three hundred with his spear, and he got for himself a name among the thirty.

¹⁹Was he not the noblest of the thirty? so he was made their captain: but he was not equal to the first three.

²⁰And Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, a fighting man of Kabzeel, had done great acts; he put to death the two sons of Ariel of Moab: he went down into a hole and put a lion to death in time of snow:

²¹And he made an attack on an Egyptian, a tall man: and the Egyptian had a spear in his hand; but he went down to him with a stick, and pulling the spear out of the hands of the Egyptian, put him to death with that same spear.

²²These were the acts of Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, who had a great name among the thirty men of war.

²³He was honoured over the rest of the thirty, but he was not equal to the first three. And David put him over the fighting men who kept him safe.

²⁴Asahel, the brother of Joab, was one of the thirty; and Elhanan, the son of Dodai, of Beth-lehem,

²⁵Shammah the Harodite, Elika the Harodite,

²⁶Helez the Paltite, Ira, the son of Ikkesh the Tekoite,

²⁷Abiezer the Anathothite, Sibbecai the Hushathite,

²⁸Zalmon the Ahohite, Maharai the Netophathite,

²⁹Heldai, the son of Baanah the Netophathite, Ittai, the son of Ribai of Gibeah of the children of Benjamin,

³⁰Benaiah the Pirathonite, Hiddai of the valleys of Gaash,

³¹Abiel the Arbathite, Azmaveth of Bahurim,

³²Eliahba the Shaalbonite, Jashen the Gunite,

³³Jonathan, the son of Shammah the Hararite, Ahiam, the son of Sharar the Hararite,

³⁴Eliphelet, the son of Ahasbai the Maacathite, Eliam, the son of Ahithophel the Gilonite,

³⁵Hezrai the Carmelite, Paarai the Archite,

³⁶Igal, the son of Nathan of Zobah, Bani the Gadite,

³⁷Zelek the Ammonite, Naharai the Beerothite, who had the care of the arms of Joab, son of Zeruiah,

³⁸Ira the Ithrite, Gareb the Ithrite,

³⁹Uriah the Hittite: thirty-seven in number.

24Again the wrath of the Lord was burning against Israel, and moving David against them, he said, Go, take the number of Israel and Judah.

²And the king said to Joab and the captains of the army, who were with him, Go now through all the tribes of Israel, from Dan as far as Beer-sheba, and have all the people numbered, so that I may be certain of the number of the people.

³And Joab said to the king, Whatever the number of the people, may the Lord make it a hundred times as much, and may the eyes of my lord the king see it: but why does my lord the king take pleasure in doing this thing?

⁴But the king's order was stronger than Joab and the captains of the army. And Joab and the captains of the army went out from the king, to take the number of the children of Israel.

⁵And they went over Jordan, and starting from Aroer, from the town which is in the middle of the valley, they went in the direction of the Gadites, and on to Jazer;

⁶Then they came to Gilead, and to the land of the Hittites under Hermon; and they came to Dan, and from Dan they came round to Zidon,

⁷And to the walled town of Tyre, and to all the towns of the Hivites and the Canaanites: and they went out to the South of Judah at Beer-sheba.

⁸So after going through all the land in every direction, they came to Jerusalem at the end of nine months and twenty days.

⁹And Joab gave the king the number of all the people: there were in Israel eight hundred thousand fighting men able to take up arms; and the men of Judah were five hundred thousand.

¹⁰And after the people had been numbered, David's heart was troubled. And David said to the Lord, Great has been my sin in doing this; but now, O Lord, be pleased to take away the sin of your servant, for I have done very foolishly

¹¹And David got up in the morning; now the word of the Lord had come to the prophet Gad, David's seer, saying,

¹²Go and say to David, The Lord says, Three things are offered to you: say which of them you will have, and I will do it to you.

¹³So Gad came to David, and gave him word of this and said to him, Are there to be three years when there is not enough food in your land? or will you go in flight from your haters for three months, while they go after you? or will you have three days of violent disease in your land? take thought and say what answer I am to give to him who sent me.

¹⁴And David said to Gad, This is a hard decision for me to make: let us come into the hands of the Lord, for great are his mercies: let me not come into the hands of men.

¹⁵So David made selection of the disease; and the time was the days of the grain-cutting, when the disease came among the people, causing the death of seventy thousand men from Dan as far as Beer-sheba.

¹⁶And when the hand of the angel was stretched out in the direction of Jerusalem, for its destruction, the Lord had regret for the evil, and said to the angel who was sending destruction on the people, It is enough; do no more. And the angel of the Lord was by the grain-floor of Araunah the Jebusite.

¹⁷And when David saw the angel who was causing the destruction of the people, he said to the Lord, Truly, the sin is mine; I have done wrong: but these are only sheep; what have they done? let your hand be against me and against my family.

¹⁸And that day Gad came to David and said to him, Go up, and put up an altar to the Lord on the grain-floor of Araunah the Jebusite.

¹⁹So David went up, as Gad had said and as the Lord had given orders.

²⁰And Araunah, looking out, saw the king and his servants coming to him: and Araunah went out, and went down on his face to the earth before the king.

²¹And Araunah said, Why has my lord the king come to his servant? And David said, To give you a price for your grain-floor, so that I may put up an altar to the Lord, and the disease may be stopped among the people.

²²And Araunah said to David, Let my lord the king take whatever seems right to him, and make an offering of it: see, here are the oxen for the burned offering, and the grain-cleaning instruments and the ox-yokes for wood:

²³All this does the servant of my lord the king give to the king. And Araunah said, May the Lord your God be pleased with your offering!

²⁴And the king said to Araunah, No, but I will give you a price for it; I will not give to the Lord my God burned offerings for which I have given nothing. So David got the grain-floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver.

²⁵And there David put up an altar to the Lord, making burned offerings and peace-offerings. So the Lord gave ear to his prayer for the land, and the disease came to an end in Israel.

1Now King David was old and far on in years; and though they put covers over him, his body was cold.

²So his servants said to him, Let search be made for a young virgin for my lord the king, to take care of him and be waiting on him; and you may take her in your arms, and so my lord the king will be warm.

³So after searching through all the land of Israel for a fair young girl, they saw Abishag the Shunammite, and took her to the king.

⁴Now she was very beautiful; and she took care of the king, waiting on him at all times; but the king had no connection with her.

⁵Then Adonijah, the son of Haggith, lifting himself up in pride, said, I will become king; and he made ready his carriages of war and his horsemen, with fifty runners to go before him.

⁶Now all his life his father had never gone against him or said to him, Why have you done so? and he was a very good-looking man, and younger than Absalom.

⁷And he had talk with Joab, the son of Zeruiah, and with Abiathar the priest; and they were on his side and gave him their support.

⁸But Zadok the priest, and Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, and Nathan the prophet and Shimei and Rei, and David's men of war did not take the side of Adonijah.

⁹Then Adonijah put to death sheep and oxen and fat beasts by the stone of Zoheleth, by En-rogel; and he sent for all his brothers, the king's sons, and all the men of Judah, the king's servants, to come to him:

¹⁰But he did not send for Nathan the prophet and Benaiah and the other men of war and Solomon his brother.

¹¹Then Nathan said to Bath-sheba, the mother of Solomon, Has it not come to your ears that Adonijah, the son of Haggith, has made himself king without the knowledge of David our lord?

¹²So now, let me make a suggestion, so that you may keep your life safe and the life of your son Solomon.

¹³Come now, go to King David and say to him, Did you not, O my lord, take an oath to me, your servant, saying, Truly Solomon your son will be king after me, seated on the seat of my kingdom? why then is Adonijah acting as king?

¹⁴And while you are still talking there with the king, see, I will come in after you and say that your story is true.

¹⁵Then Bath-sheba went into the king's room; now the king was very old, and Abishag the Shunammite was waiting on him.

¹⁶And Bath-sheba went down on her face on the earth before the king giving him honour. And he said, What is your desire?

¹⁷And she said to him, My lord, you took an oath by the Lord your God and gave your word to your servant, saying, Truly, Solomon your son will be king after me, seated on the seat of my kingdom.

¹⁸And now, see, Adonijah has made himself king without my lord's knowledge;

¹⁹And has put to death oxen and fat beasts and sheep in great numbers, and has sent for all the sons of the king, and Abiathar the priest, and Joab, the captain of the army; but he has not sent for Solomon your servant.

²⁰And now, my lord the king, the eyes of all Israel are on you, waiting for you to say who is to take the place of my lord the king after him.

²¹For as things are, it will come about, when my lord the king is sleeping with his fathers, that I and Solomon my son will be made outlaws.

²²And while she was still talking with the king, Nathan the prophet came in.

²³And they said to the king, Here is Nathan the prophet. And when he came in before the king, he went down on his face on the earth.

²⁴And Nathan said, O my lord king, have you said, Adonijah is to be king after me, seated on the seat of my kingdom?

²⁵Because today he has gone down and has put to death oxen and fat beasts and sheep in great numbers, and has sent for all the king's sons to come to him, with the captains of the army and Abiathar the priest; and they are feasting before him and crying, Long life to King Adonijah!

²⁶But me, your servant, and Zadok the priest, and Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, and your servant Solomon, he has not sent for.

²⁷Has this thing been done by my lord the king, without giving word to your servants who was to be placed on my lord the king's seat after him?

²⁸Then King David in answer said, Send for Bath-sheba to come to me. And she came in and took her place before the king.

²⁹And the king took an oath, and said, By the living Lord, who has been my saviour from all my troubles,

³⁰As I took an oath to you by the Lord, the God of Israel, saying, Certainly Solomon your son will become king after me, seated on my seat in my place; so will I do this day.

³¹Then Bath-sheba went down on her face on the earth before the king giving him honour, and said, May my lord King David go on living for ever.

³²And King David said, Send for Zadok the priest, and Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada. And they came before the king.

³³And the king said to them, Take with you the servants of your lord, and put Solomon my son on my beast, yes, mine, and take him down to Gihon;

³⁴And there let Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet put the holy oil on him to make him king over Israel; and sounding the horn say, Long life to King Solomon!

³⁵Then come up after him and he will come in and take his place on the seat of my kingdom; for he is to be king in my place, and I have given orders that he is to be ruler over Israel and over Judah.

³⁶And Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, answering the king, said, So be it: and may the Lord, the God of my lord the king, say so.

³⁷As the Lord has been with my lord the king, even so may he be with Solomon and make the seat of his authority greater than that of my lord King David.

³⁸So Zadok the priest, and Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, and the Cherethites and the Pelethites, went down and put Solomon on King David's beast and took him to Gihon.

³⁹And Zadok the priest took the vessel of oil out of the Tent, and put the holy oil on Solomon. And when the horn was sounded, all the people said, Long life to King Solomon!

⁴⁰And all the people came up after him, piping with pipes, and they were glad with great joy, so that the earth was shaking with the sound.

⁴¹And it came to the ears of Adonijah and all the guests who were with him, when their meal was ended. And Joab, hearing the sound of the horn, said, What is the reason of this noise as if the town was worked up?

⁴²And while the words were on his lips, Jonathan, the son of Abiathar the priest, came; and Adonijah said, Come in; for you are a man of good faith and the news which you have for us will be good.

⁴³And Jonathan, answering, said to Adonijah, Not so, but our lord King David has made Solomon king:

⁴⁴And he sent with him Zadok the priest, and Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, and the Cherethites and the Pelethites; and they put him on the king's beast:

⁴⁵And Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet put the holy oil on him and made him king in Gihon; and they came back from there with joy, and the town was all worked up. This is the noise which has come to your ears.

⁴⁶And now Solomon is seated on the seat of the kingdom.

⁴⁷And the king's servants came to our lord King David, blessing him and saying, May God make the name of Solomon better than your name, and the seat of his authority greater than your seat; and the king was bent low in worship on his bed.

⁴⁸Then the king said, May the God of Israel be praised, who has given one of my seed to be king in my place this day and has let my eyes see it.

⁴⁹And all the guests of Adonijah got up in fear and went away, every man to his place.

⁵⁰And Adonijah himself was full of fear because of Solomon; and he got up and went to the altar, and put his hands on its horns.

⁵¹And they gave Solomon word of it, saying, See, Adonijah goes in such fear of King Solomon, that he has put his hands on the horns of the altar, saying, Let King Solomon first give me his oath that he will not put his servant to death with the sword.

⁵²And Solomon said, If he is seen to be a man of good faith, not a hair of him will be touched; but if any wrongdoing is seen in him, he is to be put to death.

⁵³So King Solomon sent, and they took him down from the altar. And he came and gave honour to King Solomon; and Solomon said to him, Go to your house.

2Now the time of David's death came near; and he gave orders to Solomon his son, saying,

²I am going the way of all the earth: so be strong and be a man;

³And keep the orders of the Lord your God, walking in his ways, keeping his laws and his orders and his rules and his words, as they are recorded in the law of Moses; so that you may do well in all you do and wherever you go,

⁴So that the Lord may give effect to what he said of me, If your children give attention to their ways, living uprightly before me with all their heart and their soul, you will never be without a man to be king in Israel.

⁵Now you have knowledge of what Joab, the son of Zeruiah, did to me, and to the two captains of the army of Israel, Abner, the son of Ner, and Amasa, the son of Jether, whom he put to death, taking payment for the blood of war in time of peace, and making the band of my clothing and the shoes on my feet red with the blood of one put to death without cause.

⁶So be guided by your wisdom, and let not his white head go down to the underworld in peace.

⁷But be good to the sons of Barzillai the Gileadite, and let them be guests at your table; for so they came to me when I went in flight from Absalom your brother.

⁸Now you have with you Shimei, the son of Gera the Benjamite of Bahurim, who put a bitter curse on me on the day when I went to Mahanaim; but he came down to see me at Jordan, and I gave him my oath by the Lord, saying, I will not put you to death by the sword.

⁹But do not let him be free from punishment, for you are a wise man; and it will be clear to you what you have to do with him; see that his white head goes down to the underworld in blood.

¹⁰Then David went to rest with his fathers, and his body was put into the earth in the town of David.

¹¹David was king over Israel for forty years: for seven years he was king in Hebron and for thirty-three years in Jerusalem.

¹²And Solomon took his place on the seat of David his father, and his kingdom was made safe and strong.

¹³Then Adonijah, the son of Haggith, came to Bath-sheba, the mother of Solomon. And she said, Come you in peace? And he said, Yes, in peace.

¹⁴Then he said, I have something to say to you. And she said, Say on.

¹⁵And he said, You saw how the kingdom was mine, and all Israel had the idea that I would be their king; but now the kingdom is turned about, and has become my brother's, for it was given to him by the Lord.

¹⁶Now I have one request to make to you, and do not say, No, to me. And she said to him, Say on.

¹⁷Then he said, Will you go to Solomon the king (for he will not say, No, to you) and put before him my request that he will give me Abishag the Shunammite for a wife?

¹⁸And Bath-sheba said, Good! I will make your request to the king.

¹⁹So Bath-sheba went to King Solomon to have talk with him on Adonijah's account. And the king got up to come to her, and went down low to the earth before her; then he took his place on the king's seat and had a seat made ready for the king's mother and she took her place at his right hand.

²⁰Then she said, I have one small request to make to you; do not say, No, to me. And the king said, Say on, my mother, for I will not say, No, to you.

²¹And she said, Let Abishag the Shunammite be given to Adonijah your brother for a wife.

²²Then King Solomon made answer and said to his mother, Why are you requesting me to give Abishag the Shunammite to Adonijah? Take the kingdom for him in addition, for he is my older brother, and Abiathar the priest and Joab, the son of Zeruiah, are on his side.

²³Then King Solomon took an oath by the Lord, saying, May God's punishment be on me if Adonijah does not give payment for these words with his life.

²⁴Now by the living Lord, who has given me my place on the seat of David my father, and made me one of a line of kings, as he gave me his word, truly Adonijah will be put to death this day.

²⁵And King Solomon sent Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, and he made an attack on him and put him to death.

²⁶And to Abiathar the priest the king said, Go to Anathoth, to your fields; for death would be your right reward; but I will not put you to death now, because you took up the ark of the Lord God before David my father, and you were with him in all his troubles.

²⁷So Solomon let Abiathar be priest no longer, so that he might make the word of the Lord come true which he said about the sons of Eli in Shiloh.

²⁸And news of this came to Joab; for Joab had been one of Adonijah's supporters, though he had not been on Absalom's side. Then Joab went in flight to the Tent of the Lord, and put his hands on the horns of the altar.

²⁹And they said to King Solomon, Joab has gone in flight to the Tent of the Lord and is by the altar. Then Solomon sent Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, saying, Go, make an attack on him.

³⁰And Benaiah came to the Tent of the Lord and said to him, The king says, Come out. And he said, No; but let death come to me here. And Benaiah went back to the king and gave him word of the answer which Joab had given.

³¹And the king said, Do as he has said and make an attack on him there, and put his body into the earth; so that you may take away from me and from my family the blood of one put to death by Joab without cause.

³²And the Lord will send back his blood on his head, because of the attack he made on two men more upright and better than himself, putting them to the sword without my father's knowledge; even Abner, the son of Ner, captain of the army of Israel, and Amasa, the son of Jether, captain of the army of Judah.

³³So their blood will be on the head of Joab, and on the head of his seed for ever; but for David and his seed and his family and the seat of his kingdom, there will be peace for ever from the Lord.

³⁴So Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, went up, and falling on him, put him to death; and his body was put to rest in his house in the waste land.

³⁵And the king put Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, in his place over the army; and Zadok the priest he put in the place of Abiathar.

³⁶Then the king sent for Shimei, and said to him, Make a house for yourself in Jerusalem and keep there and go to no other place.

³⁷For be certain that on the day when you go out and go over the stream Kidron, death will overtake you: and your blood will be on your head.

³⁸And Shimei said to the king, Very well! as my lord the king has said, so will your servant do. And for a long time Shimei went on living in Jerusalem.

³⁹But after three years, two of the servants of Shimei went in flight to Achish, son of Maacah, king of Gath. And word was given to Shimei that his servants had gone to Gath.

⁴⁰Then Shimei got up, and making ready his ass, he went to Gath, to Achish, in search of his servants; and he sent and got them from Gath.

⁴¹And news was given to Solomon that Shimei had gone from Jerusalem to Gath and had come back again.

⁴²Then the king sent for Shimei, and said to him, Did I not make you take an oath by the Lord, protesting to you and saying, Be certain that on the day when you go out from here, wherever you go, death will overtake you? and you said to me, Very well!

⁴³Why then have you not kept the oath of the Lord and the order which I gave you?

⁴⁴And the king said to Shimei, You have knowledge of all the evil which you did to David my father; and now the Lord has sent back your evil on yourself.

⁴⁵But a blessing will be on King Solomon, and the kingdom of David will keep its place before the Lord for ever.

⁴⁶So the king gave orders to Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada; and he went out and, falling on him, put him to death. And Solomon's authority over the kingdom was complete.

3Solomon became the son-in-law of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and took Pharaoh's daughter as his wife, keeping her in the town of David, till the house he was building for himself, and the house of the Lord and the wall round Jerusalem, were complete.

²But all this time the people were making their offerings in the high places, because no house had been put up to the name of the Lord till those days.

³And Solomon, in his love for the Lord, kept the laws of David his father; but he made offerings and let them go up in smoke on the high places.

⁴And the king went to Gibeon to make an offering there, because that was the chief high place: it was Solomon's way to make a thousand burned offerings on that altar.

⁵In Gibeon, Solomon had a vision of the Lord in a dream by night; and God said to him, Say what I am to give you.

⁶And Solomon said, Great was your mercy to David my father, as his life before you was true and upright and his heart was true to you; and you have kept for him this greatest mercy, a son to take his place this day.

⁷And now, O Lord my God, you have made your servant king in the place of David my father; and I am only a young boy, with no knowledge of how to go out or come in.

⁸And your servant has round him the people of your selection, a people so great that they may not be numbered, and no account of them may be given.

⁹Give your servant, then, a wise heart for judging your people, able to see what is good and what evil; for who is able to be the judge of this great people?

¹⁰Now these words and Solomon's request were pleasing to the Lord.

¹¹And God said to him, Because your request is for this thing, and not for long life for yourself or for wealth or for the destruction of your haters, but for wisdom to be a judge of causes;

¹²I have done as you said: I have given you a wise and far-seeing heart, so that there has never been your equal in the past, and never will there be any like you in the future.

¹³And with this I have given you what you made no request for: wealth and honour, so that no king was ever your equal.

¹⁴And if you go on in my ways, keeping my laws and my orders as your father David did, I will give you a long life.

¹⁵And Solomon, awakening, saw that it was a dream; then he came to Jerusalem, where he went before the ark of the agreement of the Lord, offering burned offerings and peace-offerings; and he made a feast for all his servants.

¹⁶Then two loose women of the town came and took their places before the king;

¹⁷And one of them said, O my lord, I and this woman are living in the same house; and I gave birth to a child by her side in the house.

¹⁸And three days after the birth of my child, this woman had a child: we were together, no other-person was with us in the house but we two only.

¹⁹In the night, this woman, sleeping on her child, was the cause of its death.

²⁰And she got up in the middle of the night and took my son from my side while your servant was sleeping; and she took it in her arms and put her dead child in my arms.

²¹And when I got up to give my child the breast, I saw that it was dead; but in the morning, looking at it with care, I saw that it was not my son.

²²And the other woman said, No; but the living child is my son and the dead one yours. But the first said, No; the dead child is your son and the living one mine. So they kept on talking before the king.

²³Then the king said, One says, The living child is my son, and yours is the dead: and the other says, Not so; but your son is the dead one and mine is the living.

²⁴Then he said, Get me a sword. So they went and put a sword before the king.

²⁵And the king said, Let the living child be cut in two and one half given to one woman and one to the other.

²⁶Then the mother of the living child came forward, for her heart went out to her son, and she said, O my lord, give her the child; do not on any account put it to death. But the other woman said, It will not be mine or yours; let it be cut in two.

²⁷Then the king made answer and said, Give her the child, and do not put it to death; she is the mother of it.

²⁸And news of this decision which the king had made went through all Israel; and they had fear of the king, for they saw that the wisdom of God was in him to give decisions.

4Now Solomon was king over all Israel.

²And these were his chief men: Azariah, the son of Zadok, was the priest;

³Elihoreph and Ahijah, the sons of Shisha, were scribes; Jehoshaphat, the son of Ahilud, was the recorder;

⁴Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, was head of the army; Zadok and Abiathar were priests;

⁵Azariah, the son of Nathan, was over those in authority in the different divisions of the country; Zabud, the son of Nathan, was priest and the king's friend;

⁶Ahishar was controller of the king's house; Adoniram, the son of Abda, was overseer of the forced work.

⁷And Solomon put twelve overseers over all Israel, to be responsible for the stores needed for the king and those of his house; every man was responsible for one month in the year.

⁸And these are their names: ... the son of Hur in the hill country of Ephraim;

⁹... the son of Deker in Makaz and Shaalbim and Beth-shemesh and Elonbeth-hanan;

¹⁰... the son of Hesed in Arubboth; Socoh and all the land of Hepher were under his control;

¹¹... the son of Abinadab in all Naphath-dor; his wife was Taphath, the daughter of Solomon.

¹²Baana, the son of Ahilud, in Taanach and Megiddo, and all Beth-shean which is by the side of Zarethan, under Jezreel, from Beth-shean to Abel-meholah, as far as the far side of Jokmeam;

¹³... the son of Geber in Ramoth-gilead; he had the towns of Jair, the son of Manasseh, which are in Gilead, and the country of Argob, which is in Bashan, sixty great towns with walls and locks of brass.

¹⁴Ahinadab, the son of Iddo, in Mahanaim;

¹⁵Ahimaaz in Naphtali; he took Basemath, the daughter of Solomon, as his wife;

¹⁶Baana, the son of Hushai, in Asher and Aloth;

¹⁷Jehoshaphat, the son of Paruah, in Issachar;

¹⁸Shimei, the son of Ela, in Benjamin;

¹⁹Geber, the son of Uri, in the land of Gilead, the country of Sihon, king of the Amorites, and Og, king of Bashan; and one overseer had authority over all the overseers who were in the land.

²⁰Judah and Israel were as great in number as the sand by the seaside, and they took their food and drink with joy in their hearts.

²¹And Solomon was ruler over all the kingdoms from the River to the land of the Philistines, and as far as the edge of Egypt; men gave him offerings and were his servants all the days of his life.

²²And the amount of Solomon's food for one day was thirty measures of crushed grain and sixty measures of meal;

²³Ten fat oxen and twenty oxen from the fields, and a hundred sheep, in addition to harts and gazelles and roes and fat fowls.

²⁴For he had authority over all the country on this side of the River, from Tiphsah to Gaza, over all the kings on this side of the River; and he had peace round him on every side.

²⁵So Judah and Israel were living safely, every man under his vine and his fig-tree, from Dan as far as Beer-sheba, all the days of Solomon.

²⁶And Solomon had four thousand boxed-off spaces for horses for his carriages, and twelve thousand horsemen.

²⁷And those overseers, every man in his month, saw that food was produced for Solomon and all his guests, they took care that nothing was overlooked.

²⁸And they took grain and dry grass for the horses and the carriage-horses, to the right place, every man as he was ordered.

²⁹And God gave Solomon a great store of wisdom and good sense, and a mind of wide range, as wide as the sand by the seaside.

³⁰And Solomon's wisdom was greater than the wisdom of all the people of the East and all the wisdom of Egypt.

³¹For he was wiser than all men, even than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman and Calcol and Darda, the sons of Mahol; and he had a great name among all the nations round about.

³²He was the maker of three thousand wise sayings, and of songs to the number of a thousand and five.

³³He made sayings about all plants, from the cedar in Lebanon to the hyssop hanging on the wall; and about all beasts and birds and fishes and the small things of the earth.

³⁴People came from every nation to give ear to the wisdom of Solomon, from all the kings of the earth who had word of his wisdom.

5Now Hiram, king of Tyre, hearing that Solomon had been made king in place of his father, sent his servants to him; for Hiram had ever been a friend to David.

²And Solomon sent back word to Hiram, saying,

³You have knowledge that David my father was not able to make a house for the name of the Lord his God, because of the wars which were round him on every side, till the Lord put all those who were against him under his feet.

⁴But now the Lord my God has given me rest on every side; no one is making trouble, and no evil is taking place.

⁵And so it is my purpose to make a house for the name of the Lord my God, as he said to David my father, Your son, whom I will make king in your place, will be the builder of a house for my name.

⁶So now, will you have cedar-trees from Lebanon cut down for me, and my servants will be with your servants; and I will give you payment for your servants at whatever rate you say; for it is common knowledge that we have no such wood-cutters among us as the men of Zidon.

⁷And these words of Solomon made Hiram glad, and he said, Now may the Lord be praised who has given to David a wise son to be king over this great people.

⁸Then Hiram sent to Solomon, saying; The words you sent have been given to me: I will do all your desire in the question of cedar-wood and cypress-wood.

⁹My men will take them down from Lebanon to the sea, where I will have them corded together to go by sea to whatever place you say, and I will have them cut up there so that you may take them away; as for payment, it will be enough if you give me food for my people.

¹⁰So Hiram gave Solomon all the cedar-wood and cypress-wood he had need of;

¹¹And Solomon gave Hiram twenty thousand measures of grain, as food for his people, and twenty measures of clear oil; this he did every year.

¹²Now the Lord had given Solomon wisdom, as he had said to him; and there was peace between Hiram and Solomon, and they made an agreement together.

¹³Then King Solomon got together men for the forced work through all Israel, thirty thousand men in number;

¹⁴And sent them to Lebanon in bands of ten thousand every month: for a month they were working in Lebanon and for two months in their country, and Adoniram was in control of them.

¹⁵Then he had seventy thousand for the work of transport, and eighty thousand stone-cutters in the mountains;

¹⁶In addition to the chiefs of the responsible men put by Solomon to oversee the work, three thousand and three hundred in authority over the workmen.

¹⁷By the king's orders great stones, stones of high price, were cut out, so that the base of the house might be made of squared stone.

¹⁸Solomon's builders and Hiram's builders did the work of cutting them, and put edges on them, and got the wood and the stone ready for the building of the house.

6In the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel came out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year that Solomon was king of Israel, in the month Ziv, which is the second month, the building of the Lord's house was started.

²The house which Solomon made for the Lord was sixty cubits long, twenty cubits wide and thirty cubits high.

³The covered way before the Temple of the house was twenty cubits long, as wide as the house, and ten cubits wide in front of the house.

⁴And for the house he made windows, with network across.

⁵And against the walls all round, and against the walls of the Temple and of the inmost room, he put up wings, with side rooms all round:

⁶The lowest line of them being five cubits wide, the middle six cubits wide and the third seven cubits; for there was a space all round the outside walls of the house so that the boards supporting the rooms did not have to be fixed in the walls of the house.

⁷(And the stones used in the building of the house were squared at the place where they were cut out; there was no sound of hammer or axe or any iron instrument while they were building the house.)

⁸The door to the lowest side rooms was in the right side of the house; and they went up by twisting steps into the middle rooms, and from the middle into the third.

⁹So he put up the house and made it complete, roofing it with boards of cedar-wood.

¹⁰And he put up the line of side rooms against the walls of the house, fifteen cubits high, resting against the house on boards of cedar-wood.

¹¹(And the word of the Lord came to Solomon, saying,

¹²About this house which you are building: if you will keep my laws and give effect to my decisions and be guided by my rules, I will give effect to my word which I gave to David your father.

¹³And I will be ever among the children of Israel, and will not go away from my people.

¹⁴So Solomon made the building of the house complete.)

¹⁵The walls of the house were covered inside with cedar-wood boards; from the floor to the roof of the house they were covered inside with wood; and the floor was covered with boards of cypress-wood.

¹⁶And at the back of the house a further space of twenty cubits was shut in with boards of cedar-wood, for the inmost room.

¹⁷And the house, that is, the Temple, in front of the holy place was forty cubits long.

¹⁸(All the inside of the house was cedar-wood, ornamented with designs of buds and flowers; no stonework was to be seen inside.)

¹⁹And he made ready an inmost room in the middle of the house, in which to put the ark of the agreement of the Lord.

²⁰And the inmost room was twenty cubits square and twenty cubits high, plated over with clear gold, and he made an altar of cedar-wood, plating it with gold.

²¹Solomon had all the inside of the house covered with gold, and he put chains of gold across in front of the inmost room, which itself was covered with gold.

²²Plates of gold were put all through the house till it was covered completely (and the altar in the inmost room was all covered with gold).

²³In the inmost room he made two winged beings of olive-wood, ten cubits high;

²⁴With outstretched wings five cubits wide; the distance from the edge of one wing to the edge of the other was ten cubits.

²⁵The two winged ones were ten cubits high, of the same size and form.

²⁶The two of them were ten cubits high.

²⁷These were placed inside the inner house, their outstretched wings touching the walls of the house, one touching one wall and one the other, while their other wings were touching in the middle.

²⁸These winged ones were plated over with gold.

²⁹And all the walls of the house inside and out were ornamented with forms of winged ones and palm-trees and open flowers.

³⁰And the floor of the house was covered with gold, inside and out.

³¹For the way into the inmost room he made doors of olive-wood, the arch and the door supports forming a five-sided opening.

³²On the olive-wood doors were cut designs of winged ones and palm-trees and open flowers, all of them, with the doors, plated with gold.

³³Then he made pillars of olive-wood for the way into the Temple; the pillars were square:

³⁴And two folding doors of cypress-wood, with two leaves.

³⁵These were ornamented with designs of winged ones and palm-trees and open flowers, plated over with gold.

³⁶And the inner space was walled with three lines of squared stones and a line of cedar-wood boards.

³⁷In the fourth year the base of the house was put in its place, in the month Ziv.

³⁸And in the eleventh year, in the month Bul, which is the eighth month, the building of the house was complete in every detail, as it had been designed. So he was seven years building it.

7Solomon was thirteen years building a house for himself till it was complete.

²And he made the house of the Woods of Lebanon, which was a hundred cubits long and fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high, resting on four lines of cedar-wood pillars with cedar-wood supports on the pillars.

³And it was covered with cedar over the forty-five supports which were on the pillars, fifteen in a line.

⁴There were three lines of window-frames, window facing window in every line.

⁵And all the doors and windows had square frames, with the windows facing one another in three lines.

⁶And he made a covered room of pillars, fifty cubits long and thirty cubits wide, and ... with steps before it.

⁷Then he made a covered room for his high seat when he gave decisions; this was the covered room of judging; it was covered with cedar-wood from floor to roof.

⁸And the house for his living-place, the other open square in the covered room, was made in the same way. And then he made a house like it for Pharaoh's daughter, whom Solomon had taken as his wife.

⁹All these buildings were made, inside and out, from base to crowning stone, and outside to the great walled square, of highly priced stone, cut to different sizes with cutting-instruments.

¹⁰And the base was of great masses of highly priced stone, some ten cubits and some eight cubits square.

¹¹Overhead were highly priced stones cut to measure, and cedar-wood.

¹²The great outer square all round was walled with three lines of squared stones and a line of cedar-wood boards, round about the open square inside the house of the Lord and the covered room of the king's house.

¹³Then King Solomon sent and got Hiram from Tyre.

¹⁴He was the son of a widow of the tribe of Naphtali, and his father was a man of Tyre, a worker in brass; he was full of wisdom and knowledge and an expert worker in brass. He came to King Solomon and did all his work for him.

¹⁵He it was who made the two brass pillars; the first pillar was eighteen cubits high, and a line of twelve cubits went round it; and the second was the same.

¹⁶And he made the two crowns to be put on the tops of the pillars, of brass made soft in the fire; the crowns were five cubits high.

¹⁷There were nets of open-work for the crowns on the tops of the pillars, a net of open-work for one and a net of open-work for the other.

¹⁸And he made ornaments of apples; and two lines of apples all round over the network, covering the crowns of the pillars, the two crowns in the same way.

¹⁹The crowns on the tops of the pillars were ornamented with a design of flowers, and were four cubits across.

²⁰And there were crowns on the two pillars near the round part by the network, and there were two hundred apples in lines round every crown.

²¹He put up the pillars at the doorway of the Temple, naming the one on the right Jachin, and that on the left Boaz.

²²The tops of the pillars had a design of flowers; and the work of making the pillars was complete.

²³And he made a great metal water-vessel ten cubits across from edge to edge, five cubits high and thirty cubits round.

²⁴And under the edge of it, circling it all round for ten cubits, were two lines of flower buds, made together with it from liquid metal.

²⁵It was supported on twelve oxen, with their back parts turned to the middle of it, three of them facing to the north, three to the west, three to the south, and three to the east; the vessel was resting on top of them.

²⁶It was as thick as a man's open hand, and was curved like the edge of a cup, like the flower of a lily: it would take two thousand baths.

²⁷And he made ten wheeled bases of brass; every one four cubits long, four cubits wide, and three cubits high.

²⁸And the bases were made in this way; their sides were square, fixed in a framework;

²⁹And on the square sides between the frames were lions, oxen, and winged ones; and the same on the frame; and over and under the lions and the oxen and the winged ones were steps.

³⁰Every base had four wheels of brass, turning on brass rods, and their four angles had angle-plates under them; the angle-plates under the base were of metal, and there were ornaments at the side of every one.

³¹The mouth of it inside the angle-plate was one cubit across; it was round like a pillar, a cubit and a half across; it had designs cut on it; the sides were square, not round.

³²The four wheels were under the frames, and the rods on which the wheels were fixed were in the base; the wheels were a cubit and a half high.

³³The wheels were made like carriage-wheels, the rods on which they were fixed, the parts forming their edges, their rods and the middle points of them, were all formed out of liquid metal.

³⁴And there were four angle-plates at the four angles of every base, forming part of the structure of the base.

³⁵And at the top of the base there was a round vessel, half a cubit high;

³⁶In the spaces of the flat sides and on the frames of them, he made designs of winged ones, lions, and palm-trees, with ornamented edges all round.

³⁷All the ten bases were made in this way, after the same design, of the same size and form.

³⁸And he made ten brass washing-vessels, everyone taking forty baths, and measuring four cubits; one vessel was placed on every one of the ten bases.

³⁹And he put the bases by the house, five on the right side and five on the left; and he put the great water-vessel on the right side of the house, to the east, facing south.

⁴⁰And Hiram made the pots and spades and the basins. So Hiram came to the end of all the work he did for King Solomon in the house of the Lord:

⁴¹The two pillars and the two cups of the crowns which were on the tops of the two pillars; and the network covering the two cups of the crowns on the tops of the pillars,

⁴²And the four hundred apples for the network, two lines of apples for every network, covering the two cups of the crowns on the pillars;

⁴³And the ten bases, with the ten washing-vessels on them;

⁴⁴And the great water-vessel, with the twelve oxen under it;

⁴⁵And the pots and the spades and the basins; all the vessels which Hiram made for King Solomon, for the house of the Lord, were of polished brass.

⁴⁶He made them of liquid metal in the lowland of Jordan, at the way across the river, at Adama, between Succoth and Zarethan.

⁴⁷The weight of all these vessels was not measured, because there was such a number of them; it was not possible to get the weight of the brass.

⁴⁸And Solomon had all the vessels made for use in the house of the Lord: the altar of gold and the gold table on which the holy bread was placed;

⁴⁹And the supports for the lights, five on the right side and five on the left before the inmost room, of clear gold; and the flowers and the lights and all the instruments of gold;

⁵⁰And the cups and the scissors and the basins and the spoons and the fire-trays, all of gold; and the pins on which the doors were turned, the doors of the inner house, the most holy place, and the doors of the Temple, all of gold.

⁵¹So all the work King Solomon had done in the house of the Lord was complete. Then Solomon took the holy things which David his father had given, the silver and the gold and all the vessels, and put them in the store-houses of the house of the Lord.

8Then Solomon sent for all the responsible men of Israel, and all the chiefs of the tribes, and the heads of families of the children of Israel, to come to him in Jerusalem to take the ark of the Lord's agreement up out of the town of David, which is Zion.

²And all the men of Israel came together to King Solomon at the feast, in the month Ethanim, the seventh month.

³And all the responsible men of Israel came, and the priests took up the ark.

⁴They took up the ark of the Lord, and the Tent of meeting, and all the holy vessels which were in the Tent; all these the priests and the Levites took up.

⁵And King Solomon and all the men of Israel who had come together there, were with him before the ark, making offerings of sheep and oxen more than might be numbered.

⁶And the priests took the ark of the agreement of the Lord and put it in its place in the inner room of the house, in the most holy place, under the wings of the winged ones.

⁷For their wings were outstretched over the place where the ark was, covering the ark and its rods.

⁸The rods were so long that their ends were seen from the holy place, in front of the inmost room; but they were not seen from outside: and there they are to this day.

⁹There was nothing in the ark but the two flat stones which Moses put there at Horeb, where the Lord made an agreement with the children of Israel when they came out of the land of Egypt.

¹⁰Now when the priests had come out of the holy place, the house of the Lord was full of the cloud,

¹¹So that the priests were not able to keep their places to do their work because of the cloud, for the house of the Lord was full of the glory of the Lord.

¹²Then Solomon said, O Lord, to the sun you have given the heaven for a living-place, but your living-place was not seen by men;

¹³So I have made for you a living-place, a house in which you may be for ever present.

¹⁴Then, turning his face about, the king gave a blessing to all the men of Israel; and they were all on their feet together.

¹⁵And he said, Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, who himself gave his word to David my father, and with his strong hand has made his word come true, saying,

¹⁶From the day when I took my people Israel out of Egypt, no town in all the tribes of Israel has been marked out by me for the building of a house for the resting-place of my name; but I made selection of David to be king over my people Israel.

¹⁷Now it was in the heart of David my father to put up a house for the name of the Lord, the God of Israel.

¹⁸But the Lord said to David my father, You did well to have in your heart the desire to make a house for my name;

¹⁹But you yourself will not be the builder of my house; but your son, the offspring of your body, he it is who will put up a house for my name.

²⁰And the Lord has made his word come true; for I have taken my father David's place on the seat of the kingdom of Israel, as the Lord gave his word; and I have made a house for the name of the Lord, the God of Israel.

²¹In it I have made a place for the ark, in which is the agreement which the Lord made with our fathers, when he took them out of the land of Egypt.

²²Then Solomon took his place before the altar of the Lord, all the men of Israel being present, and stretching out his hands to heaven,

²³Said, O Lord, the God of Israel, there is no God like you in heaven or on the earth; keeping faith and mercy unchanging for your servants, while they go in your ways with all their hearts.

²⁴And you have kept the word which you gave to your servant David, my father; with your mouth you said it and with your hand you have made it come true this day.

²⁵So now, O Lord, the God of Israel, let your word to your servant David, my father, come true, when you said, You will never be without a man to take his place on the seat of the kingdom of Israel before me, if only your children give attention to their ways, walking before me as you have done.

²⁶So now, O God of Israel, it is my prayer that you will make your word come true which you said to your servant David, my father.

²⁷But is it truly possible that God may be housed on earth? see, heaven and the heaven of heavens are not wide enough to be your resting-place; how much less this house which I have made!

²⁸Still, let your heart be turned to the prayer of your servant, O Lord God, and to his prayer for grace; give ear to the cry and the prayer which your servant sends up to you this day;

²⁹That your eyes may be open to this house night and day, to this place of which you have said, My name will be there; hearing the prayer which your servant may make, turning to this place.

³⁰Give ear to the prayers of your servant, and the prayers of your people Israel, when they make their prayers, turning to this place; give ear in heaven your living-place, and hearing, have mercy.

³¹If a man does wrong to his neighbour, and has to take an oath, and comes before your altar to take his oath in this house:

³²Then let your ear be open in heaven, and be the judge of your servants, giving your decision against the wrongdoer, so that punishment for his sins may come on his head; and, by your decision, keeping from evil him who has done no wrong.

³³When your people Israel are overcome in war, because of their sin against you; if they are turned to you again, honouring your name, making prayers to you and requesting your grace in this house:

³⁴Then give ear in heaven, and let the sin of your people Israel have forgiveness, and take them back again into the land which you gave to their fathers.

³⁵When heaven is shut up and there is no rain, because of their sin against you; if they make prayers with their faces turned to this place, honouring your name and turning away from their sin when you send trouble on them:

³⁶Then give ear in heaven, so that the sin of your servants, and of your people Israel, may have forgiveness, when you make clear to them the good way in which they are to go; and send rain on your land which you have given to your people for their heritage.

³⁷If there is no food in the land, or if there is disease, or if the fruits of the earth are damaged through heat or water, locust or worm; if their towns are shut in by their attackers; whatever trouble, whatever disease there may be:

³⁸Whatever prayer or request for your grace is made by any man, or by all your people Israel, whatever his trouble may be, whose hands are stretched out to this house:

³⁹Give ear in heaven your living-place, acting in mercy; and give to every man whose secret heart is open to you, the reward of all his ways; for you, and you only, have knowledge of the hearts of all the children of men:

⁴⁰So that they may give you worship all the days of their life in the land which you gave to our fathers.

⁴¹And as for the man from a strange land, who is not of your people Israel; when he comes from a far country because of the glory of your name:

⁴²(For they will have news of your great name and your strong hand and your out-stretched arm;) when he comes to make his prayer, turning to this house:

⁴³Give ear in heaven your living-place, and give him his desire, whatever it may be; so that all the peoples of the earth may have knowledge of your name, worshipping you as do your people Israel, and that they may see that this house which I have put up is truly named by your name.

⁴⁴If your people go out to war against their attackers, by whatever way you may send them, if they make their prayer to the Lord, turning their faces to this town of yours and to this house which I have made for your name:

⁴⁵Give ear in heaven to their prayer and their cry for grace, and see right done to them.

⁴⁶If they do wrong against you, (for no man is without sin,) and you are angry with them and give them up into the power of those who are fighting against them, so that they take them away as prisoners into a strange land, far off or near;

⁴⁷And if they take thought, in the land where they are prisoners, and are turned again to you, crying out in prayer to you in that land, and saying, We are sinners, we have done wrong, we have done evil;

⁴⁸And with all their heart and soul are turned again to you, in the land of those who took them prisoners, and make their prayer to you, turning their eyes to this land which you gave to their fathers, and to the town which you took for yourself, and the house which I made for your name:

⁴⁹Then give ear to their prayer and to their cry in heaven your living-place, and see right done to them;

⁵⁰Answering with forgiveness the people who have done wrong against you, and overlooking the evil which they have done against you; let those who made them prisoners be moved with pity for them, and have pity on them;

⁵¹For they are your people and your heritage, which you took out of Egypt, out of the iron fireplace;

⁵²Let your eyes be open to your servant's prayer for grace and to the prayer of your people Israel, hearing them when their cry comes to you.

⁵³For you made them separate from all the peoples of the earth, to be your heritage, as you said by Moses your servant, when you took our fathers out of Egypt, O Lord God.

⁵⁴Then Solomon, after making all these prayers and requests for grace to the Lord, got up from his knees before the altar of the Lord, where his hands had been stretched out in prayer to heaven;

⁵⁵And, getting on his feet, he gave a blessing to all the men of Israel, saying with a loud voice,

⁵⁶Praise be to the Lord who has given rest to his people Israel, as he gave them his word to do; every word of all his oath, which he gave by the hand of Moses his servant, has come true.

⁵⁷Now may the Lord our God be with us as he was with our fathers; let him never go away from us or give us up;

⁵⁸Turning our hearts to himself, guiding us to go in all his ways, to keep his orders and his laws and his decisions, which he gave to our fathers.

⁵⁹And may these my words, the words of my prayer to the Lord, be before the Lord our God day and night, so that he may see right done to his servant and to his people Israel, day by day as we have need.

⁶⁰So that all the peoples of the earth may see that the Lord is God, and there is no other.

⁶¹Then let your hearts be without sin before the Lord our God, walking in his laws and keeping his orders as at this day.

⁶²Now the king, and all Israel with him, were making offerings before the Lord.

⁶³And Solomon gave to the Lord for peace-offerings, twenty-two thousand oxen and a hundred and twenty thousand sheep. So the king and all the children of Israel kept the feast of the opening of the Lord's house.

⁶⁴The same day the king made holy the middle of the open square in front of the house of the Lord, offering there the burned offering and the meal offering and the fat of the peace-offerings; for there was not room on the brass altar of the Lord for the burned offerings and the meal offerings and the fat of the peace-offerings.

⁶⁵So Solomon and all Israel with him, a very great meeting, (for the people had come together from the way into Hamath to the river of Egypt,) kept the feast at that time before the Lord our God, for two weeks, even fourteen days.

⁶⁶And on the eighth day he sent the people away, and, blessing the king, they went to their tents full of joy and glad in their hearts, because of all the good which the Lord had done to David his servant and to Israel his people.

9Now when Solomon came to the end of building the house of the Lord and the king's house, and all Solomon's desires, which he had in mind were effected;

²The Lord came to him again in a vision, as he had done at Gibeon;

³And the Lord said to him, Your prayers and your requests for grace have come to my ears: I have made holy this house which you have made, and I have put my name there for ever; my eyes and my heart will be there at all times.

⁴As for you, if you will go on your way before me, as David your father did, uprightly and with a true heart, doing what I have given you orders to do, keeping my laws and my decisions;

⁵Then I will make the seat of your rule over Israel certain for ever, as I gave my word to David your father, saying, You will never be without a man to be king in Israel.

⁶But if you are turned from my ways, you or your children, and do not keep my orders and my laws which I have put before you, but go and make yourselves servants to other gods and give them worship:

⁷Then I will have Israel cut off from the land which I have given them; and this house, which I have made holy for myself, I will put away from before my eyes; and Israel will be a public example, and a word of shame among all peoples.

⁸And this house will become a mass of broken walls, and everyone who goes by will be overcome with wonder at it and make whistling sounds; and they will say, Why has the Lord done so to this land and to this house?

⁹And their answer will be, Because they were turned away from the Lord their God, who took their fathers out of the land of Egypt; they took for themselves other gods and gave them worship and became their servants: that is why the Lord has sent all this evil on them.

¹⁰Now at the end of twenty years, in which time Solomon had put up the two houses, the house of the Lord and the king's house,

¹¹(Hiram, king of Tyre, had given Solomon cedar-trees and cypress-trees and gold, as much as he had need of,) King Solomon gave Hiram twenty towns in the land of Galilee.

¹²But when Hiram came from Tyre to see the towns which Solomon had given him, he was not pleased with them.

¹³And he said, What sort of towns are these which you have given me, my brother? So they were named the land of Cabul, to this day.

¹⁴And Hiram sent the king a hundred and twenty talents of gold.

¹⁵Now, this was the way of Solomon's system of forced work for the building of the Lord's house and of the king's house, and the Millo and the wall of Jerusalem and Megiddo and Gezer. ...

¹⁶Pharaoh, king of Egypt, came and took Gezer, burning it down and putting to death the Canaanites living in the town, and he gave it for a bride-offering to his daughter, Solomon's wife. ...

¹⁷... and Solomon was the builder of Gezer and Beth-horon the lower,

¹⁸And Baalath and Tamar in the waste land, in that land;

¹⁹And all the store-towns and the towns which Solomon had for his war-carriages and for his horsemen, and everything which it was his pleasure to put up in Jerusalem and in Lebanon and in all the land under his rule.

²⁰As for the rest of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, who were not children of Israel;

²¹Their children who were still in the land, and whom the children of Israel had not been able to put to complete destruction, them did Solomon put to forced work, to this day.

²²But Solomon did not put the children of Israel to forced work; they were the men of war, his servants, his captains, and his chiefs, captains of his war-carriages and of his horsemen.

²³These were the chiefs of the overseers of Solomon's work, five hundred and fifty, in authority over the people who did the work.

²⁴At that time Solomon made Pharaoh's daughter come up from the town of David to the house which he had made for her: then he made the Millo.

²⁵Three times in the year it was Solomon's way to give burned offerings and peace-offerings on the altar he had made to the Lord, causing his fire-offering to go up on the altar before the Lord.

²⁶And King Solomon made a sea-force of ships in Ezion-geber, by Eloth, on the Red Sea, in the land of Edom.

²⁷Hiram sent his servants, who were experienced seamen, in the sea-force with Solomon's men.

²⁸And they came to Ophir, where they got four hundred and twenty talents of gold, and took it back to King Solomon.

10Now the queen of Sheba, hearing great things of Solomon, came to put his wisdom to the test with hard questions.

²And she came to Jerusalem with a very great train, with camels weighted down with spices, and stores of gold and jewels: and when she came to Solomon she had talk with him of everything in her mind.

³And Solomon gave her answers to all her questions; there was no secret which the king did not make clear to her.

⁴And when the queen of Sheba had seen all the wisdom of Solomon, and the house which he had made,

⁵And the food at his table, and all his servants seated there, and those who were waiting on him in their places, and their robes, and his wine-servants, and the burned offerings which he made in the house of the Lord, there was no more spirit in her.

⁶And she said to the king, The account which was given to me in my country of your acts and your wisdom was true.

⁷But I had no faith in what was said about you, till I came and saw for myself; and now I see that it was not half the story; your wisdom and your wealth are much greater than they said.

⁸Happy are your wives, happy are these your servants whose place is ever before you, hearing your words of wisdom.

⁹May the Lord your God be praised, whose pleasure it was to put you on the seat of the kingdom of Israel; because the Lord's love for Israel is eternal, he has made you king, to be their judge in righteousness.

¹⁰And she gave the king a hundred and twenty talents of gold, and a great store of spices and jewels: never again was such a wealth of spices seen as that which the queen of Sheba gave King Solomon.

¹¹And the sea-force of Hiram, in addition to gold from Ophir, came back with much sandal-wood and jewels.

¹²And from the sandal-wood the king made pillars for the house of the Lord, and for the king's house, and instruments of music for the makers of melody: never has such sandal-wood been seen to this day.

¹³And King Solomon gave the queen of Sheba all her desire, whatever she made request for, in addition to what he gave her freely from the impulse of his heart. So she went back to her country, she and her servants.

¹⁴Now the weight of gold which came to Solomon in one year was six hundred and sixty-six talents;

¹⁵In addition to what came to him from the business of the traders, and from all the kings of the Arabians, and from the rulers of the country.

¹⁶And Solomon made two hundred body-covers of hammered gold, every one having six hundred shekels of gold in it.

¹⁷And he made three hundred smaller body-covers of hammered gold, with three pounds of gold in every cover: and the king put them in the house of the Woods of Lebanon.

¹⁸Then the king made a great ivory seat, plated with the best gold.

¹⁹There were six steps going up to it, and the top of it was round at the back, there were arms on the two sides of the seat, and two lions by the side of the arms;

²⁰And twelve lions were placed on the one side and on the other side on the six steps: there was nothing like it in any kingdom.

²¹And all King Solomon's drinking-vessels were of gold, and all the vessels of the house of the Woods of Lebanon were of the best gold; not one was of silver, for no one gave a thought to silver in the days of King Solomon.

²²For the king had Tarshish-ships at sea with the ships of Hiram; once every three years the Tarshish-ships came with gold and silver and ivory and monkeys and peacocks.

²³And King Solomon was greater than all the kings of the earth in wealth and in wisdom.

²⁴And from all over the earth they came to see Solomon and to give ear to his wisdom, which God had put in his heart.

²⁵And everyone took with him an offering, vessels of silver and vessels of gold, and robes, and coats of metal, and spices, and horses, and beasts of transport, regularly year by year.

²⁶And Solomon got together war-carriages and horsemen; he had one thousand, four hundred carriages and twelve thousand horsemen, whom he kept, some in the carriage-towns and some with the king at Jerusalem.

²⁷And the king made silver as common as stones in Jerusalem and cedars like the sycamore-trees of the lowlands in number.

²⁸And Solomon's horses came from Egypt and from Kue; the king's traders got them at a price from Kue.

²⁹A war-carriage might be got from Egypt for six hundred shekels of silver, and a horse for a hundred and fifty; they got them at the same rate for all the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Aram.

11Now a number of strange women were loved by Solomon, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites:

²The nations of which the Lord had said to the children of Israel, You are not to take wives from them and they are not to take wives from you; or they will certainly make you go after their gods: to these Solomon was united in love.

³He had seven hundred wives, daughters of kings, and three hundred other wives; and through his wives his heart was turned away.

⁴For it came about that when Solomon was old, his heart was turned away to other gods by his wives; and his heart was no longer true to the Lord his God as the heart of his father David had been.

⁵For Solomon went after Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Zidonians, and Milcom, the disgusting god of the Ammonites.

⁶And Solomon did evil in the eyes of the Lord, not walking in the Lord's ways with all his heart as David his father did.

⁷Then Solomon put up a high place for Chemosh, the disgusting god of Moab, in the mountain before Jerusalem, and for Molech, the disgusting god worshipped by the children of Ammon.

⁸And so he did for all his strange wives, who made offerings with burning of perfumes to their gods.

⁹And the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his heart was turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had twice come to him in a vision;

¹⁰And had given him orders about this very thing, that he was not to go after other gods; but he did not keep the orders of the Lord.

¹¹So the Lord said to Solomon, Because you have done this, and have not kept my agreement and my laws, which I gave you, I will take the kingdom away from you by force and will give it to your servant.

¹²I will not do it in your life-time, because of your father David, but I will take it from your son.

¹³Still I will not take all the kingdom from him; but I will give one tribe to your son, because of my servant David, and because of Jerusalem, the town of my selection.

¹⁴So the Lord sent Hadad the Edomite to make trouble for Solomon: he was of the king's seed in Edom.

¹⁵And when David had sent destruction on Edom, and Joab, the captain of the army, had gone to put the dead into the earth, and had put to death every male in Edom;

¹⁶(For Joab and all Israel were there six months till every male in Edom had been cut off;)

¹⁷Hadad, being still a young boy, went in flight to Egypt, with certain Edomites, servants of his father;

¹⁸And they went on from Midian and came to Paran; and, taking men from Paran with them, they came to Egypt, to Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who gave him a house and gave orders for his food and gave him land.

¹⁹Now Hadad was very pleasing to Pharaoh, so that he gave him the sister of his wife, Tahpenes the queen, for his wife.

²⁰And the sister of Tahpenes had a son by him, Genubath, whom Tahpenes took care of in Pharaoh's house; and Genubath was living in Pharaoh's house among Pharaoh's sons.

²¹Now when Hadad had news in Egypt that David had been put to rest with his fathers, and that Joab, the captain of the army, was dead, he said to Pharaoh, Send me back to my country.

²²But Pharaoh said to him, What have you been short of while you have been with me, that you are desiring to go back to your country? And he said, Nothing; but even so, send me back.

²³And God sent another trouble-maker, Rezon, the son of Eliada, who had gone in flight from his lord, Hadadezer, king of Zobah:

²⁴He got some men together and made himself captain of a band of outlaws; and went to Damascus and became king there.

²⁵He was a trouble to Israel all through the days of Solomon. And this is the damage Hadad did: he was cruel to Israel while he was ruler over Edom.

²⁶And there was Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, an Ephraimite from Zeredah, a servant of Solomon, whose mother was Zeruah, a widow; and his hand was lifted up against the king.

²⁷The way in which his hand came to be lifted up against the king was this: Solomon was building the Millo and making good the damaged parts of the town of his father David;

²⁸And Jeroboam was an able and responsible man; and Solomon saw that he was a good worker and made him overseer of all the work given to the sons of Joseph.

²⁹Now at that time, when Jeroboam was going out of Jerusalem, the prophet Ahijah the Shilonite came across him on the road; now Ahijah had put on a new robe; and the two of them were by themselves in the open country.

³⁰And Ahijah took his new robe in his hands, parting it violently into twelve.

³¹And he said to Jeroboam, Take ten of the parts, for this is what the Lord has said: See, I will take the kingdom away from Solomon by force, and will give ten tribes to you;

³²(But one tribe will be his, because of my servant David, and because of Jerusalem, the town which, out of all the tribes of Israel, I have made mine,)

³³Because they are turned away from me to the worship of Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Zidonians, and Chemosh, the god of Moab, and Milcom, the god of the Ammonites; they have not been walking in my ways or doing what is right in my eyes or keeping my laws and my decisions as his father David did.

³⁴But I will not take the kingdom from him; I will let him be king all the days of his life, because of David my servant, in whom I took delight because he kept my orders and my laws.

³⁵But I will take the kingdom from his son, and give it to you.

³⁶And one tribe I will give to his son, so that David my servant may have a light for ever burning before me in Jerusalem, the town which I have made mine to put my name there.

³⁷And you I will take, and you will be king over Israel, ruling over whatever is the desire of your soul.

³⁸And if you give attention to the orders I give you, walking in my ways and doing what is right in my eyes and keeping my laws and my orders as David my servant did; then I will be with you, building up for you a safe house, as I did for David, and I will give Israel to you.

³⁹(So that I may send trouble for this on the seed of David, but not for ever.)

⁴⁰And Solomon was looking for a chance to put Jeroboam to death; but he went in flight to Egypt, to Shishak, king of Egypt, and was in Egypt till the death of Solomon.

⁴¹Now the rest of the acts of Solomon, and all he did, and his wisdom, are they not recorded in the book of the acts of Solomon?

⁴²And the time Solomon was king in Jerusalem over all Israel was forty years.

⁴³And Solomon went to rest with his fathers, and was put into the earth in the town of David his father: and Solomon went to rest with his fathers and Rehoboam his son became king in his place.

12And Rehoboam went to Shechem, where all Israel had come together to make him king,

²And, hearing of it, Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who was still in Egypt, where he had gone in flight from Solomon, and was living there, came back to his town Zeredah, in the hill-country of Ephraim;

³And all the men of Israel came to Rehoboam and said,

⁴Your father put a hard yoke on us: if you will make the conditions under which your father kept us down less cruel, and the weight of the yoke he put on us less hard, then we will be your servants.

⁵And he said to them, Go away for three days and then come back to me again. So the people went away.

⁶Then King Rehoboam took the opinion of the old men who had been with Solomon his father when he was living, and said, In your opinion, what answer am I to give to this people?

⁷And they said to him, If you will be a servant to this people today, caring for them and giving them a gentle answer, then they will be your servants for ever.

⁸But he gave no attention to the opinion of the old men, and went to the young men of his generation who were waiting before him:

⁹And said to them, What is your opinion? What answer are we to give to this people who have said to me, Make less the weight of the yoke which your father put on us?

¹⁰And the young men of his generation said to him, This is the answer to give to the people who came to you saying, Your father put a hard yoke on us; will you make it less? say to them, My little finger is thicker than my father's body;

¹¹If my father put a hard yoke on you, I will make it harder: my father gave you punishment with whips, but I will give you blows with snakes.

¹²So all the people came to Rehoboam on the third day, as the king had given orders, saying, Come back to me the third day.

¹³And the king gave them a rough answer, giving no attention to the suggestion of the old men;

¹⁴But giving them the answer put forward by the young men, saying, My father made your yoke hard, but I will make it harder; my father gave you punishment with whips, but I will give it with snakes.

¹⁵So the king did not give ear to the people; and this came about by the purpose of the Lord, so that what he had said by Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam, son of Nebat, might be effected.

¹⁶And when all Israel saw that the king would give no attention to them, the people in answer said to the king, What part have we in David? what is our heritage in the son of Jesse? to your tents, O Israel; now see to your people, David. So Israel went away to their tents.

¹⁷(But Rehoboam was still king over those of the children of Israel who were living in the towns of Judah.)

¹⁸Then King Rehoboam sent Adoniram, the overseer of the forced work; and he was stoned to death by all Israel. And King Rehoboam went quickly and got into his carriage to go in flight to Jerusalem.

¹⁹So Israel was turned away from the family of David to this day.

²⁰Now when all Israel had news that Jeroboam had come back, they sent for him to come before the meeting of the people, and made him king over Israel: not one of them was joined to the family of David but only the tribe of Judah.

²¹When Rehoboam came to Jerusalem, he got together all the men of Judah and the tribe of Benjamin, a hundred and eighty thousand of his best fighting-men, to make war against Israel and get the kingdom back for Rehoboam, the son of Solomon.

²²But the word of God came to Shemaiah, the man of God, saying,

²³Say to Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, king of Judah, and to all the men of Judah and Benjamin and the rest of the people:

²⁴The Lord has said, You are not to go to war against your brothers, the children of Israel; go back, every man to his house, because this thing is my purpose. So they gave ear to the word of the Lord, and went back, as the Lord had said.

²⁵Then Jeroboam made the town of Shechem in the hill-country of Ephraim a strong place, and was living there; and from there he went out and did the same to Penuel.

²⁶And Jeroboam said in his heart, Now the kingdom will go back to the family of David:

²⁷If the people go up to make offerings in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, their heart will be turned again to their lord, to Rehoboam, king of Judah; and they will put me to death and go back to Rehoboam, king of Judah.

²⁸So after taking thought the king made two oxen of gold; and he said to the people, You have been going up to Jerusalem long enough; see! these are your gods, O Israel, who took you out of the land of Egypt.

²⁹And he put one in Beth-el and the other in Dan.

³⁰And this became a sin in Israel; for the people went to give worship to the one at Beth-el, and to the other at Dan.

³¹And he made places for worship at the high places, and made priests, who were not Levites, from among all the people.

³²And Jeroboam gave orders for a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like the feast which is kept in Judah, and he went up to the altar. And in the same way, in Beth-el, he gave offerings to the oxen which he had made, placing in Beth-el the priests of the high places he had made.

³³He went up to the altar he had made in Beth-el on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, the month fixed by him at his pleasure; and he gave orders for a feast for the people of Israel, and went up to the altar, and there he made the smoke of his offerings go up.

13Then a man of God came from Judah by the order of the Lord to Beth-el, where Jeroboam was by the altar, burning offerings.

²And by the order of the Lord he made an outcry against the altar, saying, O altar, altar, the Lord has said, From the seed of David will come a child, named Josiah, and on you he will put to death the priests of the high places, who are burning offerings on you, and men's bones will be burned on you.

³The same day he gave them a sign, saying, This is the sign which the Lord has given: See, the altar will be broken and the burned waste on it overturned.

⁴Then the king, hearing the man of God crying out against the altar at Beth-el, put out his hand from the altar, saying, Take him prisoner. And his hand, stretched out against him, became dead, and he had no power of pulling it back.

⁵And the altar was broken and the burned waste on it overturned; this was the sign which the man of God had given by the word of the Lord.

⁶Then the king made answer and said to the man of God, Make a prayer now for the grace of the Lord your God, and for me, that my hand may be made well. And in answer to the prayer of the man of God, the king's hand was made well again, as it was before.

⁷And the king said to the man of God, Come with me to my house for food and rest, and I will give you a reward.

⁸But the man of God said to the king, Even if you gave me half of all you have, I would not go in with you, and I would not take food or a drink of water in this place;

⁹For so I was ordered by the word of the Lord, who said, You are not to take food or a drink of water, and you are not to go back the way you came.

¹⁰So he went another way, and not by the way he came to Beth-el.

¹¹Now there was an old prophet living in Beth-el; and one of his sons came and gave him word of all the man of God had done that day in Beth-el, and they gave their father an account of the words he had said to the king.

¹²Then their father said to them, Which way did he go? Now his sons had seen which way the man of God who came from Judah had gone.

¹³So the prophet said to his sons, Make ready an ass for me. So they made an ass ready, and he got on it,

¹⁴And went after the man of God, and came up with him while he was seated under an oak-tree. And he said to him, Are you the man of God who came from Judah? And he said, I am.

¹⁵Then he said to him, Come back to the house with me and have a meal.

¹⁶But he said, I may not go back with you or go into your house; and I will not take food or a drink of water with you in this place;

¹⁷For the Lord said to me, You are not to take food or water there, or go back again by the way you came.

¹⁸Then he said to him, I am a prophet like you; and an angel said to me by the word of the Lord, Take him back with you and give him food and water. But he said false words to him.

¹⁹So he went back with him, and had a meal in his house and a drink of water.

²⁰But while they were seated at the table, the word of the Lord came to the prophet who had taken him back;

²¹And crying out to the man of God who came from Judah, he said, The Lord says, Because you have gone against the voice of the Lord, and have not done as you were ordered by the Lord,

²²But have come back, and have taken food and water in this place where he said you were to take no food or water; your dead body will not be put to rest with your fathers.

²³Now after the meal he made ready the ass for him, for the prophet whom he had taken back.

²⁴And he went on his way; but on the road a lion came rushing at him and put him to death; and his dead body was stretched in the road with the ass by its side, and the lion was there by the body.

²⁵And some men, going by, saw the body stretched out in the road with the lion by its side; and they came and gave news of it in the town where the old prophet was living.

²⁶Then the prophet who had made him come back, hearing it, said, It is the man of God, who went against the word of the Lord; that is why the Lord has given him to the lion to be wounded to death, as the Lord said.

²⁷And he said to his sons, Make ready the ass for me. And they did so.

²⁸And he went and saw the dead body stretched out in the road with the ass and the lion by its side: the lion had not taken the body for its food or done any damage to the ass.

²⁹Then the prophet took up the body of the man of God and put it on the ass and took it back; and he came to the town to put the body to rest with weeping.

³⁰And he put the body in the resting-place made ready for himself, weeping and sorrowing over it, saying, O my brother!

³¹And when he had put it to rest, he said to his sons, When I am dead, then you are to put my body into the earth with the body of this man of God, and put me by his bones so that my bones may be kept safe with his bones.

³²For the outcry he made by the word of the Lord against the altar in Beth-el and against all the houses of the high places in the towns of Samaria, will certainly come about.

³³After this Jeroboam, not turning back from his evil ways, still made priests for his altars from among all the people; he made a priest of anyone desiring it, so that there might be priests of the high places.

³⁴And this became a sin in the family of Jeroboam, causing it to be cut off and sent to destruction from the face of the earth.

14At that time Abijah, the son of Jeroboam, became ill.

²And Jeroboam said to his wife, Now come, put on different clothing so that you may not seem to be the wife of Jeroboam, and go to Shiloh; see, Ahijah is there, the prophet who said I would be king over this people.

³And take with you ten cakes of bread and dry cakes and a pot of honey, and go to him: he will give you word of what is to become of the child.

⁴So Jeroboam's wife did so, and got up and went to Shiloh and came to the house of Ahijah. Now Ahijah was unable to see, because he was very old.

⁵And the Lord had said to Ahijah, The wife of Jeroboam is coming to get news from you about her son, who is ill; give her such and such an answer; for she will make herself seem to be another woman.

⁶Then Ahijah, hearing the sound of her footsteps coming in at the door, said, Come in, O wife of Jeroboam; why do you make yourself seem like another? for I am sent to you with bitter news.

⁷Go, say to Jeroboam, These are the words of the Lord, the God of Israel: Though I took you from among the people, lifting you up to be a ruler over my people Israel,

⁸And took the kingdom away by force from the seed of David and gave it to you, you have not been like my servant David, who kept my orders, and was true to me with all his heart, doing only what was right in my eyes.

⁹But you have done evil more than any before you, and have made for yourself other gods, and images of metal, moving me to wrath, and turning your back on me.

¹⁰So I will send evil on the line of Jeroboam, cutting off from his family every male child, those who are shut up and those who go free in Israel; the family of Jeroboam will be brushed away like a man brushing away waste till it is all gone.

¹¹Those of the family of Jeroboam who come to death in the town, will become food for the dogs; and those on whom death comes in the open country, will be food for the birds of the air; for the Lord has said it.

¹²Up, then! go back to your house; and in the hour when your feet go into the town, the death of the child will take place.

¹³And all Israel will put his body to rest, weeping over him, because he only of the family of Jeroboam will be put into his resting-place in the earth; for of all the family of Jeroboam, in him only has the Lord, the God of Israel, seen some good.

¹⁴And the Lord will put up a king over Israel who will send destruction on the family of Jeroboam in that day;

¹⁵And even now the hand of the Lord has come down on Israel, shaking it like a river-grass in the water; and, uprooting Israel from this good land, which he gave to their fathers, he will send them this way and that on the other side of the River; because they have made for themselves images, moving the Lord to wrath.

¹⁶And he will give Israel up because of the sins which Jeroboam has done and made Israel do.

¹⁷Then Jeroboam's wife got up and went away and came to Tirzah; and when she came to the doorway of the house, death came to the child.

¹⁸And all Israel put his body to rest, weeping over him, as the Lord had said by his servant Ahijah the prophet.

¹⁹Now the rest of the acts of Jeroboam, how he made war and how he became king, are recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Israel.

²⁰And Jeroboam was king for twenty-two years, and was put to rest with his fathers, and Nadab his son became king in his place.

²¹And Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, was king in Judah. Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he became king, and he was king for seventeen years in Jerusalem, the town which the Lord had made his out of all the tribes of Israel, to put his name there; his mother's name was Naamah, an Ammonite woman.

²²And Judah did evil in the eyes of the Lord, and made him more angry than their fathers had done by their sins.

²³For they made high places and upright stones and wood pillars on every high hill and under every green tree;

²⁴And more than this, there were those in the land who were used for sex purposes in the worship of the gods, doing the same disgusting crimes as the nations which the Lord had sent out before the children of Israel.

²⁵Now in the fifth year of King Rehoboam, Shishak, king of Egypt, came up against Jerusalem;

²⁶And took away all the stored wealth from the house of the Lord, and from the king's house, and all the gold body-covers which Solomon had made.

²⁷So in their place King Rehoboam had other body-covers made of brass, and gave them into the care of the captains of the armed men who were stationed at the door of the king's house.

²⁸And whenever the king went into the house of the Lord, the armed men went with him taking the body-covers, and then took them back to their room.

²⁹Now the rest of the acts of Rehoboam, and all he did, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Judah?

³⁰And there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all their days.

³¹And Rehoboam went to rest with his fathers, and was put into the earth with his fathers in the town of David; his mother's name was Naamah, an Ammonite woman. And Abijam his son became king in his place.

15Now in the eighteenth year of king Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, Abijam became king over Judah.

²For three years he was king in Jerusalem: and his mother's name was Maacah, the daughter of Abishalom.

³And he did the same sins which his father had done before him: his heart was not completely true to the Lord his God, like the heart of David his father.

⁴But because of David, the Lord gave him a light in Jerusalem, making his sons king after him, so that Jerusalem might be safe;

⁵Because David did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, and never in all his life went against his orders, but only in the question of Uriah the Hittite.

⁶...

⁷Now the rest of the acts of Abijam, and all he did, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Judah? And there was war between Abijam and Jeroboam.

⁸Then Abijam went to rest with his fathers, and they put him into the earth in the town of David: and Asa his son became king in his place.

⁹In the twentieth year that Jeroboam was king of Israel, Asa became king over Judah.

¹⁰And he was king for forty-one years in Jerusalem; his mother's name was Maacah, the daughter of Abishalom.

¹¹Asa did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, as David his father did.

¹²Those used for sex purposes in the worship of the gods he sent out of the country, and he took away all the images which his fathers had made.

¹³And he would not let Maacah his mother be queen, because she had made a disgusting image for Asherah; and Asa had the image cut down and burned by the stream Kidron.

¹⁴The high places, however, were not taken away: but still the heart of Asa was true to the Lord all his life.

¹⁵He took into the house of the Lord all the things which his father had made holy, and those which he himself had made holy, silver and gold and vessels.

¹⁶Now there was war between Asa and Baasha, king of Israel, all their days.

¹⁷And Baasha, king of Israel, went up against Judah, building Ramah, so that no one was able to go out or in to Asa, king of Judah.

¹⁸Then Asa took all the silver and gold which was still stored in the Lord's house, and in the king's house, and sent them, in the care of his servants, to Ben-hadad, son of Tabrimmon, son of Rezon, king of Aram, at Damascus, saying,

¹⁹Let there be an agreement between me and you as there was between my father and your father: see, I have sent you an offering of silver and gold; go and put an end to your agreement with Baasha, king of Israel, so that he may give up attacking me.

²⁰So Ben-hadad did as King Asa said, and sent the captains of his armies against the towns of Israel, attacking Ijon and Dan and Abel-beth-maacah, and all Chinneroth as far as all the land of Naphtali.

²¹And Baasha, hearing of it, put a stop to the building of Ramah, and was living in Tirzah.

²²Then King Asa got all Judah together, making every man come; and they took away the stones and the wood with which Baasha was building Ramah, and King Asa made use of them for building Geba in the land of Benjamin, and Mizpah.

²³Now the rest of the acts of Asa, and his power, and all he did, and the towns of which he was the builder, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Judah? But when he was old he had a disease of the feet.

²⁴So Asa went to rest with his fathers and was put into the earth in the town of David his father: and Jehoshaphat his son became king in his place.

²⁵Nadab, the son of Jeroboam, became king over Israel in the second year that Asa was king of Judah; and he was king of Israel for two years.

²⁶He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, copying the evil ways of his father, and the sin which he did and made Israel do.

²⁷And Baasha, the son of Ahijah, of the family of Issachar, made a secret design against him, attacking him at Gibbethon, a town of the Philistines; for Nadab and the armies of Israel were making war on Gibbethon.

²⁸In the third year of the rule of Asa, king of Judah, Baasha put him to death, and became king in his place.

²⁹And straight away when he became king, he sent destruction on all the offspring of Jeroboam; there was not one living person of all the family of Jeroboam whom he did not put to death, so the word of the Lord, which he said by his servant Ahijah the Shilonite, came about;

³⁰Because of the sins which Jeroboam did and made Israel do, moving the Lord, the God of Israel, to wrath.

³¹Now the rest of the acts of Nadab, and all he did, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Israel?

³²And there was war between Asa and Baasha, king of Israel, all their days.

³³In the third year of the rule of Asa, king of Judah, Baasha, the son of Ahijah, became king over all Israel in Tirzah, and was king for twenty-four years.

³⁴He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, copying the evil ways of Jeroboam and the sin which he made Israel do.

16And the word of the Lord came to Jehu, son of Hanani, protesting against Baasha and saying,

²Because I took you up out of the dust, and made you ruler over my people Israel; and you have gone in the ways of Jeroboam, and made my people Israel do evil, moving me to wrath by their sins;

³Truly, I will see that Baasha and all his family are completely brushed away; I will make your family like the family of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat.

⁴Anyone of the family of Baasha who comes to death in the town, will become food for the dogs; and he to whom death comes in the open country, will be food for the birds of the air.

⁵Now the rest of the acts of Baasha, and what he did, and his power, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Israel?

⁶And Baasha went to rest with his fathers, and was put into the earth at Tirzah; and Elah his son became king in his place.

⁷And the Lord sent his word against Baasha and his family by the mouth of the prophet Jehu, the son of Hanani, because of all the evil he did in the eyes of the Lord, moving him to wrath by the work of his hands, because he was like the family of Jeroboam, and because he put it to death.

⁸In the twenty-sixth year that Asa was king of Judah, Elah, the son of Baasha, became king of Israel in Tirzah, and he was king for two years.

⁹And his servant Zimri, captain of half his war-carriages, made secret designs against him: now he was in Tirzah, drinking hard in the house of Arza, controller of the king's house in Tirzah.

¹⁰And Zimri went in and made an attack on him and put him to death, in the twenty-seventh year that Asa was king of Judah, and made himself king in his place.

¹¹And straight away when he became king and took his place on the seat of the kingdom, he put to death all the family of Baasha: not one male child of his relations or his friends kept his life.

¹²So Zimri put to death all the family of Baasha, so that the word which the Lord said against him by the mouth of Jehu the prophet came about;

¹³Because of all the sins of Baasha, and the sins of Elah his son, which they did and made Israel do, moving the Lord, the God of Israel, to wrath by their foolish acts.

¹⁴Now the rest of the acts of Elah, and all he did, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Israel?

¹⁵In the twenty-seventh year of Asa, king of Judah, Zimri was king for seven days in Tirzah. Now the people were attacking Gibbethon in the land of the Philistines.

¹⁶And news came to the people in the tents that Zimri had made a secret design and had put the king to death: so all Israel made Omri, the captain of the army, king that day in the tents.

¹⁷Then Omri went up from Gibbethon, with all the army of Israel, and they made an attack on Tirzah, shutting in the town on every side.

¹⁸And when Zimri saw that the town was taken, he went into the inner room of the king's house, and burning the house over his head, came to his end,

¹⁹Because of his sin in doing evil in the eyes of the Lord, in going in the way of Jeroboam and in his sin which he made Israel do.

²⁰Now the rest of the acts of Zimri, and the secret design he made, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Israel?

²¹Then there was a division among the people of Israel; half the people were for making Tibni, son of Ginath, king, and half were supporting Omri.

²²But the supporters of Omri overcame those who were on the side of Tibni, the son of Ginath; and death came to Tibni and to his brother Joram at that time: and Omri became king in the place of Tibni.

²³In the thirty-first year of Asa, king of Judah, Omri became king over Israel, and he was king for twelve years; for six years he was ruling in Tirzah.

²⁴He got the hill Samaria from Shemer for the price of two talents of silver, and he made a town there, building it on the hill and naming it Samaria, after Shemer the owner of the hill.

²⁵And Omri did evil in the eyes of the Lord, even worse than all those before him,

²⁶Copying all the evil ways of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, and all the sins he did and made Israel do, moving the Lord, the God of Israel, to wrath by their foolish ways.

²⁷Now the rest of the acts which Omri did, and his great power, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Israel?

²⁸So Omri went to rest with his fathers, and was put into the earth in Samaria; and Ahab his son became king in his place.

²⁹In the thirty-eighth year that Asa was king of Judah, Ahab, the son of Omri, became king over Israel; and Ahab was king in Samaria for twenty-two years.

³⁰And Ahab, the son of Omri, did evil in the eyes of the Lord, even worse than all who went before him.

³¹And as if copying the evil ways of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, was a small thing for him, he took as his wife Jezebel, daughter of Ethbaal, king of Zidon, and became a servant and worshipper of Baal.

³²And he put up an altar for Baal in the house of Baal which he had made in Samaria.

³³And Ahab made an image of Asherah and did more than all the kings of Israel before him to make the Lord, the God of Israel, angry.

³⁴In his days Hiel made Jericho; he put its base in position at the price of Abiram, his oldest son, and he put its doors in place at the price of his youngest son Segub; even as the Lord had said by Joshua, the son of Nun.

17And Elijah the Tishbite, of Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, By the living Lord, the God of Israel, whose servant I am, there will be no dew or rain in these years, but only at my word.

²Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying,

³Go from here in the direction of the east, and keep yourself in a secret place by the stream Cherith, east of Jordan.

⁴The water of the stream will be your drink, and by my orders the ravens will give you food there.

⁵So he went and did as the Lord said, living by the stream Cherith, east of Jordan.

⁶And the ravens took him bread in the morning and meat in the evening; and the water of the stream was his drink.

⁷Now after a time the stream became dry, because there was no rain in the land.

⁸Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying,

⁹Up! go now to Zarephath, in Zidon, and make your living-place there; I have given orders to a widow woman there to see that you have food.

¹⁰So he got up and went to Zarephath; and when he came to the door of the town, he saw a widow woman getting sticks together; and crying out to her he said, Will you give me a little water in a vessel for my drink?

¹¹And when she was going to get it, he said to her, And get me with it a small bit of bread.

¹²Then she said, By the life of the Lord your God, I have nothing but a little meal in my store, and a drop of oil in the bottle; and now I am getting two sticks together so that I may go in and make it ready for me and my son, so that we may have a meal before our death.

¹³And Elijah said to her, Have no fear; go and do as you have said, but first make me a little cake of it and come and give it to me, and then make something for yourself and your son.

¹⁴For this is the word of the Lord, the God of Israel: The store of meal will not come to an end, and the bottle will never be without oil, till the day when the Lord sends rain on the earth.

¹⁵So she went and did as Elijah said; and she and he and her family had food for a long time.

¹⁶The store of meal did not come to an end, and the bottle was never without oil, as the Lord had said by the mouth of Elijah.

¹⁷Now after this, the son of the woman of the house became ill, so ill that there was no breath in him.

¹⁸And she said to Elijah, What have I to do with you, O man of God? have you come to put God in mind of my sin, and to put my son to death?

¹⁹And he said to her, Give your son to me. And lifting him out of her arms, he took him up to his room and put him down on his bed.

²⁰And crying to the Lord he said, O Lord my God, have you sent evil even on the widow whose guest I am, by causing her son's death?

²¹And stretching herself out on the child three times, he made his prayer to the Lord, saying, O Lord my God, be pleased to let this child's life come back to him again.

²²And the Lord gave ear to the voice of Elijah, and the child's spirit came into him again, and he came back to life.

²³And Elijah took the child down from his room into the house and gave him to his mother and said to her, See, your son is living.

²⁴Then the woman said to Elijah, Now I am certain that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is true.

18Now after a long time, the word of the Lord came to Elijah, in the third year, saying, Go and let Ahab see you, so that I may send rain on the earth.

²So Elijah went to let Ahab see him. Now there was no food to be had in Samaria.

³And Ahab sent for Obadiah, the controller of the king's house. (Now Obadiah had the fear of the Lord before him greatly;

⁴For when Jezebel was cutting off the prophets of the Lord, Obadiah took a hundred of them, and kept them secretly in a hole in the rock, fifty at a time, and gave them bread and water.)

⁵And Ahab said to Obadiah, Come, let us go through all the country, to all the fountains of water and all the rivers, and see if there is any grass to be had for the horses and the transport beasts, so that we may be able to keep some of the beasts from destruction.

⁶So they went through all the country, covering it between them; Ahab went in one direction by himself, and Obadiah went in another by himself.

⁷And while Obadiah was on his way, he came face to face with Elijah; and seeing who it was, he went down on his face and said, Is it you, my lord Elijah?

⁸And Elijah in answer said, It is I; now go and say to your lord, Elijah is here.

⁹And he said, What sin have I done, that you would give up your servant into the hand of Ahab, and be the cause of my death?

¹⁰By the life of the Lord your God, there is not a nation or kingdom where my lord has not sent in search of you; and when they said, He is not here; he made them take an oath that they had not seen you.

¹¹And now you say, Go, say to your lord, Elijah is here.

¹²And straight away, when I have gone from you, the spirit of the Lord will take you away, I have no idea where, so that when I come and give word to Ahab, and he sees you not, he will put me to death: though I, your servant, have been a worshipper of the Lord from my earliest years.

¹³Has my lord not had word of what I did when Jezebel was putting the Lord's prophets to death? how I kept a hundred of them in a secret hole in the rock, fifty at a time, and gave them bread and water?

¹⁴And now you say, Go and say to your Lord, Elijah is here; and he will put me to death.

¹⁵And Elijah said, By the life of the Lord of armies, whose servant I am, I will certainly let him see me today.

¹⁶So Obadiah went to Ahab and gave him the news; and Ahab went to see Elijah.

¹⁷And when he saw Elijah, Ahab said to him, Is it you, you troubler of Israel?

¹⁸Then he said in answer, I have not been troubling Israel, but you and your family; because, turning away from the orders of the Lord, you have gone after the Baals.

¹⁹Now send, and get Israel together before me at Mount Carmel, with the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal who get their food at Jezebel's table.

²⁰So Ahab sent for all the children of Israel, and got the prophets together at Mount Carmel.

²¹And Elijah came near to all the people and said, How long will you go on balancing between two opinions? if the Lord is God, then give worship to him; but if Baal, give worship to him. And the people said not a word in answer.

²²Then Elijah said to the people, I, even I, am the only living prophet of the Lord; but Baal's prophets are four hundred and fifty men.

²³Now, let them give us two oxen; and let them take one for themselves, and have it cut up, and put it on the wood, but put no fire under it; I will get the other ox ready, and put it on the wood, and put no fire under it.

²⁴And do you make prayers to your god, and I will make a prayer to the Lord: and it will be clear that the one who gives an answer by fire is God. And all the people in answer said, It is well said.

²⁵Then Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, Take one ox for yourselves and get it ready first, for there are more of you; and make your prayers to your god, but put no fire under.

²⁶So they took the ox which was given them, and made it ready, crying out to Baal from morning till the middle of the day, and saying, O Baal, give ear to us. But there was no voice and no answer. And they were jumping up and down before the altar they had made.

²⁷And in the middle of the day, Elijah made sport of them, saying, Give louder cries, for he is a god; he may be deep in thought, or he may have gone away for some purpose, or he may be on a journey, or by chance he is sleeping and has to be made awake.

²⁸So they gave loud cries, cutting themselves with knives and swords, as was their way, till the blood came streaming out all over them.

²⁹And from the middle of the day they went on with their prayers till the time of the offering; but there was no voice, or any answer, or any who gave attention to them.

³⁰Then Elijah said to all the people, Come near to me; and all the people came near. And he put up again the altar of the Lord which had been broken down.

³¹And Elijah took twelve stones, the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the Lord had said, Israel will be your name:

³²And with the stones he made an altar to the name of the Lord; and he made a deep drain all round the altar, great enough to take two measures of seed.

³³And he put the wood in order, and, cutting up the ox, put it on the wood. Then he said, Get four vessels full of water and put it on the burned offering and on the wood. And he said, Do it a second time, and they did it a second time;

³⁴And he said, Do it a third time, and they did it a third time.

³⁵And the water went all round the altar, till the drain was full.

³⁶Then at the time of the offering, Elijah the prophet came near and said, O Lord, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Israel, let it be seen this day that you are God in Israel, and that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things by your order.

³⁷Give me an answer, O Lord, give me an answer, so that this people may see that you are God, and that you have made their hearts come back again.

³⁸Then the fire of the Lord came down, burning up the offering and the wood and the stones and the dust, and drinking up the water in the drain.

³⁹And when the people saw it, they all went down on their faces, and said, The Lord, he is God, the Lord, he is God.

⁴⁰And Elijah said to them, Take the prophets of Baal, let not one of them get away. So they took them, and Elijah made them go down to the stream Kishon, and put them to death there.

⁴¹Then Elijah said to Ahab, Up! take food and drink, for there is a sound of much rain.

⁴²So Ahab went up to have food and drink, while Elijah went up to the top of Carmel; and he went down on the earth, putting his face between his knees.

⁴³And he said to his servant, Go now, and take a look in the direction of the sea. And he went up, and after looking said, There is nothing. And he said, Go again seven times; and he went seven times.

⁴⁴And the seventh time he said, I see a cloud coming up out of the sea, as small as a man's hand. Then he said, Go up and say to Ahab, Get your carriage ready and go down or the rain will keep you back.

⁴⁵And after a very little time, the heaven became black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain. And Ahab went in his carriage to Jezreel.

⁴⁶And the hand of the Lord was on Elijah; and he made himself strong, and went running before Ahab till they came to Jezreel.

19Ahab gave Jezebel news of all Elijah had done, and how he had put all the prophets to death with the sword.

²Then Jezebel sent a servant to Elijah, saying, May the gods' punishment be on me if I do not make your life like the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time.

³And he got up, fearing for his life, and went in flight, and came to Beer-sheba in Judah, parting there from his servant;

⁴While he himself went a day's journey into the waste land, and took a seat under a broom-plant, desiring for himself only death; for he said, It is enough: now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers.

⁵And stretching himself on the earth, he went to sleep under the broom-plant; but an angel, touching him, said to him, Get up and have some food.

⁶And looking up, he saw by his head a cake cooked on the stones and a bottle of water. So he took food and drink and went to sleep again.

⁷And the angel of the Lord came again a second time, and touching him said, Get up and have some food, or the journey will be overmuch for your strength.

⁸So he got up and took food and drink, and in the strength of that food he went on for forty days and nights, to Horeb, the mountain of God.

⁹And there he went into a hole in the rock for the night; then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, What are you doing here, Elijah?

¹⁰And he said, I have been burning for the honour of the Lord, the God of armies; for the children of Israel have not kept your agreement; they have made destruction of your altars, and have put your prophets to death with the sword: till I, even I, am the only one living; and now they are attempting to take away my life.

¹¹Then he said, Go out and take your place on the mountain before the Lord. Then the Lord went by, and mountains were parted by the force of a great wind, and rocks were broken before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind there was an earth-shock, but the Lord was not in the earth-shock.

¹²And after the earth-shock a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire, the sound of a soft breath.

¹³And Elijah, hearing it, went out, covering his face with his robe, and took his place in the opening of the hole. And there a voice came to him saying, What are you doing here, Elijah?

¹⁴And he said, I have been burning for the honour of the Lord, the God of armies; for the children of Israel have not kept your agreement; they have had your altars broken down, and have put your prophets to death with the sword: till I, even I, am the only one living; and now they are attempting to take away my life.

¹⁵And the Lord said to him, Go back on your way through the waste land to Damascus; and when you come there, put the holy oil on Hazael to make him king over Aram;

¹⁶And on Jehu, son of Nimshi, making him king over Israel; and on Elisha, the son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah, to be prophet in your place.

¹⁷And it will come about that the man who gets away safe from the sword of Hazael, Jehu will put to death; and whoever gets away safe from the sword of Jehu, Elisha will put to death.

¹⁸But I will keep safe seven thousand in Israel, all those whose knees have not been bent to Baal, and whose mouths have given him no kisses.

¹⁹So he went away from there and came across Elisha, the son of Shaphat, ploughing with twelve yoke of oxen, he himself walking with the twelfth; and Elijah went up to him and put his robe on him.

²⁰And letting the oxen be where they were, he came running after Elijah, and said, Only let me give a kiss to my father and mother, and then I will come after you. But he said to him, Go back again; for what have I done to you?

²¹And he went back, and took the oxen and put them to death, and cooking their flesh with the yokes of the oxen, he gave the people a feast. Then he got up and went after Elijah and became his servant.

20Now Ben-hadad, king of Aram, got all his army together, and thirty-two kings with him, and horses and carriages of war; he went up and made war on Samaria, shutting it in.

²And he sent representatives into the town to Ahab, king of Israel;

³And they said to him, Ben-hadad says, Your silver and your gold are mine; and your wives and children are mine.

⁴And the king of Israel sent him an answer saying, As you say, my lord king, I am yours with all I have.

⁵Then the representatives came back again, and said, These are the words of Ben-hadad: I sent to you saying, Give up to me your silver and your gold, your wives and your children;

⁶But I will send my servants to you tomorrow about this time, to make a search through your house and the houses of your people, and everything which is pleasing in your eyes they will take away in their hands.

⁷Then the king of Israel sent for all the responsible men of the land, and said, Now will you take note and see the evil purpose of this man: he sent for my wives and my children, my silver and my gold, and I did not keep them back.

⁸And all the responsible men and the people said to him, Do not give attention to him or do what he says.

⁹So he said to the representatives of Ben-hadad, Say to my lord the king, All the orders you sent the first time I will do; but this thing I may not do. And the representatives went back with this answer.

¹⁰Then Ben-hadad sent to him, saying, May the gods' punishment be on me if there is enough of the dust of Samaria for all the people at my feet to take some in their hands.

¹¹And the king of Israel said in answer, Say to him, The time for loud talk is not when a man is putting on his arms, but when he is taking them off.

¹²Now when this answer was given to Ben-hadad, he was drinking with the kings in the tents, and he said to his men, Take up your positions. So they put themselves in position for attacking the town.

¹³Then a prophet came up to Ahab, king of Israel, and said, The Lord says, Have you seen all this great army? See, I will give it into your hands today, and you will see that I am the Lord.

¹⁴And Ahab said, By whom? And he said, The Lord says, By the servants of the chiefs who are over the divisions of the land. Then he said, By whom is the fighting to be started? And he made answer, By you.

¹⁵Then he got together the servants of all the chiefs who were over the divisions of the land, two hundred and thirty-two of them; and after them, he got together all the people, all the children of Israel, seven thousand.

¹⁶And in the middle of the day they went out. But Ben-hadad was drinking in the tents with the thirty-two kings who were helping him.

¹⁷And the servants of the chiefs who were over the divisions of the land went forward first; and when Ben-hadad sent out, they gave him the news, saying, Men have come out from Samaria.

¹⁸And he said, If they have come out for peace, take them living, and if they have come out for war, take them living.

¹⁹So the servants of the chiefs of the divisions of the land went out of the town, with the army coming after them.

²⁰And every one of them put his man to death, and the Aramaeans went in flight with Israel after them; and Ben-hadad, king of Aram, got away safely on a horse with his horsemen.

²¹And the king of Israel went out and took the horses and the war-carriages, and made great destruction among the Aramaeans.

²²Then the prophet came up to the king of Israel, and said to him, Now make yourself strong, and take care what you do, or a year from now the king of Aram will come up against you again.

²³Then the king of Aram's servants said to him, Their god is a god of the hills; that is why they were stronger than we: but if we make an attack on them in the lowlands, we will certainly be stronger than they.

²⁴This is what you have to do: take away the kings from their positions, and put captains in their places;

²⁵And get together another army like the one which came to destruction, horse for horse, and carriage for carriage; and let us make war on them in the lowlands, and certainly we will be stronger than they. And he gave ear to what they said, and did so.

²⁶So, a year later, Ben-hadad got the Aramaeans together and went up to Aphek to make war on Israel.

²⁷And the children of Israel got themselves together, and food was made ready and they went against them; the tents of the children of Israel were like two little flocks of goats before them, but all the country was full of the Aramaeans.

²⁸And a man of God came up and said to the king of Israel, The Lord says, Because the Aramaeans have said, The Lord is a god of the hills and not of the valleys; I will give all this great army into your hands, and you will see that I am the Lord.

²⁹Now the two armies kept their positions facing one another for seven days. And on the seventh day the fight was started; and the children of Israel put to the sword a hundred thousand Aramaean footmen in one day.

³⁰But the rest went in flight to Aphek, into the town, where a wall came down on the twenty-seven thousand who were still living. And Ben-hadad went in flight into the town, into an inner room.

³¹Then his servants said to him, It is said that the kings of Israel are full of mercy: let us then put on haircloth, and cords on our heads, and go to the king of Israel; it may be that he will give you your life.

³²So they put on haircloth, and cords on their heads, and came to the king of Israel and said, Your servant Ben-hadad says, Let me now keep my life. And he said, Is he still living? he is my brother.

³³Now the men took it as a sign, and quickly took up his words; and they said, Ben-hadad is your brother. Then he said, Go and get him. So Ben-hadad came out to him and he made him get up into his carriage.

³⁴And Ben-hadad said to him, The towns my father took from your father I will give back; and you may make streets for yourself in Damascus as my father did in Samaria. And as for me, at the price of this agreement you will let me go. So he made an agreement with him and let him go.

³⁵And a certain man of the sons of the prophets said to his neighbour by the word of the Lord, Give me a wound. But the man would not.

³⁶Then he said to him, Because you have not given ear to the voice of the Lord, straight away when you have gone from me a lion will put you to death. And when he had gone, straight away a lion came rushing at him and put him to death.

³⁷Then he came across another man, and said, Give me a wound. And the man gave him a blow wounding him.

³⁸So the prophet went away, and pulling his head-band over his eyes to keep his face covered, took his place by the road waiting for the king.

³⁹And when the king went by, crying out to him he said, Your servant went out into the fight; and a man came out to me with another man and said, Keep this man: if by any chance he gets away, your life will be the price of his life, or you will have to give a talent of silver in payment.

⁴⁰But while your servant was turning this way and that, he was gone. Then the king of Israel said to him, You are responsible; you have given the decision against yourself.

⁴¹Then he quickly took the head-band from his eyes; and the king of Israel saw that he was one of the prophets.

⁴²And he said to him, These are the words of the Lord: Because you have let go from your hands the man whom I had put to the curse, your life will be taken for his life, and your people for his people.

⁴³Then the king of Israel went back to his house, bitter and angry, and came to Samaria.

21Now Naboth the Jezreelite had a vine-garden in Jezreel, near the house of Ahab, king of Samaria.

²And Ahab said to Naboth, Give me your vine-garden so that I may have it for a garden of sweet plants, for it is near my house; and let me give you a better vine-garden in exchange, or, if it seems good to you, let me give you its value in money.

³But Naboth said to Ahab, By the Lord, far be it from me to give you the heritage of my fathers.

⁴So Ahab came into his house bitter and angry because Naboth the Jezreelite had said to him, I will not give you the heritage of my fathers. And stretching himself on the bed with his face turned away, he would take no food.

⁵But Jezebel, his wife, came to him and said, Why is your spirit so bitter that you have no desire for food?

⁶And he said to her, Because I was talking to Naboth the Jezreelite, and I said to him, Let me have your vine-garden for a price, or, if it is pleasing to you, I will give you another vine-garden for it: and he said, I will not give you my vine-garden.

⁷Then Jezebel, his wife, said, Are you now the ruler of Israel? Get up, take food, and let your heart be glad; I will give you the vine-garden of Naboth the Jezreelite.

⁸So she sent a letter in Ahab's name, stamped with his stamp, to the responsible men and the chiefs who were in authority with Naboth.

⁹And in the letter she said, Let a time of public sorrow be fixed, and put Naboth at the head of the people;

¹⁰And get two good-for-nothing persons to come before him and give witness that he has been cursing God and the king. Then take him out and have him stoned to death.

¹¹So the responsible men and the chiefs who were in authority in his town, did as Jezebel had said in the letter she sent them.

¹²They gave orders for a day of public sorrow, and put Naboth at the head of the people.

¹³And the two good-for-nothing persons came in and took their seats before him and gave witness against Naboth, in front of the people, saying, Naboth has been cursing God and the king. Then they took him outside the town and had him stoned to death.

¹⁴And they sent word to Jezebel, saying, Naboth has been stoned and is dead.

¹⁵Then Jezebel, hearing that Naboth had been stoned and was dead, said to Ahab, Get up and take as your heritage the vine-garden of Naboth the Jezreelite, which he would not give you for money, for Naboth is no longer living but is dead.

¹⁶So Ahab, hearing that Naboth was dead, went down to the vine-garden of Naboth the Jezreelite to take it as his heritage.

¹⁷And the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying,

¹⁸Go down to Ahab, king of Israel, in Samaria; see, he is in the vine-garden of Naboth the Jezreelite, where he has gone to take it as his heritage.

¹⁹Say to him, The Lord says, Have you put a man to death and taken his heritage? Then say to him, The Lord says, In the place where dogs have been drinking the blood of Naboth, there will your blood become the drink of dogs.

²⁰And Ahab said to Elijah, Have you come face to face with me, O my hater? And he said, I have come to you because you have given yourself up to do evil in the eyes of the Lord.

²¹See, I will send evil on you and put an end to you completely, cutting off from Ahab every male child, him who is shut up and him who goes free in Israel;

²²And I will make your family like the family of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, and like the family of Baasha, the son of Ahijah, because you have made me angry, and have made Israel do evil.

²³And of Jezebel the Lord said, Jezebel will become food for dogs in the heritage of Jezreel.

²⁴Any man of the family of Ahab who comes to his death in the town will become food for the dogs; and he who comes to his death in the open country will be food for the birds of the air.

²⁵(There was no one like Ahab, who gave himself up to do evil in the eyes of the Lord, moved to it by Jezebel his wife.

²⁶He did a very disgusting thing in going after false gods, doing all the things the Amorites did, whom the Lord sent out before the children of Israel.)

²⁷Hearing these words, Ahab, in great grief, put haircloth on his flesh and went without food, sleeping in haircloth, and going about quietly.

²⁸Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying,

²⁹Do you see how Ahab has made himself low before me? because he has made himself low before me, I will not send the evil in his life-time, but in his son's time I will send the evil on his family.

22Now for three years there was no war between Aram and Israel.

²And it came about in the third year, that Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, came down to the king of Israel.

³And the king of Israel said to his servants, Do you not see that Ramoth-gilead is ours? and we are doing nothing to get it back from the hands of the king of Aram.

⁴And he said to Jehoshaphat, Will you go with me to Ramoth-gilead to make war? And Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, I am as you are: my people as your people, my horses as your horses.

⁵Then Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, Let us now get directions from the Lord.

⁶So the king of Israel got all the prophets together, about four hundred men, and said to them, Am I to go to Ramoth-gilead to make war or not? And they said, Go up: for the Lord will give it into the hands of the king.

⁷But Jehoshaphat said, Is there no other prophet of the Lord here from whom we may get directions?

⁸And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, There is still one man by whom we may get directions from the Lord, Micaiah, son of Imlah; but I have no love for him, for he is a prophet of evil to me and not of good. And Jehoshaphat said, Let not the king say so.

⁹Then the king of Israel sent for one of his unsexed servants and said, Go quickly and come back with Micaiah, the son of Imlah.

¹⁰Now the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, were seated on their seats of authority, dressed in their robes, by the doorway into Samaria; and all the prophets were acting as prophets before them.

¹¹And Zedekiah, the son of Chenaanah, made himself horns of iron and said, The Lord says, Pushing back the Aramaeans with these, you will put an end to them completely.

¹²And all the prophets said the same thing, saying, Go up to Ramoth-gilead, and it will go well for you, for the Lord will give it into the hands of the king.

¹³Now the servant who had gone to get Micaiah said to him, See now, all the prophets with one voice are saying good things to the king; so let your words be like theirs and say good things.

¹⁴And Micaiah said, By the living Lord, whatever the Lord says to me I will say.

¹⁵When he came to the king, the king said to him, Micaiah, are we to go to Ramoth-gilead to make war or not? And in answer he said, Go up, and it will go well for you; and the Lord will give it into the hands of the king.

¹⁶Then the king said to him, Have I not, again and again, put you on your oath to say nothing to me but what is true in the name of the Lord?

¹⁷Then he said, I saw all Israel wandering on the mountains like sheep without a keeper; and the Lord said, These have no master: let them go back, every man to his house in peace.

¹⁸And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, Did I not say that he would not be a prophet of good but of evil?

¹⁹And he said, Give ear now to the word of the Lord: I saw the Lord seated on his seat of power, with all the army of heaven in their places round him at his right hand and at his left.

²⁰And the Lord said, How may Ahab be tricked into going up to Ramoth-gilead to his death? And one said one thing and one another.

²¹Then a spirit came forward and took his place before the Lord and said, I will get him to do it by a trick.

²²And the Lord said, How? And he said, I will go out and be a spirit of deceit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, Your trick will have its effect on him: go out and do so.

²³And now, see, the Lord has put a spirit of deceit in the mouth of all these your prophets; and the Lord has said evil against you.

²⁴Then Zedekiah, the son of Chenaanah, came near and gave Micaiah a blow on the side of the face, saying, Where is the spirit of the Lord whose word is in you?

²⁵And Micaiah said, Truly, you will see on that day when you go into an inner room to keep yourself safe.

²⁶And the king of Israel said, Take Micaiah and send him back to Amon, the ruler of the town, and to Joash, the king's son;

²⁷And say, It is the king's order that this man is to be put in prison and given prison food till I come again in peace.

²⁸And Micaiah said, If you come back at all in peace, the Lord has not sent his word by me.

²⁹So the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, went up to Ramoth-gilead.

³⁰And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, I will make a change in my clothing, so that I do not seem to be the king, and will go into the fight; but do you put on your robes. So the king of Israel made a change in his dress and went into the fight.

³¹Now the king of Aram had given orders to the thirty-two captains of his war-carriages, saying, Make no attack on small or great, but only on the king of Israel.

³²So when the captains of the war-carriages saw Jehoshaphat, they said, Truly, this is the king of Israel; and turning against him, they came round him, but Jehoshaphat gave a cry.

³³And when the captains of the war-carriages saw that he was not the king of Israel, they went back from going after him.

³⁴And a certain man sent an arrow from his bow without thought of its direction, and gave the king of Israel a wound where his breastplate was joined to his clothing; so he said to the driver of his war-carriage, Go to one side and take me away out of the army, for I am badly wounded.

³⁵But the fight became more violent while the day went on; and the king was supported in his war-carriage facing the Aramaeans, and the floor of the carriage was covered with the blood from his wound, and by evening he was dead.

³⁶And about sundown a cry went up from all parts of the army, saying, Let every man go back to his town and his country, for the king is dead.

³⁷And they came to Samaria, and put the king's body to rest in Samaria.

³⁸And the war-carriage was washed by the pool of Samaria, which was the bathing-place of the loose women, and the dogs were drinking his blood there, as the Lord had said.

³⁹Now the rest of the acts of Ahab, and all he did, and his ivory house, and all the towns of which he was the builder, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Israel?

⁴⁰So Ahab was put to rest with his fathers; and Ahaziah his son became king in his place.

⁴¹And Jehoshaphat, the son of Asa, became king over Judah in the fourth year of Ahab's rule over Israel.

⁴²Jehoshaphat was thirty-five years old when he became king, and he was king for twenty-five years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Azubah, the daughter of Shilhi.

⁴³He did as Asa his father had done, not turning away from it, but doing what was right in the eyes of the Lord; but the high places were not taken away: the people went on making offerings and burning them in the high places.

⁴⁴And Jehoshaphat made peace with the king of Israel.

⁴⁵Now the rest of the acts of Jehoshaphat, and his great power, and how he went to war, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Judah?

⁴⁶He put an end to the rest of those who were used for sex purposes in the worship of the gods, all those who were still in the land in the time of his father Asa.

⁴⁷At that time there was no king in Edom;

⁴⁸And the representative of King Jehoshaphat made a Tarshish-ship to go to Ophir for gold, but it did not go, because it was broken at Ezion-geber.

⁴⁹Then Ahaziah, the son of Ahab, said to Jehoshaphat, Let my men go with yours in the ships. But Jehoshaphat would not let them.

⁵⁰Then Jehoshaphat went to rest with his fathers, and his body was put into the earth in the town of David his father; and Jehoram his son became king in his place.

⁵¹Ahaziah, the son of Ahab, became king over Israel in Samaria in the seventeenth year of the rule of Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, and he was king over Israel for two years.

⁵²He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, going in the ways of his father and his mother, and in the ways of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel do evil.

⁵³He was a servant and worshipper of Baal, moving the Lord, the God of Israel, to wrath, as his father had done.

1After the death of Ahab, Moab made itself free from the authority of Israel.

²Now Ahaziah had a fall from the window of his room in Samaria, and was ill. And he sent men, and said to them, Put a question to Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron, about the outcome of my disease, to see if I will get well or not.

³But the angel of the Lord said to Elijah the Tishbite, Go now, and, meeting the men sent by the king of Samaria, say to them, Is it because there is no God in Israel, that you are going to get directions from Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron?

⁴Give ear then to the words of the Lord: You will never again get down from the bed on to which you have gone up, but death will certainly come to you. Then Elijah went away.

⁵And the men he had sent came back to the king; and he said to them, Why have you come back?

⁶And they said to him, On our way we had a meeting with a man who said, Go back to the king who sent you and say to him, The Lord says, Is it because there is no God in Israel that you send to put a question to Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron? For this reason, you will not come down from the bed on to which you have gone up, but death will certainly come to you.

⁷And he said to them, What sort of a man was it who came and said these words to you?

⁸And they said in answer, He was a man clothed in a coat of hair, with a leather band about his body. Then he said, It is Elijah the Tishbite.

⁹Then the king sent to him a captain of fifty with his fifty men; and he went up to him where he was seated on the top of a hill, and said to him, O man of God, the king has said, Come down.

¹⁰And Elijah in answer said to the captain of fifty, If I am a man of God, may fire come down from heaven on you and on your fifty men, and put an end to you. Then fire came down from heaven and put an end to him and his fifty men.

¹¹Then the king sent another captain of fifty with his fifty men; and he said to Elijah, O man of God, the king says, Come down quickly.

¹²And Elijah in answer said, If I am a man of God, may fire come down from heaven on you and on your fifty men, and put an end to you. And the fire of God came down from heaven, and put an end to him and his fifty men.

¹³Then he sent a third captain of fifty with his fifty men; and the third captain of fifty went up, and falling on his knees before Elijah, requesting mercy of him, said, O man of God, let my life and the life of these your fifty servants be of value to you.

¹⁴For fire came down from heaven and put an end to the first two captains of fifty and their fifties; but now let my life be of value in your eyes.

¹⁵Then the angel of the Lord said to Elijah, Go down with him; have no fear of him. So he got up and went down with him to the king.

¹⁶And he said to him, This is the word of the Lord: Because you sent men to put a question to Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron, for this reason you will never again get down from the bed on to which you have gone up, but death will certainly come to you.

¹⁷So death came to him, as the Lord had said by the mouth of Elijah. And Jehoram became king in his place in the second year of the rule of Jehoram, son of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah; because he had no son.

¹⁸Now the rest of the acts of Ahaziah, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Israel?

2Now when the Lord was about to take Elijah up to heaven in a great wind, Elijah went with Elisha from Gilgal.

²And Elijah said to Elisha, Come no farther for the Lord has sent me to Beth-el. But Elisha said, As the Lord is living and as your soul is living, I will not be parted from you. So they went down to Beth-el.

³And at Beth-el the sons of the prophets came out to Elisha and said, Has it been made clear to you that the Lord is going to take away your master from over you today? And he said, Yes, I have knowledge of it: say no more.

⁴Then Elijah said to him, Come no farther, for the Lord has sent me to Jericho. But he said, As the Lord is living and as your soul is living, I will not be parted from you. So they went on to Jericho.

⁵And at Jericho the sons of the prophets came up to Elisha and said to him, Has it been made clear to you that the Lord is going to take away your master from over you today? And he said in answer, Yes, I have knowledge of it: say no more.

⁶Then Elijah said to him, Come no farther, for the Lord has sent me to Jordan. But he said, As the Lord is living and as your soul is living, I will not be parted from you. So they went on together.

⁷And fifty men of the sons of the prophets went out and took their places facing them a long way off, while the two of them were by the edge of Jordan.

⁸Then Elijah took off his robe, and, rolling it up, gave the water a blow with it, and the waters were parted, flowing back this way and that, so that they went over on dry land.

⁹And when they had come to the other side, Elijah said to Elisha, Say what you would have me do for you before I am taken from you. And Elisha said, Be pleased to let a special measure of your spirit be on me.

¹⁰And he said, You have made a hard request: still, if you see me when I am taken from you, you will get your desire; but if not, it will not be so.

¹¹And while they went on their way, going on talking together, suddenly there were carriages and horses of fire separating them from one another and Elijah went up to heaven in a great wind.

¹²And when Elisha saw it he gave a cry, My father, my father, the carriages of Israel and its horsemen! And he saw him no longer; and he was full of grief.

¹³Then he took up Elijah's robe, which had been dropped from him, and went back till he came to the edge of Jordan.

¹⁴And he took Elijah's robe, which had been dropped from him, and giving the water a blow with it, said, Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah? and at his blow the waters were parted this way and that; and Elisha went over.

¹⁵And when the sons of the prophets who were facing him at Jericho saw him, they said, The spirit of Elijah is resting on Elisha. And they came out to him, and went down on the earth before him.

¹⁶And they said, Your servants have with us here fifty strong men; be pleased to let them go in search of Elijah; for it may be that the spirit of the Lord has taken him up and put him down on some mountain or in some valley. But he said, Do not send them.

¹⁷But when they kept on requesting him, he was shamed and said, Send, then. So they sent fifty men; but after searching for three days, they came back without having seen him.

¹⁸And they came back to him, while he was still at Jericho; and he said to them, Did I not say to you, Go not?

¹⁹Now the men of the town said to Elisha, You see that the position of this town is good; but the water is bad, causing the young of the cattle to come to birth dead.

²⁰So he said, Get me a new vessel, and put salt in it; and they took it to him.

²¹Then he went out to the spring from which the water came, and put salt in it, and said, The Lord says, Now I have made this water sweet; no longer will it be death-giving or unfertile.

²²And the water was made sweet again to this day, as Elisha said.

²³Then from there he went up to Beth-el; and on his way, some little boys came out from the town and made sport of him, crying, Go up, old no-hair! go up, old no-hair!

²⁴And turning back, he saw them, and put a curse on them in the name of the Lord. And two she-bears came out of the wood and put forty-two of the children to death.

²⁵From there he went to Mount Carmel, and came back from there to Samaria.

3And Jehoram, the son of Ahab, became king over Israel in Samaria in the eighteenth year of the rule of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah; and he was king for twelve years.

²He did evil in the eyes of the Lord; but not like his father and his mother, for he put away the stone pillar of Baal which his father had made.

³But still he did the same sins which Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, did and made Israel do; he went on in them.

⁴Now Mesha, king of Moab, was a sheep-farmer; and he gave regularly to the king of Israel the wool from a hundred thousand lambs and a hundred thousand sheep.

⁵But when Ahab was dead, the king of Moab got free from the authority of the king of Israel.

⁶At that time, King Jehoram went out from Samaria and got all Israel together in fighting order.

⁷And he sent to Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, saying, The king of Moab has got free from my authority: will you go with me to make war on Moab? And he said, I will go with you: I am as you are, my people as your people, and my horses as your horses.

⁸And he said, Which way are we to go? And he said in answer, By the waste land of Edom.

⁹So the king of Israel went with the king of Judah and the king of Edom by a roundabout way for seven days: and there was no water for the army or for the beasts they had with them.

¹⁰And the king of Israel said, Here is trouble: for the Lord has got these three kings together to give them into the hands of Moab.

¹¹But Jehoshaphat said, Is there no prophet of the Lord here, through whom we may get directions from the Lord? And one of the king of Israel's men said in answer, Elisha, the son of Shaphat, is here, who was servant to Elijah.

¹²And Jehoshaphat said, The word of the Lord is with him. So the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat and the king of Edom went down to him.

¹³But Elisha said to the king of Israel, What have I to do with you? go to the prophets of your father and your mother. And the king of Israel said, No; for the Lord has got these three kings together to give them up into the hands of Moab.

¹⁴Then Elisha said, By the life of the Lord of armies whose servant I am, if it was not for the respect I have for Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, I would not give a look at you, or see you.

¹⁵But now, get me a player of music, and it will come about that while the man is playing, the hand of the Lord will come on me and I will give you the word of the Lord: and they got a player of music, and while the man was playing, the hand of the Lord was on him.

¹⁶And he said, The Lord says, I will make this valley full of water-holes.

¹⁷For the Lord says, Though you see no wind or rain, the valley will be full of water, and you and your armies and your beasts will have drink.

¹⁸And this will be only a small thing to the Lord: in addition he will give the Moabites into your hands.

¹⁹And you are to put every walled town to destruction, cutting down every good tree, and stopping up every water-spring, and making all the good land rough with stones.

²⁰Now in the morning, about the time when the offering was made, they saw water flowing from the direction of Edom till the country was full of water.

²¹Now all Moab, hearing that the kings had come to make war against them, got together all who were able to take up arms and went forward to the edge of the country.

²²And early in the morning they got up, when the sun was shining on the water, and they saw the water facing them as red as blood.

²³Then they said, This is blood: it is clear that destruction has come on the kings; they have been fighting one another: now come, Moab, let us take their goods.

²⁴But when they came to the tents of Israel, the Israelites came out and made a violent attack on the Moabites, so that they went in flight before them; and they went forward still attacking them;

²⁵Pulling down the towns, covering every good field with stones, stopping up all the water-springs, and cutting down all the good trees; they went on driving Moab before them till only in Kir-hareseth were there any Moabites; and the fighting-men went round the town raining stones on it.

²⁶And when the king of Moab saw that the fight was going against him, he took with him seven hundred men armed with swords, with the idea of forcing a way through to the king of Aram, but they were not able to do so.

²⁷Then he took his oldest son, who would have been king after him, offering him as a burned offering on the wall. So there was great wrath against Israel; and they went away from him, back to their country.

4Now a certain woman, the wife of one of the sons of the prophets, came crying to Elisha and said, Your servant my husband is dead; and to your knowledge he was a worshipper of the Lord; but now, the creditor has come to take my two children as servants in payment of his debt.

²Then Elisha said to her, What am I to do for you? say now, what have you in the house? And she said, Your servant has nothing in the house but a pot of oil.

³Then he said, Go out to all your neighbours and get vessels, a very great number of them.

⁴Then go in, and, shutting the door on yourself and your sons, put oil into all these vessels, putting on one side the full ones.

⁵So she went away, and when the door was shut on her and her sons, they took the vessels to her and she put oil into them.

⁶And when all the vessels were full, she said to her son, Get me another vessel. And he said, There are no more. And the flow of oil was stopped.

⁷So she came to the man of God and gave him word of what she had done. And he said, Go and get money for the oil and make payment of your debt, and let the rest be for the needs of yourself and your sons.

⁸Now there came a day when Elisha went to Shunem, and there was a woman of high position living there, who made him come in and have a meal with her. And after that, every time he went by, he went into her house for a meal.

⁹And she said to her husband, Now I see that this is a holy man of God, who comes by day after day.

¹⁰So let us make a little room on the wall; and put a bed there for him, and a table and a seat and a light; so that when he comes to us, he will be able to go in there.

¹¹Now one day, when he had gone there, he went into the little room and took his rest there.

¹²And he said to Gehazi, his servant, Send for this Shunammite. So in answer to his voice she came before him.

¹³And he said to him, Now say to her, See, you have taken all this trouble for us; what is to be done for you? will you have any request made for you to the king or the captain of the army? But she said, I am living among my people.

¹⁴So he said, What then is to be done for her? And Gehazi made answer, Still there is this, she has no son and her husband is old.

¹⁵Then he said, Send for her. And in answer to his voice she took her place at the door.

¹⁶And Elisha said, At this time in the coming year you will have a son in your arms. And she said, No, my lord, O man of God, do not say what is false to your servant.

¹⁷Then the woman became with child and gave birth to a son at the time named, in the year after, as Elisha had said to her.

¹⁸Now one day, when the child was older, he went out to his father to where the grain was being cut.

¹⁹And he said to his father, My head, my head! And the father said to a servant, Take him in to his mother.

²⁰And he took him in to his mother, and she took him on her knees and kept him there till the middle of the day, when his life went from him.

²¹Then she went up and put him on the bed of the man of God, shutting the door on him, and went out.

²²And she said to her husband, Send me one of the servants and one of the asses so that I may go quickly to the man of God and come back again.

²³And he said, Why are you going to him today? it is not a new moon or a Sabbath. But she said, It is well.

²⁴Then she made the ass ready and said to her servant, Keep driving on; do not make a stop without orders from me.

²⁵So she went, and came to Mount Carmel, to the man of God. And when the man of God saw her coming in his direction, he said to Gehazi, his servant, See, there is the Shunammite;

²⁶Go quickly to her, and on meeting her say to her, Are you well? and your husband and the child, are they well? And she said in answer, All is well.

²⁷And when she came to where the man of God was on the hill, she put her hands round his feet; and Gehazi came near with the purpose of pushing her away; but the man of God said, Let her be, for her soul is bitter in her; and the Lord has kept it secret from me, and has not given me word of it.

²⁸Then she said, Did I make a request to my lord for a son? did I not say, Do not give me false words?

²⁹Then he said to Gehazi, Make yourself ready, and take my stick in your hand, and go: if you come across anyone on the way, give him no blessing, and if anyone gives you a blessing, give him no answer. And put my stick on the child's face.

³⁰But the mother of the child said, As the Lord is living and as your soul is living, I will not go back without you. So he got up and went with her.

³¹And Gehazi went on before them and put the stick on the child's face; but there was no voice, and no one gave attention. So he went back, and meeting him gave him the news, saying, The child is not awake.

³²And when Elisha came into the house he saw the child dead, stretched on his bed.

³³So he went in, and shutting the door on the two of them, made prayer to the Lord.

³⁴Then he got up on the bed, stretching himself out on the child, and put his mouth on the child's mouth, his eyes on his eyes and his hands on his hands; and the child's body became warm.

³⁵Then he came back, and after walking once through the house and back, he went up, stretching himself out on the child seven times; and the child's eyes became open.

³⁶And he gave orders to Gehazi, and said, Send for the Shunammite. And she came in answer to his voice. And he said, Take up your son.

³⁷And she came in, and went down on her face to the earth at his feet; then she took her son in her arms and went out.

³⁸And Elisha went back to Gilgal, now there was very little food in the land; and the sons of the prophets were seated before him. And he said to his servant, Put the great pot on the fire, and make soup for the sons of the prophets.

³⁹And one went out into the field to get green plants and saw a vine of the field, and pulling off the fruit of it till the fold of his robe was full, he came back and put the fruit, cut up small, into the pot of soup, having no idea what it was.

⁴⁰Then they gave the men soup from the pot. And while they were drinking the soup, they gave a cry, and said, O man of God, there is death in the pot; and they were not able to take any more food.

⁴¹But he said, Get some meal. And he put it into the pot, and said, Now give it to the people so that they may have food. And there was nothing bad in the pot.

⁴²Now a man came from Baal-shalishah with an offering of first-fruits for the man of God, twenty barley cakes and garden fruit in his bag. And he said, Give these to the people for food.

⁴³But his servant said, How am I to put this before a hundred men? But he said, Give it to the people for food; for the Lord says, There will be food for them and some over.

⁴⁴So he put it before them, and they had a meal and there was more than enough, as the Lord had said.

5Now Naaman, chief of the army of the king of Aram, was a man of high position with his master, and greatly respected, because by him the Lord had given salvation to Aram; but he was a leper.

²Now the Aramaeans had gone out in bands, and taken prisoner from Israel a little girl, who became servant to Naaman's wife.

³And she said to her master's wife, If only my lord would go to the prophet in Samaria, he would make him well.

⁴And someone went and said to his lord, This is what the girl from the land of Israel says.

⁵So the king of Aram said, Go then; and I will send a letter to the king of Israel. And he went, taking with him ten talents of silver and six thousand shekels of gold, and ten changes of clothing.

⁶And he took the letter to the king of Israel, in which the king of Aram had said, See, I have sent my servant Naaman to you to be made well, for he is a leper.

⁷But the king of Israel, after reading the letter, was greatly troubled and said, Am I God, to give death and life? why does this man send a leper to me to be made well? is it not clear that he is looking for a cause of war?

⁸Now Elisha, the man of God, hearing that the king of Israel had done this, sent to the king, saying, Why are you troubled? send the man to me, so that he may see that there is a prophet in Israel.

⁹So Naaman, with all his horses and his carriages, came to the door of Elisha's house.

¹⁰And Elisha sent a servant to him, saying, Go to Jordan, and after washing seven times in its waters your flesh will be well again and you will be clean.

¹¹But Naaman was angry and went away and said, I had the idea that he would come out to see such an important person as I am, and make prayer to the Lord his God, and with a wave of his hand over the place make the leper well.

¹²Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? may I not be washed in them and become clean? So turning, he went away in wrath.

¹³Then his servants came to him and said, If the prophet had given you orders to do some great thing, would you not have done it? how much more then, when he says to you, Be washed and become clean?

¹⁴Then he went down seven times into the waters of Jordan, as the man of God had said; and his flesh became like the flesh of a little child again, and he was clean.

¹⁵Then he went back to the man of God, with all his train, and, taking his place before him, said, Now I am certain that there is no God in all the earth, but only in Israel: now then, take an offering from me.

¹⁶But he said, By the life of the Lord whose servant I am, I will take nothing from you. And he did his best to make him take it but he would not.

¹⁷Then Naaman said, If you will not, then let there be given to your servant as much earth as two beasts are able to take on their backs; because from now on, your servant will make no offering or burned offering to other gods, but only to the Lord.

¹⁸But may your servant have the Lord's forgiveness for this one thing: when my master goes into the house of Rimmon for worship there, supported on my arm, and my head is bent in the house of Rimmon; when his head is bent in the house of Rimmon, may your servant have the Lord's forgiveness for this thing.

¹⁹And he said to him, Go in peace. And he went from him some distance.

²⁰But Gehazi, the servant of Elisha, the man of God, said, Now my master has taken nothing from Naaman, this Aramaean, of what he would have given him: by the living Lord, I will go after him and get something from him.

²¹So Gehazi went after Naaman. And when Naaman saw him running after him, he got down from his carriage and went back to him and said, Is all well?

²²And he said, All is well: but my master has sent me, saying, Even now, two young men of the sons of the prophets have come to me from the hill-country of Ephraim; will you give me a talent of silver and two changes of clothing for them?

²³And Naaman said, Be good enough to take two talents. And forcing him to take them, he put two talents of silver in two bags, with two changes of clothing, and gave them to his two servants to take before him.

²⁴When he came to the hill, he took them from their hands, and put them away in the house; and he sent the men away, and they went.

²⁵Then he came in and took his place before his master. And Elisha said to him, Where have you come from, Gehazi? And he said, Your servant went nowhere.

²⁶And he said to him, Did not my heart go with you, when the man got down from his carriage and went back to you? Is this a time for getting money, and clothing, and olive-gardens and vine-gardens, and sheep and oxen, and men-servants and women-servants?

²⁷Because of what you have done, the disease of Naaman the leper will take you in its grip, and your seed after you, for ever. And he went out from before him a leper as white as snow.

6Now the sons of the prophets said to Elisha, There is not room enough for us in the place where we are living under your care;

²So let us go to Jordan, and let everyone get to work cutting boards, and we will make a living-place for ourselves there. And he said to them, Go, then.

³And one of them said, Be pleased to go with your servants. And he said, I will go.

⁴So he went with them. And when they came to Jordan, they got to work cutting down trees.

⁵But one of them, while cutting a board, let the head of his axe go into the water; and he gave a cry, and said, This is a bad business, my master, for it is another's.

⁶And the man of God said, Where did it go in? and when he saw the place where it had gone into the water, cutting a stick, he put it into the water, and the iron came up to the top of the water.

⁷Then he said, Take it up. So he put out his hand and took it.

⁸At that time the king of Aram was making war against Israel; and he had a meeting with the chiefs of his army and said, I will be waiting in secret in some named place.

⁹And the man of God sent to the king of Israel, saying, Take care to keep away from that place, for the Aramaeans are waiting there in secret.

¹⁰So the king of Israel sent to the place where the man of God had said there was danger, and kept clear of it more than once.

¹¹And at this, the mind of the king of Aram was greatly troubled, and he sent for his servants and said to them, Will you not make clear to me which of us is helping the king of Israel?

¹²And one of them said, Not one of us, my lord king; but Elisha, the prophet in Israel, gives the king of Israel news of the words you say even in your bedroom.

¹³Then he said, Go and see where he is, so that I may send and get him. And news came to him that he was in Dothan.

¹⁴So he sent there horses and carriages and a great army; and they came by night, circling the town.

¹⁵Now the servant of the man of God, having got up early and gone out, saw an army with horses and carriages of war all round the town. And the servant said to him, O my master, what are we to do?

¹⁶And he said in answer, Have no fear; those who are with us are more than those who are with them.

¹⁷Then Elisha made a prayer to the Lord, saying, Lord, let his eyes be open so that he may see. And the Lord made the young man's eyes open; and he saw that all the mountain was full of horses and carriages of fire round Elisha.

¹⁸Now when the Aramaeans came down to Elisha, he made a prayer to the Lord saying, Lord, make this people blind. And he made them blind at Elisha's request.

¹⁹And Elisha said to them, This is not the way, and this is not the town: come after me so that I may take you to the man you are searching for. And he took them to Samaria.

²⁰And when they had come into Samaria, Elisha said, Lord, let the eyes of these men be open so that they may see. And the Lord made their eyes open, and they saw that they were in the middle of Samaria.

²¹And the king of Israel, when he saw them, said to Elisha, My father, am I to put them to the sword?

²²But he said in answer, You are not to put them to death; have you any right to put to death those whom you have not taken prisoner with your sword and your bow? put bread and water before them, so that they may have food and drink and go to their master.

²³So he made ready a great feast for them, and when they had had food and drink, he sent them away and they went back to their master. And no more bands of Aramaeans came into the land of Israel.

²⁴Now after this, Ben-hadad, king of Aram, got together all his army and went up to make an attack on Samaria, shutting the town in on all sides with his forces.

²⁵And they became very short of food in Samaria; for they kept it shut in till the price of an ass's head was eighty shekels of silver, and a small measure of doves' droppings was five shekels of silver.

²⁶And when the king of Israel was going by on the wall, a woman came crying out to him, and said, Help! my lord king.

²⁷And he said, If the Lord does not give you help, where am I to get help for you? from the grain-floor or the grape-crusher?

²⁸And the king said to her, What is troubling you? And she said in answer, This woman said to me, Give your son to be our food today, and we will have my son tomorrow.

²⁹So, boiling my son, we had a meal of him; and on the day after I said to her, Now give your son for our food; but she has put her son in a secret place.

³⁰Then the king, hearing what the woman said, took his robes in his hands, violently parting them; and, while he was walking on the wall, the people, looking, saw that under his robe he had haircloth on his flesh.

³¹Then he said, May God's punishment come on me if Elisha, the son of Shaphat, keeps his head on his body after this day.

³²But Elisha was in his house, and the responsible men were seated there with him; and before the king got there, Elisha said to those who were with him, Do you see how this cruel and violent man has sent to take away my life?

³³While he was still talking to them, the king came down and said, This evil is from the Lord; why am I to go on waiting any longer for the Lord?

7Then Elisha said, Give ear to the word of the Lord: the Lord says, Tomorrow, about this time, a measure of good meal will be offered for the price of a shekel and two measures of barley for a shekel, in the market-place of Samaria.

²Then the captain whose arm was supporting the king said to the man of God, Even if the Lord made windows in heaven, would such a thing be possible? And he said, Your eyes will see it, but you will not have a taste of the food.

³Now there were four lepers seated at the doorway into the town: and they said to one another, Why are we waiting here for death?

⁴If we say, We will go into the town, there is no food in the town, and we will come to our end there; and if we go on waiting here, death will come to us. Come then, let us give ourselves up to the army of Aram: if they let us go on living, then life will be ours; and if they put us to death, then death will be ours.

⁵So in the half light they got up to go to the tents of Aram; but when they came to the outer line of tents, there was no one there.

⁶For the Lord had made the sound of carriages and horses, and the noise of a great army, come to the ears of the Aramaeans, so that they said to one another, Truly, the king of Israel has got the kings of the Hittites and of the Egyptians for a price to make an attack on us.

⁷So they got up and went in flight, in the half light, without their tents or their horses or their asses or any of their goods; they went in flight, fearing for their lives.

⁸And when those lepers came to the outer line of tents, they went into one tent, and had food and drink, and took from it silver and gold and clothing, which they put in a secret place; then they came back and went into another tent from which they took more goods, which they put away in a secret place.

⁹Then they said to one another, We are not doing right. Today is a day of good news, and we say nothing: if we go on waiting here till the morning, punishment will come to us. So let us go and give the news to those of the king's house.

¹⁰So they came in, and, crying out to the door-keepers of the town, they gave them the news, saying, We came to the tents of the Aramaeans, and there was no one there and no voice of man, only the horses and the asses in their places, and the tents as they were.

¹¹Then the door-keepers, crying out, gave the news to those inside the king's house.

¹²Then the king got up in the night and said to his servants, This is my idea of what the Aramaeans have done to us. They have knowledge that we are without food; and so they have gone out of their tents, and are waiting secretly in the open country, saying, When they come out of the town, we will take them living and get into the town.

¹³And one of his servants said in answer, Send men and let them take five of the horses which we still have in the town; if they keep their lives they will be the same as those of Israel who are still living here; if they come to their death they will be the same as all those of Israel who have gone to destruction: let us send and see.

¹⁴So they took two horsemen; and the king sent them after the army of the Aramaeans, saying, Go and see.

¹⁵And they went after them as far as Jordan; and all the road was covered with clothing and vessels dropped by the Aramaeans in their flight. So those who were sent went back and gave the news to the king.

¹⁶Then the people went out and took the goods from the tents of the Aramaeans. So a measure of good meal was to be had for the price of a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel, as the Lord had said.

¹⁷And the king gave authority to that captain, on whose arm he was supported, to have control over the doorway into the town; but he was crushed to death there under the feet of the people, as the man of God had said when the king went down to him.

¹⁸So the words of the man of God came true, which he said to the king: Two measures of barley will be offered for the price of a shekel and a measure of good meal for a shekel, tomorrow about this time in the market-place of Samaria.

¹⁹And that captain said to the man of God, Even if the Lord made windows in heaven, would such a thing be possible? And he said to him, Your eyes will see it, but you will not have a taste of the food.

²⁰And such was his fate; for he was crushed to death under the feet of the people, in the doorway into the town.

8Now Elisha had said to the woman whose son he had given back to life, Go now, with all the people of your house, and get a living-place for yourselves wherever you are able; for by the word of the Lord, there will be great need of food in the land; and this will go on for seven years.

²So the woman got up and did as the man of God said; and she and the people of her house were living in the land of the Philistines for seven years.

³And when the seven years were ended, the woman came back from the land of the Philistines and went to the king with a request for her house and her land.

⁴Now the king was talking with Gehazi, the servant of the man of God, saying, Now, give me an account of all the great things Elisha has done.

⁵And while he was giving the king the story of how Elisha had given life to the dead, the woman whose son had come back to life came to the king with a request for her house and her land. And Gehazi said, My lord king, this is the woman and this is her son, whose life Elisha gave back to him.

⁶And in answer to the king's questions, the woman gave him all the story. So the king gave orders to one of his unsexed servants, saying, Give her back all her property, and all the produce of her fields from the day when she went away from the land up till now.

⁷And Elisha came to Damascus; and Ben-hadad, king of Aram, was ill; and they said to him, The man of God has come.

⁸Then the king said to Hazael, Take an offering with you, and go to see the man of God and get directions from the Lord by him, saying, Am I going to get better from my disease?

⁹So Hazael went to see him, taking with him forty camels with offerings on their backs of every sort of good thing from Damascus; and when he came before him, he said, Your son Ben-hadad, king of Aram, has sent me to you, saying, Will I get better from this disease?

¹⁰And Elisha said to him, Go, say to him, You will certainly get better; but the Lord has made it clear to me that only death is before him.

¹¹And he kept his eyes fixed on him till he was shamed, and the man of God was overcome with weeping.

¹²And Hazael said, Why is my lord weeping? Then he said in answer, Because I see the evil which you will do to the children of Israel: burning down their strong towns, putting their young men to death with the sword, smashing their little ones against the stones, and cutting open the women who are with child.

¹³And Hazael said, How is it possible that your servant, who is only a dog, will do this great thing? And Elisha said, The Lord has made it clear to me that you will be king over Aram.

¹⁴Then he went away from Elisha and came in to his master, who said to him, What did Elisha say to you? And his answer was, He said that you would certainly get well.

¹⁵Now on the day after, Hazael took the bed-cover, and making it wet with water, put it over Ben-hadad's face, causing his death: and Hazael became king in his place.

¹⁶In the fifth year of Joram, the son of Ahab, king of Israel, Jehoram, the son of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, became king.

¹⁷He was thirty-two years old when he became king; and he was ruling in Jerusalem for eight years.

¹⁸He went in the ways of the kings of Israel, as the family of Ahab did: for the daughter of Ahab was his wife; and he did evil in the eyes of the Lord.

¹⁹But it was not the Lord's purpose to send destruction on Judah, because of David his servant, to whom he had given his word that he would have a light for ever.

²⁰In his time, Edom made themselves free from the rule of Judah, and took a king for themselves.

²¹Then Joram went over to Zair, with all his war-carriages; ... made an attack by night on the Edomites, whose forces were all round him, ... the captains of the war-carriages; and the people went in flight to their tents.

²²So Edom made themselves free from the rule of Judah to this day. And at the same time, Libnah made itself free.

²³Now the rest of the acts of Joram, and all he did, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Judah?

²⁴And Joram went to rest with his fathers and was put into the earth with his fathers in the town of David: and Ahaziah his son became king in his place.

²⁵In the twelfth year that Joram, the son of Ahab, was king of Israel, Ahaziah, the son of Jehoram, king of Judah, became king;

²⁶Ahaziah was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he was ruling in Jerusalem for one year. His mother's name was Athaliah, the daughter of Omri, king of Israel.

²⁷He went in the ways of the family of Ahab, and did evil in the eyes of the Lord as the family of Ahab did, for he was a son-in-law of the family of Ahab.

²⁸He went with Joram, the son of Ahab, to make war on Hazael, king of Aram, at Ramoth-gilead: and Joram was wounded by the Aramaeans.

²⁹So King Joram went back to Jezreel to get well from the wounds which the bowmen had given him at Ramah, when he was fighting against Hazael, king of Aram. And Ahaziah, the son of Jehoram, king of Judah, went down to see Joram, the son of Ahab, in Jezreel, because he was ill.

9And Elisha the prophet sent for one of the sons of the prophets, and said to him, Make yourself ready for a journey, and take this bottle of oil in your hand, and go to Ramoth-gilead.

²And when you get there, go in search of Jehu, the son of Jehoshaphat, the son of Nimshi; and go in and make him get up from among his brothers, and take him to an inner room.

³Then take the bottle and put the oil on his head, and say, The Lord says, I have put the holy oil on you to make you king over Israel. Then, opening the door, go in flight, without waiting.

⁴So the young prophet went to Ramoth-gilead.

⁵And when he came, he saw the captains of the army seated together; and he said, I have something to say to you, O captain. And Jehu said, To which of us? And he said, To you, O captain.

⁶And he got up and went into the house; then he put the holy oil on his head and said to him, The Lord, the God of Israel, says, I have made you king over the people of the Lord, over Israel.

⁷You are to see that the family of Ahab your master is cut off, so that I may take from Jezebel payment for the blood of my servants the prophets, and for the blood of all the servants of the Lord.

⁸For the family of Ahab will come to an end; every male of Ahab's family will be cut off, he who is shut up and he who goes free in Israel.

⁹I will make the family of Ahab like that of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, and Baasha, the son of Ahijah.

¹⁰And Jezebel will become food for the dogs in the heritage of Jezreel, and there will be no one to put her body into the earth. Then, opening the door, he went in flight.

¹¹Then Jehu came out again to the servants of his lord, and one said to him, Is all well? why did this man, who is off his head, come to you? And he said to them, You have knowledge of the man and of his talk.

¹²And they said, That is not true; now give us his story. Then he said, This is what he said to me: The Lord says, I have made you king over Israel.

¹³Then straight away everyone took his robe and put it under him on the top of the steps, and, sounding the horn, they said, Jehu is king.

¹⁴So Jehu, the son of Jehoshaphat, the son of Nimshi, made designs against Joram. (Now Joram and all the army of Israel were keeping watch on Ramoth-gilead because of Hazael, king of Aram:

¹⁵But King Joram had gone back to Jezreel to get well from the wounds which the Aramaeans had given him when he was fighting against Hazael, king of Aram.) And Jehu said, If this is your purpose, then let no one get away and go out of the town to give news of it in Jezreel.

¹⁶So Jehu got into his carriage and went to Jezreel, for Joram was ill in bed there; and Ahaziah, king of Judah, had come down to see Joram.

¹⁷And the watchman on the tower in Jezreel saw Jehu and his band coming, and said, I see a band of people. And Joram said, Send out a horseman to them, and let him say, Is it peace?

¹⁸So a horseman went out to them and said, The king says, Is it peace? And Jehu said, What have you to do with peace? come after me. And the watchman gave them word, saying, The horseman went up to them, but has not come back.

¹⁹Then he sent out a second horseman, who came up to them and said, The king says, Is it peace? And Jehu said in answer, What have you to do with peace? come after me.

²⁰And the watchman gave them word, saying, He went up to them and has not come back again; and the driving is like the driving of Jehu, son of Nimshi, for he is driving violently.

²¹Then Joram said, Make ready. So they made his carriage ready; and Joram, king of Israel, with Ahaziah, king of Judah, went out in their carriages for the purpose of meeting Jehu; and they came face to face with him at the field of Naboth the Jezreelite.

²²Now when Joram saw Jehu he said, Is it peace, Jehu? And he said in answer, What peace is possible while all the land is full of the disgusting sins of your mother Jezebel, and her secret arts?

²³Then Joram, turning his horses in flight, said to Ahaziah, Broken faith, O Ahaziah!

²⁴Then Jehu took his bow in his hand, and with all his strength sent an arrow, wounding Joram between the arms; and the arrow came out at his heart, and he went down on his face in his carriage.

²⁵Then Jehu said to Bidkar, his captain, Take him up, and put him in the field of Naboth the Jezreelite: for is not that day in your memory when you and I together on our horses were going after Ahab, his father, and the Lord put this fate on him, saying:

²⁶I saw the blood of Naboth and of his sons yesterday; and I will give you full payment in this field, says the Lord? So now, take him and put him in this field, as the Lord said.

²⁷Now when Ahaziah, king of Judah, saw this, he went in flight by the way of the garden house. And Jehu came after him and said, Put him to death in the same way; and they gave him a death-wound in his carriage, on the slope up to Gur, by Ibleam; and he went in flight to Megiddo, where death came to him.

²⁸And his servants took him in a carriage to Jerusalem, and put him into the earth with his fathers in the town of David.

²⁹(In the eleventh year of the rule of Joram, the son of Ahab, Ahaziah became king over Judah.)

³⁰And when Jehu came to Jezreel, Jezebel had news of it; and, painting her eyes and dressing her hair with ornaments, she put her head out of the window.

³¹And when Jehu was coming into the town, she said, Is all well, O Zimri, taker of your master's life?

³²Then, looking up to the window, he said, Who is on my side, who? and two or three unsexed servants put out their heads.

³³And he said, Take her and put her out of the window. So they sent her down with force, and her blood went in a shower on the wall and on the horses; and she was crushed under their feet.

³⁴And he came in, and took food and drink; then he said, Now see to this cursed woman, and put her body into the earth, for she is a king's daughter.

³⁵And they went out to put her body into the earth, but nothing of her was to be seen, only the bones of her head, and her feet, and parts of her hands.

³⁶So they came back and gave him word of it. And he said, This is what the Lord said by his servant Elijah the Tishbite, saying, In the heritage of Jezreel the flesh of Jezebel will become food for dogs;

³⁷And the dead body of Jezebel will be like waste dropped on the face of the earth in the heritage of Jezreel; so that they will not be able to say, This is Jezebel.

10Now there were in Samaria seventy of Ahab's sons. And Jehu sent letters to Samaria, to the rulers of the town, and to the responsible men, and to those who had the care of the sons of Ahab, saying,

²Straight away, when you get this letter, seeing that your master's sons are with you, and that you have carriages and horses and a walled town and arms;

³Take the best and most upright of your master's sons, and make him king in his father's place, and put up a fight for your master's family.

⁴But they were full of fear, and said, The two kings have gone down before him: how may we keep our place?

⁵So the controller of the king's house, with the ruler of the town, and the responsible men, and those who had the care of Ahab's sons, sent to Jehu, saying, We are your servants and will do all your orders; we will not make any man king; do whatever seems best to you.

⁶Then he sent them a second letter, saying, If you are on my side, and if you will do my orders, come to me at Jezreel by this time tomorrow, with the heads of your master's sons. Now the king's seventy sons were with the great men of the town, who had the care of them.

⁷And when the letter came to them, they took the king's sons and put them to death, all the seventy, and put their heads in baskets and sent them to him at Jezreel.

⁸And a man came and said to him, They have come with the heads of the king's sons. And he said, Put them down in two masses at the doorway of the town till the morning.

⁹And in the morning he went out and, stopping, said to all the people there, You are upright men: it is true that I made designs against my master, and put him to death; but who is responsible for the death of all these?

¹⁰You may be certain that nothing which the Lord has said about the family of Ahab will be without effect; for the Lord has done what he said by his servant Elijah.

¹¹So Jehu put to death all the rest of the seed of Ahab in Jezreel, and all his relations and his near friends and his priests, till there were no more of them.

¹²Then he got up and came to Samaria. And he was at the meeting-place of the keepers of sheep, by the way,

¹³When he came across the brothers of Ahaziah, king of Judah, and said, Who are you? And they said, We are the brothers of Ahaziah, king of Judah; we are going down to see the children of the king and of the queen.

¹⁴And he said, Take them living. So they took them living, and put them to death in the water-hole of Beth-eked; of the forty-two men he put every one to death;

¹⁵And when he had gone away from there, he came across Jehonadab, the son of Rechab: and he said good-day to him, and said to him, Is your heart true to mine, as mine is to yours? And Jehonadab in answer said, It is; and Jehu said, If it is, give me your hand. And he gave him his hand, and he made him come up into his carriage.

¹⁶And he said, Come with me and see how I am on fire for the Lord's cause. So he made him go with him in his carriage.

¹⁷And when he came to Samaria, he put to death all those of Ahab's family who were still in Samaria, till there were no more of them, as the Lord had said to Elijah.

¹⁸Then Jehu got all the people together and said to them, Ahab was Baal's servant in a small way, but Jehu will be his servant on a great scale.

¹⁹Now send for all the prophets of Baal and all his servants and all his priests, to come to me; let no one keep away: for I have a great offering to make to Baal; anyone who is not present, will be put to death. This Jehu did with deceit, his purpose being the destruction of the servants of Baal.

²⁰And Jehu said, Let there be a special holy meeting for the worship of Baal. So a public statement was made.

²¹And Jehu sent out through all Israel; and all the servants of Baal came, not one kept away. And they came into the house of Baal, so that it was full from end to end.

²²And Jehu said to him who kept the robes, Get out robes for all the servants of Baal. So he got out robes for them.

²³And Jehu, with Jehonadab, the son of Rechab, went into the house of Baal; and he said to the servants of Baal, Make a search with care, to see that no servant of the Lord is with you, but only servants of Baal.

²⁴Then they went in to make offerings and burned offerings. Now Jehu had put eighty men outside, and said to them, If any man whom I give into your hands gets away, the life of him who lets him go will be the price of his life.

²⁵Then when the burned offering was ended, straight away Jehu said to the armed men and the captains, Go in and put them to death; let not one come out. So they put them to the sword; and, pulling the images to the earth, they went into the holy place of the house of Baal.

²⁶And they took out the image of Asherah from the house of Baal, and had it burned.

²⁷The altar of Baal was pulled down and the house of Baal was broken up and made an unclean place, as it is to this day.

²⁸So Jehu put an end to the worship of Baal in Israel.

²⁹But Jehu did not keep himself from all the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, and the evil he made Israel do; the gold oxen were still in Beth-el and in Dan.

³⁰And the Lord said to Jehu, Because you have done well in doing what is right in my eyes and effecting all my purpose for the family of Ahab, your sons will be kings of Israel to the fourth generation.

³¹But Jehu did not take care to keep the law of the Lord with all his heart: he did not keep himself from the sin which Jeroboam did and made Israel do.

³²In those days the Lord was angry first with Israel; and Hazael made attacks on all the land of Israel,

³³East of Jordan, in all the land of Gilead, the Gadites and the Reubenites and the Manassites, from Aroer by the valley of the Arnon, all Gilead and Bashan.

³⁴Now the rest of the acts of Jehu, and all he did, and his great power, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Israel?

³⁵And Jehu went to rest with his fathers, and was put into the earth in Samaria. And Jehoahaz his son became king in his place.

³⁶And the time of Jehu's rule over Israel in Samaria was twenty-eight years.

11Now when Athaliah, the mother of Ahaziah, saw that her son was dead, she had all the rest of the seed of the kingdom put to death.

²But Jehosheba, the daughter of King Joram, sister of Ahaziah, secretly took Joash, the son of Ahaziah, with the woman who took care of him, away from among the king's sons who were put to death, and put him in the bedroom; and they kept him safe from Athaliah, so that he was not put to death.

³And for six years she kept him safe in the house of the Lord, while Athaliah was ruling over the land.

⁴Then in the seventh year, Jehoiada sent for the captains of hundreds of the Carians, and the armed men, and taking them into the house of the Lord, made an agreement with them, and made them take an oath in the house of the Lord, and let them see the king's son.

⁵And he gave them orders, saying, This is what you are to do: the third part of you, who come in on the Sabbath and keep the watch of the king's house,

⁶...

⁷And the two divisions of you, who go out on the Sabbath and keep the watch of the house of the Lord,

⁸Will make a circle round the king, every man being armed; and whoever comes inside your lines is to be put to death; keep with the king, when he goes out and when he comes in.

⁹And the captains of hundreds did as Jehoiada the priest gave them orders; every one took with him his men, those who came in and those who went out on the Sabbath, and they came in to Jehoiada the priest.

¹⁰And the priest gave to the captains of hundreds the spears and body-covers which had been King David's, and which were kept in the house of the Lord.

¹¹Then the armed men took up their positions, every man with his instruments of war in his hand, from the right side of the house to the left, round about the altar and the house.

¹²Then he made the king's son come out, and put the crown on him and the arm-bands, and made him king, and put the holy oil on him; and they all, making sounds of joy with their hands, said, Long life to the king.

¹³Now Athaliah, hearing the noise made by the people, came to the people in the house of the Lord;

¹⁴And looking, she saw the king in his regular place by the pillar, and the captains and the horns near him; and all the people of the land giving signs of joy and sounding the horns. Then Athaliah, violently parting her robes, gave a cry, saying, Broken faith, broken faith!

¹⁵Then Jehoiada the priest gave orders to those who were placed in authority over the army, saying, Take her outside the lines, and let anyone who goes after her be put to death with the sword, for he said, Let her not be put to death in the house of the Lord.

¹⁶So they put their hands on her, and she went to the king's house by the doorway of the horses, and there she was put to death.

¹⁷And Jehoiada made an agreement between the Lord and the king and the people, that they would be the Lord's people; and in the same way between the king and the people.

¹⁸Then all the people of the land went to the house of Baal and had it pulled down: its altars and images were all broken to bits, and Mattan, the priest of Baal, they put to death before the altars. And the priest put overseers over the Lord's house.

¹⁹Then he took the captains of hundreds, and the Carians, and the armed men, and all the people of the land; and they came down with the king from the house of the Lord, through the doorway of the armed men, to the king's house. And he took his place on the seat of the kings.

²⁰So all the people of the land were glad, and the town was quiet; and they had put Athaliah to death with the sword at the king's house.

²¹And Jehoash was seven years old when he became king.

12In the seventh year of Jehu's rule, Jehoash became king; and he was ruling for forty years in Jerusalem; his mother's name was Zibiah of Beer-sheba.

²Jehoash did what was right in the eyes of the Lord all his days, because he was guided by the teaching of Jehoiada the priest.

³But the high places were not taken away; the people went on making offerings and burning them in the high places.

⁴And Jehoash said to the priests, All the money of the holy things, which comes into the house of the Lord, (the amount fixed for every man's payment,) and all the money given by any man freely from the impulse of his heart,

⁵Let the priests take, every man from his friends and neighbours, to make good what is damaged in the house, wherever it is to be seen.

⁶But in the twenty-third year of King Jehoash, the priests had not made good the damaged parts of the house.

⁷Then King Jehoash sent for Jehoiada the priest, and the other priests, and said to them, Why have you not made good what is damaged in the house? now take no more money from your neighbours, but give it for the building up of the house.

⁸So the priests made an agreement to take no more money from the people, and not to make good what was damaged in the house.

⁹But Jehoiada the priest took a chest, and making a hole in the cover of it, put it by the altar, on the right side when one comes into the house of the Lord; and the priests who kept the door put in it regularly all the money which was taken into the house of the Lord.

¹⁰And when they saw that there was much money in the chest, the king's scribe and the high priest came and put it in bags, noting the amount of all the money there was in the house of the Lord.

¹¹And the money which was measured out they gave regularly to those who were responsible for overseeing the work, and these gave it in payment to the woodworkers and the builders who were working on the house of the Lord,

¹²And to the wall-builders and the stone-cutters, and to get wood and cut stone for building up the broken parts of the house of the Lord, and for everything needed to put the house in good order.

¹³But the money was not used for making silver cups or scissors or basins or wind-instruments or any vessels of gold or silver for the house of the Lord;

¹⁴But it was all given to the workmen who were building up the house.

¹⁵And they did not get any statement of accounts from the men to whom the money was given for the workmen, for they made use of it with good faith.

¹⁶The money of the offerings for error and the sin-offerings was not taken into the house of the Lord; it was the priests'.

¹⁷Then Hazael, king of Aram, went up against Gath and took it; and his purpose was to go up to Jerusalem.

¹⁸Then Jehoash, king of Judah, took all the holy things which Jehoshaphat and Jehoram and Ahaziah his fathers, the kings of Judah, had given to the Lord, together with the things he himself had given, and all the gold in the Temple store and in the king's house, and sent it to Hazael, king of Aram; and he went away from Jerusalem.

¹⁹Now the rest of the acts of Joash, and all he did, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Israel?

²⁰And his servants made a secret design and put Joash to death at the house of Millo on the way down to Silla.

²¹And Jozacar, the son of Shimeath, and Jehozabad, the son of Shomer, his servants, came to him and put him to death; and they put him into the earth with his fathers in the town of David; and Amaziah his son became king in his place.

13In the twenty-third year of Joash, the son of Ahaziah, king of Judah, Jehoahaz, the son of Jehu, became king over Israel in Samaria, ruling for seventeen years.

²He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, copying the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, which he did and made Israel do; he did not keep himself from them.

³So the wrath of the Lord was burning against Israel, and he gave them up into the power of Hazael, king of Aram, and into the power of Ben-hadad, the son of Hazael, again and again.

⁴Then Jehoahaz made prayer to the Lord, and the Lord gave ear to him, for he saw how cruelly Israel was crushed by the king of Aram.

⁵(And the Lord gave Israel a saviour, so that they became free from the hands of the Aramaeans; and the children of Israel were living in their tents as in the past.

⁶But still they did not give up the sin of Jeroboam, which he made Israel do, but went on with it; and there was an image of Asherah in Samaria.)

⁷For out of all his army, Jehoahaz had only fifty horsemen and ten carriages and ten thousand footmen; the king of Aram had given them up to destruction, crushing them like dust.

⁸Now the rest of the acts of Jehoahaz, and all he did, and his great power, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Israel?

⁹And Jehoahaz went to rest with his fathers, and was put into the earth in Samaria; and Joash his son became king in his place.

¹⁰In the thirty-seventh year of the rule of Joash, king of Judah, Joash, the son of Jehoahaz, became king over Israel in Samaria, ruling for sixteen years.

¹¹He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, not turning away from the sin of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, which he did and made Israel do, but he went on with it.

¹²Now the rest of the acts of Joash, and all he did, and the force with which he went to war against Amaziah, king of Judah, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Israel?

¹³And Joash went to rest with his fathers and Jeroboam took his place as king; and Joash was put into the earth in Samaria with the kings of Israel.

¹⁴Now Elisha became ill with the disease which was the cause of his death: and Joash, king of Israel, came down to him, and weeping over him said, My father, my father, the war-carriages of Israel and its horsemen!

¹⁵Then Elisha said to him, Take bow and arrows: and he took bow and arrows.

¹⁶And he said to the king of Israel, Put your hand on the bow: and he put his hand on it; and Elisha put his hands on the king's hands.

¹⁷Then he said; Let the window be open to the east: and he got it open. Then Elisha said, Let the arrow go; and he let it go. And he said, The Lord's arrow of salvation, of salvation over Aram; for you will overcome the Aramaeans in Aphek and put an end to them.

¹⁸And he said, Take the arrows: and he took them. And he said to the king of Israel, Send them down into the earth; and he did so three times and no more.

¹⁹Then the man of God was angry with him and said, If you had done it five or six times, then you would have overcome Aram completely; but now you will only overcome them three times.

²⁰And death came to Elisha and they put his body into the earth. Now in the spring of the year, armed bands of Moabites frequently came, overrunning the land.

²¹And while they were putting a dead man into the earth, they saw a band coming; and they put the man quickly into the place where Elisha's body was; and the dead man, on touching Elisha's bones, came to life again, and got up on his feet.

²²And Israel was crushed under the power of Hazael, king of Aram, all the days of Jehoahaz.

²³But the Lord was kind to them and had pity on them, caring for them, because of his agreement with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; he would not put them to destruction or send them away from before his face till now.

²⁴Then Hazael, king of Aram, came to his end; and Ben-hadad his son became king in his place.

²⁵And Jehoash, the son of Jehoahaz, took again from Ben-hadad, the son of Hazael, the towns which he had taken from Jehoahaz his father in war. Three times Jehoash overcame him and got back the towns of Israel.

14In the second year of Joash, son of Joahaz, king of Israel, Amaziah, the son of Joash, became king of Judah.

²He was twenty-five years old when he became king; and he was ruling in Jerusalem for twenty-nine years; his mother's name was Jehoaddin of Jerusalem.

³He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, though not like David his father; he did as Joash his father had done.

⁴But still the high places were not taken away; the people went on making offerings and burning them in the high places.

⁵Now when he became strong in the kingdom, straight away he put to death those servants who had taken the life of the king his father;

⁶But he did not put their children to death; for the orders of the Lord recorded in the book of the law of Moses say, The fathers are not to be put to death for the children, or the children for their fathers; but a man is to be put to death for the sin which he himself has done.

⁷He put to the sword twelve thousand men of Edom in the Valley of Salt, and took Sela in war, naming it Joktheel, as it is to this day.

⁸Then Amaziah sent representatives to Jehoash, the son of Jehoahaz, son of Jehu, king of Israel, saying, Come, let us have a meeting face to face.

⁹And Jehoash, king of Israel, sent to Amaziah, king of Judah, saying, The thorn-tree in Lebanon sent to the cedar in Lebanon, saying, Give your daughter to my son for a wife: and a beast from the woodland in Lebanon went by, crushing the thorn under his feet.

¹⁰It is true that you have overcome Edom and your heart is uplifted; let that glory be enough for you, and keep in your country; why do you make causes of trouble, putting yourself, and Judah with you, in danger of downfall?

¹¹But Amaziah gave no attention. So Jehoash, king of Israel, went up, and he and Amaziah, king of Judah, came face to face at Beth-shemesh, which is in Judah.

¹²And Judah was overcome before Israel, so that they went in flight, every man to his tent.

¹³And Jehoash, king of Israel, made Amaziah, king of Judah, the son of Jehoash, son of Ahaziah, prisoner at Beth-shemesh, and came to Jerusalem, and had the wall of Jerusalem pulled down from the doorway of Ephraim to the door in the angle, four hundred cubits.

¹⁴And he took all the gold and silver and all the vessels which were in the house of the Lord and in the store-house of the king, together with those whose lives would be the price of broken faith, and went back to Samaria.

¹⁵Now the rest of the acts of Jehoash, and his power, and how he went to war with Amaziah, king of Judah, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Israel?

¹⁶And Jehoash went to rest with his fathers, and was put into the earth in Samaria with the kings of Israel; and Jeroboam his son became king in his place.

¹⁷Amaziah, the son of Joash, king of Judah, went on living for fifteen years after the death of Jehoash, son of Jehoahaz, king of Israel.

¹⁸And the rest of the acts of Amaziah, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Judah?

¹⁹Now they made a secret design against him in Jerusalem; and he went in flight to Lachish, but they sent after him to Lachish and put him to death there.

²⁰And they took his body on horseback and put it into the earth with his fathers in Jerusalem, the town of David.

²¹Then all the people of Judah took Azariah, who was sixteen years old, and made him king in place of his father Amaziah.

²²He was the builder of Elath, which he got back for Judah after the death of the king.

²³In the fifteenth year of the rule of Amaziah, son of Joash, king of Judah, Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel, became king in Samaria, ruling for forty-one years.

²⁴He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, not turning away from the sin which Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, did and made Israel do.

²⁵He got back the old limits of Israel from the way into Hamath to the sea of the Arabah, as the Lord had said by his servant Jonah, the son of Amittai, the prophet of Gath-hepher.

²⁶For the Lord saw how bitter was the trouble of Israel, and that everyone was cut off, he who was shut up and he who went free, and that Israel had no helper.

²⁷And the Lord had not said that the name of Israel was to be taken away from the earth; but he gave them a saviour in Jeroboam, the son of Joash.

²⁸Now the rest of the acts of Jeroboam, and all he did, and his power, and how he went to war with Damascus, causing the wrath of the Lord to be turned away from Israel, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Israel?

²⁹And Jeroboam went to rest with his fathers, and was put into the earth with the kings of Israel; and Zechariah his son became king in his place.

15In the twenty-seventh year of the rule of Jeroboam, king of Israel, Azariah, son of Amaziah, became king of Judah.

²He was sixteen years old when he became king, and he was ruling in Jerusalem for fifty-two years; his mother's name was Jecoliah of Jerusalem.

³And he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, as his father Amaziah had done.

⁴But he did not take away the high places, and the people still went on making offerings and burning them in the high places.

⁵And the Lord sent disease on the king and he became a leper, and to the day of his death he was living separately in his private house. And Jotham his son was over his house, judging the people of the land.

⁶Now the rest of the acts of Azariah, and all he did, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Judah?

⁷And Azariah went to rest with his fathers and was put into the earth with his fathers in the town of David; and Jotham his son became king in his place.

⁸In the thirty-eighth year of Azaliah, king of Judah, Zechariah, son of Jeroboam, was king over Israel for six months.

⁹And he did evil in the eyes of the Lord, as his father had done, not turning away from the sin which Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, did and made Israel do.

¹⁰And Shallum, the son of Jabesh, made a secret design against him, and, attacking him in Ibleam, put him to death and became king in his place.

¹¹Now the rest of the acts of Zechariah are recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Israel.

¹²This was what the Lord had said to Jehu, Your sons to the fourth generation will be kings of Israel. And so it came about.

¹³Shallum, the son of Jabesh, became king in the thirty-ninth year of Uzziah, king of Judah; and he was ruling in Samaria for the space of one month.

¹⁴Then Menahem, the son of Gadi, went up from Tirzah and came to Samaria, and attacking Shallum, son of Jabesh, in Samaria, put him to death and made himself king in his place.

¹⁵Now the rest of the acts of Shallum, and the secret design which he made, are recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Israel.

¹⁶Then Menahem sent destruction on Tappuah and all the people in it, and its limits, from Tirzah, because they would not let him come in; and he had all the women who were with child cut open.

¹⁷In the thirty-ninth year of Azariah, king of Judah, Menahem, the son of Gadi, became king over Israel, and was ruling in Samaria for ten years.

¹⁸He did evil in the eyes of the Lord; he did not keep himself from the sin which Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, did and made Israel do.

¹⁹In his day, Pul, the king of Assyria, came up against the land; and Menahem gave Pul a thousand talents of silver so that he might let him keep the kingdom.

²⁰And Menahem got the money from Israel, from all the men of wealth, fifty silver shekels from every man, to give to the king of Assyria. So the king of Assyria went back without stopping in the land.

²¹Now the rest of the acts of Menahem, and all he did, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Israel?

²²And Menahem went to rest with his fathers; and Pekahiah his son became king in his place.

²³In the fiftieth year of Azariah king of Judah, Pekahiah, the son of Menahem, became king over Israel in Samaria, ruling for two years.

²⁴He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, not turning from the sin which Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, did and made Israel do.

²⁵And Pekah, the son of Remaliah, his captain, made a secret design against him, attacking him in the king's great house in Samaria; and with him were fifty men of Gilead; and he put him to death and became king in his place.

²⁶Now the rest of the acts of Pekahiah, and all he did, are recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Israel.

²⁷In the fifty-second year of Azariah, king of Judah, Pekah, the son of Remaliah, became king over Israel in Samaria, ruling for twenty years.

²⁸He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, not turning from the sin which Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, did and made Israel do.

²⁹In the days of Pekah, king of Israel, Tiglath-pileser, king of Assyria, came and took Ijon and Abel-beth-maacah and Janoah and Kedesh and Hazor and Gilead and Galilee and all the land of Naphtali; and he took the people away to Assyria.

³⁰And Hoshea, the son of Elah, made a secret design against Pekah, the son of Remaliah, and, attacking him, put him to death and became king in his place, in the twentieth year of Jotham, the son of Uzziah.

³¹Now the rest of the acts of Pekah, and all he did, are recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Israel.

³²In the second year of Pekah, the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, Jotham, the son of Uzziah, became king of Judah.

³³He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he was ruling for sixteen years in Jerusalem; and his mother's name was Jerusha, the daughter of Zadok.

³⁴And he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, as his father Uzziah had done.

³⁵But he did not take away the high places, and the people still went on making offerings and burning them in the high places. He was the builder of the higher doorway of the house of the Lord.

³⁶Now the rest of the acts of Jotham, and all he did, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Judah?

³⁷In those days the Lord first sent against Judah, Rezin, the king of Aram, and Pekah, the son of Remaliah.

³⁸And Jotham went to rest with his fathers, and was put into the earth in the town of David his father; and Ahaz his son became king in his place.

16In the seventeenth year of Pekah, the son of Remaliah, Ahaz, the son of Jotham, became king of Judah.

²Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king; he was ruling for sixteen years in Jerusalem. He did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord his God, as David his father did.

³But he went in the ways of the kings of Israel, and even made his son go through the fire, copying the disgusting ways of the nations whom the Lord had sent out of the land before the children of Israel.

⁴And he made offerings, burning them in the high places and on the hills and under every green tree.

⁵Then Rezin, king of Aram, and Pekah, son of Remaliah, king of Israel, came up to Jerusalem to make war; and they made an attack on Ahaz, shutting him in, but were not able to overcome him.

⁶At that time the king of Edom got Elath back for Edom, and sent the Jews out of Elath; and the Edomites came back to Elath where they are living to this day.

⁷So Ahaz sent representatives to Tiglath-pileser, king of Assyria, saying, I am your servant and your son; come to my help against the kings of Aram and Israel who have taken up arms against me.

⁸And Ahaz took the silver and gold which were in the house of the Lord and in the king's store-house, and sent them as an offering to the king of Assyria.

⁹And the king of Assyria, in answer to his request, went up against Damascus and took it, and took its people away as prisoners to Kir, and put Rezin to death.

¹⁰Then King Ahaz went to Damascus for a meeting with Tiglath-pileser, king of Assyria; and there he saw the altar which was at Damascus; and King Ahaz sent to Urijah the priest a copy of the altar, giving the design of it and all the details of its structure.

¹¹And from the copy King Ahaz sent from Damascus, Urijah made an altar and had it ready by the time King Ahaz came back from Damascus.

¹²And when the king came from Damascus, he saw the altar; and he went up on it and made an offering on it.

¹³He made his burned offering and his meal offering and his drink offering there, draining out the blood of his peace-offerings on the altar.

¹⁴And the brass altar, which was before the Lord, he took from the front of the house, from between his altar and the house of the Lord, and put it on the north side of his altar.

¹⁵And King Ahaz gave orders to Urijah the priest, saying, Make the morning burned offering and the evening meal offering and the king's burned offering and meal offering, with the burned offerings of all the people and their meal offerings and drink offerings, on the great altar, and put on it all the blood of the burned offerings and of the beasts which are offered; but the brass altar will be for my use to get directions from the Lord.

¹⁶So Urijah the priest did everything as the king said

¹⁷And King Ahaz took off the sides of the wheeled bases, and took down the great water-vessel from off the brass oxen which were under it and put it on a floor of stone.

¹⁸*** the house of the Lord, because of the king of Assyria.

¹⁹Now the rest of the things which Ahaz did, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Judah?

²⁰And Ahaz went to rest with his fathers, and was put into the earth with his fathers in the town of David; and Hezekiah his son became king in his place.

17In the twelfth year of Ahaz, king of Judah, Hoshea, the son of Elah, became king over Israel in Samaria, ruling for nine years.

²He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, though not like the kings of Israel before him.

³Against him came up Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, and Hoshea became his servant and sent him offerings.

⁴But Hoshea's broken faith became clear to the king of Assyria because he had sent representatives to So, king of Egypt, and did not send his offering to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year: so the king of Assyria had him shut up in prison and put in chains.

⁵Then the king of Assyria went through all the land and came up to Samaria, shutting it in with his forces for three years.

⁶In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria took Samaria, and took Israel away to Assyria, placing them in Halah and in Habor on the river Gozan, and in the towns of the Medes.

⁷And the wrath of the Lord came on Israel because they had done evil against the Lord their God, who took them out of the land of Egypt from under the yoke of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and had become worshippers of other gods,

⁸Living by the rules of the nations whom the Lord had sent out from before the children of Israel.

⁹And the children of Israel did secretly against the Lord their God things which were not right, building high places for themselves in all their towns, from the tower of the watchmen to the walled town.

¹⁰They put up pillars of stone and wood on every high hill and under every green tree:

¹¹Burning their offerings in all the high places, as those nations did whom the Lord sent away from before them; they did evil things, moving the Lord to wrath;

¹²And they made themselves servants of disgusting things, though the Lord had said, You are not to do this.

¹³And he gave witness to Israel and Judah, by every prophet and seer, saying, Come back from your evil ways, and do my orders and keep my rules, and be guided by the law which I gave to your fathers and sent to you by my servants the prophets.

¹⁴And they did not give ear, but became stiff-necked, like their fathers who had no faith in the Lord their God.

¹⁵And they went against his rules, and the agreement which he made with their fathers, and his laws which he gave them; they gave themselves up to things without sense or value, and became foolish like the nations round them, of whom the Lord had said, Do not as they do.

¹⁶And turning their backs on all the orders which the Lord had given them, they made for themselves images of metal, and the image of Asherah, worshipping all the stars of heaven and becoming servants to Baal.

¹⁷And they made their sons and their daughters go through the fire, and they made use of secret arts and unnatural powers, and gave themselves up to doing evil in the eyes of the Lord, till he was moved to wrath.

¹⁸So the Lord was very angry with Israel, and his face was turned away from them: only the tribe of Judah kept its place.

¹⁹(But even Judah did not keep the orders of the Lord their God, but were guided by the rules which Israel had made.

²⁰So the Lord would have nothing to do with all the offspring of Israel, and sent trouble on them, and gave them up into the hands of their attackers, till he had sent them away from before his face.)

²¹For Israel was broken off from the family of David, and they made Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, king, who, driving them away from the laws of the Lord, made them do a great sin.

²²And the children of Israel went on with all the sins which Jeroboam did; they did not keep themselves from them;

²³Till the Lord put Israel away from before his face, as he had said by all his servants the prophets. So Israel was taken away from their land to Assyria, to this day.

²⁴Then the king of Assyria took men from Babylon and from Cuthah and Avva and Hamath and Sepharvaim, and put them in the towns of Samaria in place of the children of Israel; so they got Samaria for their heritage, living in its towns.

²⁵Now when first they were living there they did not give worship to the Lord. So the Lord sent lions among them, causing the death of some of them.

²⁶So they said to the king of Assyria, The nations whom you have taken as prisoners and put in the towns of Samaria, have no knowledge of the way of the god of the land: so he has sent lions among them, causing their death, because they have no knowledge of his way.

²⁷Then the king of Assyria gave orders, saying, Send there one of the priests whom you took away, and let him be living there and teaching the people the way of the god of the land.

²⁸So one of the priests whom they had taken away as a prisoner from Samaria came back, and, living in Beth-el, became their teacher in the worship of the Lord.

²⁹And every nation made gods for themselves, and put them in the houses of the high places which the Samaritans had made, every nation in the towns where they were living.

³⁰The men of Babylon made Succoth-benoth, and the men of Cuth made Nergal, and the men of Hamath made Ashima,

³¹The Avvites made Nibhaz and Tartak, and the Sepharvites gave their children to be burned in the fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim.

³²So they went on worshipping the Lord, and made for themselves, from among all the people, priests for the high places, to make offerings for them in the houses of the high places.

³³They gave worship to the Lord, but they gave honour to their gods like the nations did from whom they had been taken as prisoners.

³⁴So to this day they go on in their old ways, not worshipping the Lord or keeping his orders or his ways or the law and the rule which the Lord gave to the children of Jacob, to whom he gave the name Israel;

³⁵And the Lord made an agreement with them and gave them orders, saying, You are to have no other gods; you are not to give worship to them or be their servants or make them offerings:

³⁶But the Lord, who took you out of the land of Egypt with his great power and his outstretched arm, he is your God, to whom you are to give worship and make offerings:

³⁷And the rules and the orders and the law which he put in writing for you, you are to keep and do for ever; you are to have no other gods.

³⁸And you are to keep in memory the agreement which I have made with you; and you are to have no other gods.

³⁹And you are to give worship to the Lord your God; for it is he who will give you salvation from the hands of all who are against you.

⁴⁰But they gave no attention, but went on in their old way.

⁴¹So these nations, worshipping the Lord, still were servants to the images they had made; their children and their children's children did the same; as their fathers did, so do they, to this day.

18Now in the third year of Hoshea, son of Elah, king of Israel, Hezekiah, the son of Ahaz, became king of Judah.

²He was twenty-five years old when he became king, ruling in Jerusalem for twenty-nine years; his mother's name was Abi, the daughter of Zechariah.

³He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord as David his father had done.

⁴He had the high places taken away, and the stone pillars broken to bits, and the Asherah cut down; and the brass snake which Moses had made was crushed to powder at his order, because in those days the children of Israel had offerings burned before it, and he gave it the name Nehushtan.

⁵He had faith in the Lord, the God of Israel; so that there was no one like him among all the kings of Judah who were before him.

⁶For his heart was fixed on the Lord, not turning from his ways, and he did his orders which the Lord gave to Moses.

⁷And the Lord was with him; he did well in all his undertakings: and he took up arms against the king of Assyria and was his servant no longer.

⁸He overcame the Philistines as far as Gaza and its limits, from the tower of the watchman to the walled town.

⁹Now in the fourth year of King Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Hoshea, son of Elah, king of Israel, Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, came up against Samaria, shutting it in with his armies.

¹⁰And at the end of three years they took it; in the sixth year of Hezekiah's rule, which was the ninth year of Hoshea, king of Israel, Samaria was taken.

¹¹And the king of Assyria took Israel away as prisoners into Assyria, placing them in Halah and in Habor on the river Gozan, and in the towns of the Medes;

¹²Because they did not give ear to the voice of the Lord their God, but went against his agreement, even against everything ordered by Moses, the servant of the Lord, and they did not give ear to it or do it.

¹³Now in the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah, Sennacherib, king of Assyria, came up against all the walled towns of Judah and took them.

¹⁴And Hezekiah, king of Judah, sent to Lachish, to the king of Assyria, saying, I have done wrong; give up attacking me, and whatever you put on me I will undergo. And the payment he was to make was fixed by the king of Assyria at three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold.

¹⁵So Hezekiah gave him all the silver in the house of the Lord, and in the king's store-house.

¹⁶And at that time Hezekiah had the gold from the doors of the Lord's house, and from the door-pillars plated by him, cut off and gave it to the king of Assyria.

¹⁷Then the king of Assyria sent the Tartan and the Rab-saris and the Rab-shakeh from Lachish to Jerusalem, to King Hezekiah, with a strong force. And they went up and came to Jerusalem, and took up their position by the stream of the higher pool, by the highway of the washerman's field.

¹⁸And they sent for the king, and Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, who was over the house, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah, the son of Asaph, the recorder, came out to them.

¹⁹And the Rab-shakeh said to them, Say now to Hezekiah, These are the words of the great king, the king of Assyria: In what are you placing your hope?

²⁰You say you have a design, and strength for war, but these are only words. Now to whom are you looking for support, that you have gone against my authority?

²¹See, now, you are basing your hope on that broken rod of Egypt, which will go through a man's hand if he makes use of it for a support; for so is Pharaoh, king of Egypt, to all who put their faith in him.

²²And if you say to me, Our hope is in the Lord our God: is it not he, whose high places and altars Hezekiah has taken away, saying to Judah and Jerusalem that worship may only be given before this altar in Jerusalem?

²³And now, take a chance with my master, the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able to put horsemen on them.

²⁴How then may you put to shame the least of my master's servants? and you have put your hope in Egypt for war-carriages and horsemen:

²⁵And have I now come up to send destruction on this place without the Lord's authority? It was the Lord himself who said to me, Go up against this land and make it waste.

²⁶Then Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, and Shebna and Joah said to the Rab-shakeh, Will you kindly make use of the Aramaean language in talking to your servants, for we are used to it, and do not make use of the Jews' language in the hearing of the people on the wall.

²⁷But the Rab-shakeh said to them, Is it to your master or to you that my master has sent me to say these words? has he not sent me to the men seated on the wall? for they are the people who will be short of food with you when the town is shut in.

²⁸Then the Rab-shakeh got up and said with a loud voice in the Jews' language, Give ear to the words of the great king, the king of Assyria;

²⁹This is what the king says: Do not be tricked by Hezekiah, for there is no salvation for you in him.

³⁰And do not let Hezekiah make you put your faith in the Lord, saying, The Lord will certainly keep us safe, and this town will not be given into the hands of the king of Assyria.

³¹Do not give ear to Hezekiah, for this is what the king of Assyria says: Make peace with me and come out to me; and everyone will be free to take the fruit of his vine and of his fig-tree, and the water of his spring;

³²Till I come and take you away to a land like yours, a land of grain and wine, a land of bread and vine-gardens, a land of oil-giving olives and of honey, so that life and not death may be your fate. Give no attention to Hezekiah when he says to you, The Lord will keep us safe.

³³Has any one of the gods of the nations kept his land from falling into the hands of the king of Assyria?

³⁴Where are the gods of Hamath and of Arpad? where are the gods of Sepharvaim, of Hena and Ivvah? have they kept Samaria out of my hands?

³⁵Who among all the gods of these countries have kept their country from falling into my hands, to give cause for the thought that the Lord will keep Jerusalem from falling into my hands?

³⁶But the people kept quiet and gave him no answer: for the king's order was, Give him no answer.

³⁷Then Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, who was over the house, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah, the son of Asaph, the recorder, came to Hezekiah, with their clothing parted as a sign of grief, and gave him an account of what the Rab-shakeh had said.

19And on hearing it, King Hezekiah took off his robe, and put on haircloth, and went into the house of the Lord.

²And he sent Eliakim, who was over the house, and Shebna the scribe, and the chief priests, dressed in haircloth, to Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz.

³And they said to him, Hezekiah says, This day is a day of trouble and punishment and shame; for the children are ready to come to birth, but there is no strength to give birth to them.

⁴It may be that the Lord your God will give ear to the words of the Rab-shakeh, whom the king of Assyria, his master, sent to say evil things against the living God, and will make his words come to nothing: so then make your prayer for the rest of the people.

⁵So the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah.

⁶And Isaiah said to them, This is what you are to say to your master: The Lord says, Be not troubled by the words which the servants of the king of Assyria have said against me in your hearing.

⁷See, I will put a spirit into him, and bad news will come to his ears, and he will go back to his land; and there I will have him put to death by the sword.

⁸So the Rab-shakeh went back, and when he got there the king of Assyria was making war against Libnah, for it had come to his ears that he had gone away from Lachish.

⁹And when news came to him that Tirhakah, king of Ethiopia, had made an attack on him, he sent representatives to Hezekiah again, saying,

¹⁰This is what you are to say to Hezekiah, king of Judah: Let not your God, in whom is your faith, give you a false hope, saying, Jerusalem will not be given into the hands of the king of Assyria.

¹¹No doubt the story has come to your ears of what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, putting them to the curse; and will you be kept safe?

¹²Did the gods of the nations keep safe those on whom my fathers sent destruction, Gozan and Haran and Rezeph and the children of Eden who were in Telassar?

¹³Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad, and the king of the town of Sepharvaim, of Hena and of Ivvah?

¹⁴And Hezekiah took the letter from the hands of those who had come with it; and after reading it, Hezekiah went up to the house of the Lord, opening the letter there before the Lord.

¹⁵And Hezekiah made his prayer to the Lord, saying, O Lord, the God of Israel, seated between the winged ones, you only are the God of all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made heaven and earth.

¹⁶Let your ear be turned to us, O Lord, and let your eyes be open, O Lord, and see; take note of all the words of Sennacherib who has sent men to say evil against the living God.

¹⁷Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have made waste the nations and their lands,

¹⁸And have given their gods to the fire; for they were no gods, but wood and stone, the work of men's hands; so they have given them to destruction.

¹⁹But now, O Lord our God, give us salvation from his hands, so that it may be clear to all the kingdoms of the earth that you and only you, O Lord, are God.

²⁰Then Isaiah, the son of Amoz, sent to Hezekiah, saying, The Lord, the God of Israel, says, The prayer which you have made to me against Sennacherib, king of Assyria, has come to my ears.

²¹This is the word which the Lord has said about him: In the eyes of the virgin daughter of Zion you are shamed and laughed at; the daughter of Jerusalem has made sport of you.

²²Against whom have you said evil and bitter things? against whom has your voice been loud and your eyes lifted up? even against the Holy One of Israel.

²³You have sent your servants with evil words against the Lord, and have said, With all my war-carriages I have come up to the top of the mountains, to the inmost parts of Lebanon; its tall cedars will be cut down, and the best trees of its woods; I will come up into his highest places, into his thick woods.

²⁴I have made water-holes and taken their waters, and with my foot I have made all the rivers of Egypt dry.

²⁵Has it not come to your ears how I did it long before, purposing it in times long past? Now I have given effect to my design, so that by you strong towns might be turned into masses of broken walls.

²⁶This is why their townsmen had no power, they were broken and put to shame; they were like the grass of the field and the green plant, like grass on the house-tops.

²⁷But I have knowledge of your getting up and your resting, of your going out and your coming in.

²⁸Because your wrath against me and your words of pride have come up to my ears, I will put my hook in your nose and my cord in your lips, and I will make you go back by the way you came.

²⁹And this will be the sign to you: you will get your food this year from what comes up of itself; and in the second year from the produce of the same; and in the third year you will put in your seed and get in the grain and make vine-gardens and take of their fruit.

³⁰And those of Judah who are still living will again take root in the earth and give fruit.

³¹For from Jerusalem those who have been kept safe will go out, and those who are still living will go out of Mount Zion: by the fixed purpose of the Lord of armies this will be done.

³²For this cause the Lord says about the king of Assyria, He will not come into this town, or send an arrow against it; he will not come before it with arms, or put up an earthwork against it;

³³By the way he came he will go back, and he will not get into this town, says the Lord.

³⁴For I will keep this town safe, for my honour, and for the honour of my servant David.

³⁵And that night the angel of the Lord went out and put to death in the army of the Assyrians a hundred and eighty-five thousand men; and when the people got up early in the morning, there was nothing to be seen but dead bodies.

³⁶So Sennacherib, king of Assyria, went back to his place at Nineveh.

³⁷And it came about, when he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer put him to death with the sword; and they went in flight into the land of Ararat. And Esar-haddon his son became king in his place.

20In those days Hezekiah was ill and near death. And Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, came to him, and said to him, The Lord says, Put your house in order, for your death is near.

²Then, turning his face to the wall, he made his prayer to the Lord, saying,

³O Lord, keep in mind how I have been true to you with all my heart, and have done what is good in your eyes. And Hezekiah gave way to bitter weeping.

⁴Now before Isaiah had gone out of the middle of the town, the word of the Lord came to him, saying,

⁵Go back and say to Hezekiah, the ruler of my people, The Lord, the God of David your father, says, Your prayer has come to my ears, and I have seen your weeping; see, I will make you well: on the third day you will go up to the house of the Lord.

⁶I will give you fifteen more years of life; and I will keep you and this town safe from the hands of the king of Assyria; I will keep this town safe, for my honour, and for the honour of my servant David.

⁷Then Isaiah said, Take a cake of figs. So they took it and put it on his wound, and he got better.

⁸And Hezekiah said to Isaiah, What is to be the sign that the Lord will make me well, and that I will go up to the house of the Lord on the third day?

⁹And Isaiah said, This is the sign the Lord will give you, that he will do what he has said; will the shade go forward ten degrees or back?

¹⁰And Hezekiah said in answer, It is a simple thing for the shade to go forward; but let it go back ten degrees.

¹¹Then Isaiah the prophet made prayer to the Lord, and he made the shade go back ten degrees from its position on the steps of Ahaz.

¹²At that time, Merodach-baladan, the son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters with an offering to Hezekiah, because he had news that Hezekiah had been ill.

¹³And Hezekiah was glad at their coming and let them see all his store of wealth, the silver and the gold and the spices and the oil of great price, and the house of his arms, and everything there was in his stores; there was nothing in all his house or his kingdom which Hezekiah did not let them see.

¹⁴Then Isaiah the prophet came to King Hezekiah and said to him, What did these men say and where did they come from? And Hezekiah said, They came from a far country, even from Babylon.

¹⁵And he said, What have they seen in your house? And Hezekiah said in answer, They saw everything in my house: there is nothing among my stores which I did not let them see.

¹⁶And Isaiah said to Hezekiah, Give ear to the word of the Lord.

¹⁷Truly, days are coming when everything in your house, and whatever your fathers have put in store till this day, will be taken away to Babylon: all will be gone, says the Lord.

¹⁸And your sons, the offspring of your body, they will take away to be unsexed servants in the house of the king of Babylon.

¹⁹Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, Good is the word of the Lord which you have said. Then he said, ... if in my time there is peace and righteousness?

²⁰Now the rest of the acts of Hezekiah, and his power, and how he made the pool and the stream, to take water into the town, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Judah?

²¹And Hezekiah went to rest with his fathers; and Manasseh his son became king in his place.

21Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king; for fifty-five years he was ruling in Jerusalem; and his mother's name was Hephzi-bah.

²He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, copying the disgusting ways of those nations whom the Lord had sent out before the children of Israel.

³He put up again the high places which had been pulled down by Hezekiah his father; he made altars for Baal, and an Asherah, as Ahab, king of Israel, had done; he was a worshipper and servant of all the stars of heaven.

⁴And he put up altars in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, In Jerusalem will I put my name.

⁵And he put up altars for all the stars of heaven in the two outer squares of the house of the Lord.

⁶And he made his son go through the fire, and made use of secret arts and signs for reading the future; he gave positions to those who had control of spirits and to wonder-workers; he did much evil in the eyes of the Lord, moving him to wrath.

⁷He put the image of Asherah which he had made in the house of which the Lord had said to David and to Solomon his son, In this house, and in Jerusalem, the town which I have made mine out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put my name for ever.

⁸And never again will I send the feet of Israel wandering from the land which I gave to their fathers; if only they will take care to do all my orders, and keep all the law which my servant Moses gave them.

⁹But they did not give ear; and Manasseh made them do more evil than those nations did, whom the Lord gave up to destruction before the children of Israel.

¹⁰And the Lord said, by his servants the prophets,

¹¹Because Manasseh, king of Judah, has done these disgusting things, doing more evil than all the Amorites before him, and making Judah do evil with his false gods,

¹²For this cause, says the Lord, the God of Israel, I will send such evil on Jerusalem and Judah that the ears of all to whom the news comes will be burning.

¹³And over Jerusalem will be stretched the line of Samaria and the weight of Ahab; Jerusalem will be washed clean as a plate is washed, and turned over on its face.

¹⁴And I will put away from me the rest of my heritage, and give them up into the hands of their haters, who will take their property and their goods for themselves;

¹⁵Because they have done evil in my eyes, moving me to wrath, from the day when their fathers came out of Egypt till this day.

¹⁶More than this, Manasseh took the lives of upright men, till Jerusalem from one end to the other was full of blood; in addition to his sin in making Judah do evil in the eyes of the Lord.

¹⁷Now the rest of the acts of Manasseh, and all he did, and his sins, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Judah?

¹⁸So Manasseh went to rest with his fathers, and was put into the earth in the garden of his house, in the garden of Uzza; and Amon his son became king in his place.

¹⁹Amon was twenty-two years old when he became king, ruling in Jerusalem for two years; his mother's name was Meshullemeth, the daughter of Haruz of Jotbah.

²⁰He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, as Manasseh his father had done.

²¹He went in all the ways of his father, being a servant and worshipper of the false gods to which his father had been a servant;

²²Turning away from the Lord, the God of his fathers, and not walking in his ways.

²³And the servants of Amon made a secret design against him, and put the king to death in his house.

²⁴But the people of the land put to death all those who had taken part in the design against the king, and made Josiah his son king in his place.

²⁵Now the rest of the acts which Amon did, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Judah?

²⁶He was put in his last resting-place in the garden of Uzza, and Josiah his son became king in his place.

22Josiah was eight years old when he became king; and he was ruling in Jerusalem for thirty-one years; his mother's name was Jedidah, daughter of Adaiah of Bozkath.

²He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, walking in the ways of David his father, without turning to the right hand or to the left.

³Now in the eighteenth year after he became king, Josiah sent Shaphan, the son of Azaliah, the son of Meshullam, the scribe, to the house of the Lord, saying to him,

⁴Go up to Hilkiah, the chief priest, and let him give out the money which is taken into the house of the Lord, which the keepers of the door have got together from the people;

⁵And let it be given to the overseers of the work of the Lord's house, to give to the workmen who are making good what was damaged in the house of the Lord;

⁶To the woodworkers and the builders and the stone-cutters; and for getting wood and cut stones for the building up of the house.

⁷They did not have to give any account of the money which was handed to them, for they made use of it with good faith.

⁸Then Hilkiah, the chief priest, said to Shaphan the scribe, I have made discovery of the book of the law in the house of the Lord. So Hilkiah gave it to Shaphan;

⁹Then, after reading it, Shaphan the scribe went in to the king and gave him an account of what had been done, saying, Your servants have given out the money which was in the house, and have given it to the overseers of the work of the house of the Lord.

¹⁰Then Shaphan the scribe said to the king, Hilkiah the priest has given me a book; and he was reading it before the king.

¹¹And the king, hearing the words of the book of the law, took his robe in his hands, violently parting it as a sign of his grief;

¹²And he gave orders to Hilkiah the priest, and Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, and Achbor, the son of Micaiah, and Shaphan the scribe, and Asaiah the king's servant, saying,

¹³Go and get directions from the Lord for me and for the people and for all Judah, about the words of this book which has come to light; for great is the wrath of the Lord which is burning against us, because our fathers have not given ear to the words of this book, to do all the things which are recorded in it.

¹⁴So Hilkiah the priest, and Ahikam and Achbor and Shaphan and Asaiah, went to Huldah the woman prophet, the wife of Shallum, the son of Tikvah, the son of Harhas, keeper of the robes, (now she was living in Jerusalem, in the second part of the town;) and they had talk with her.

¹⁵And she said to them, The Lord, the God of Israel, says, Say to the man who sent you to me,

¹⁶These are the words of the Lord: See, I will send evil on this place and on its people, even everything which the king of Judah has been reading in the book;

¹⁷Because they have given me up, burning offerings to other gods and moving me to wrath by all the work of their hands; so my wrath will be on fire against this place, and will not be put out.

¹⁸But to the king of Judah who sent you to get directions from the Lord, say, This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, has said: As to the words which have come to your ears,

¹⁹Because your heart was soft, and you made yourself low before me, when you had word of what I said against this place and its people, that they would become a waste and a curse, and you gave signs of grief, weeping before me: truly, I have given ear to you, says the Lord.

²⁰For this cause I will let you go to your fathers and be put in your last resting-place in peace, and your eyes will not see all the evil which I will send on this place. So they took this news back to the king.

23Then the king sent and got together all the responsible men of Judah and of Jerusalem.

²And the king went up to the house of the Lord, with all the men of Judah and all the people of Jerusalem, and the priests and the prophets and all the people, small and great; and they were present at his reading of the book of the law which had come to light in the house of the Lord.

³And the king took his place by the pillar, and made an agreement before the Lord, to go in the way of the Lord, and keep his orders and his decisions and his rules with all his heart and all his soul, and to keep the words of the agreement recorded in the book; and all the people gave their word to keep the agreement.

⁴Then the king gave orders to Hilkiah, the chief priest, and to the priests of the second order, and to the keepers of the door, to take out of the house of the Lord all the vessels made for Baal and for the Asherah and for all the stars of heaven; and he had them burned outside Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron, and took the dust of them to Beth-el.

⁵And he put an end to the false priests, who had been put in their positions by the kings of Judah to see to the burning of offerings in the high places in the towns of Judah and the outskirts of Jerusalem, and all those who made offerings to Baal and to the sun and the moon and the twelve signs and all the stars of heaven.

⁶And he took the Asherah from the house of the Lord, outside Jerusalem to the stream Kidron, burning it by the stream and crushing it to dust, and he put the dust on the place where the bodies of the common people were put to rest.

⁷And he had the houses pulled down of those who were used for sex purposes in the house of the Lord, where women were making robes for the Asherah.

⁸And he made all the priests from the towns of Judah come into Jerusalem, and he made unclean the high places where the priests had been burning offerings, from Geba to Beer-sheba; and he had the high places of the evil spirits pulled down which were by the doorway of Joshua, the ruler of the town, on the left side of the way into the town.

⁹Still the priests of the high places never came up to the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem; but they took their food of unleavened bread among their brothers.

¹⁰And Topheth, in the valley of the sons of Hinnom, he made unclean, so that no man might make his son or his daughter go through the fire to Molech.

¹¹And he took away the horses which the kings of Judah had given to the sun, at the way into the house of the Lord, by the room of Nathan-melech, the unsexed servant, which was in the outer part of the building, and the carriages of the sun he put on fire.

¹²And the altars on the roof of the high room of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars which Manasseh had made in the two outer squares of the house of the Lord, were pulled down and crushed to bits, and the dust of them was put into the stream Kidron.

¹³And the high places before Jerusalem, on the south side of the mountain of destruction, which Solomon, king of Israel, had made for Ashtoreth, the disgusting god of the Zidonians, and for Chemosh, the disgusting god of Moab, and for Milcom, the disgusting god of the children of Ammon, the king made unclean.

¹⁴The stone pillars were broken to bits and the wood pillars cut down, and the places where they had been were made full of the bones of the dead.

¹⁵And the altar at Beth-el, and the high place put up by Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel do evil, that altar and that high place were pulled down; and the high place was burned and crushed to dust and the Asherah was burned.

¹⁶Then Josiah, turning round, saw on the mountain the places of the dead, and he sent and had the bones taken out of their places and burned on the altar, so making it unclean, as the Lord had said by the man of God when Jeroboam was in his place by the altar on that feast-day. And he, turning his eyes to the resting-place of the man of God who had given word of these things, said:

¹⁷What is that headstone I see over there? And the men of the town said to him, It is the resting-place of the man of God who came from Judah and gave word of all these things which you have done to the altar of Beth-el.

¹⁸So he said, Let him be; let not his bones be moved. So they let his bones be with the bones of the prophet who came from Samaria.

¹⁹Then Josiah took away all the houses of the high places in the towns of Samaria, which the kings of Israel had put up, moving the Lord to wrath, and he did with them as he had done in Beth-el.

²⁰And all the priests of the high places there he put to death on the altars, burning the bones of the dead on them; and then he went back to Jerusalem.

²¹And the king gave orders to all the people, saying, Keep the Passover to the Lord your God, as it says in this book of the law.

²²Truly, such a Passover had not been kept in all the days of the judges of Israel or of the kings of Israel or the kings of Judah;

²³In the eighteenth year of the rule of King Josiah this Passover was kept to the Lord in Jerusalem.

²⁴And all those who had control of spirits, and the wonder-workers, and the images, and the false gods, and all the disgusting things which were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, Josiah put away, so that he might give effect to the words of the agreement recorded in the book which Hilkiah the priest made discovery of in the house of the Lord.

²⁵Never before had there been a king like him, turning to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his power, as the law of Moses says; and after him there was no king like him.

²⁶But still the heat of the Lord's wrath was not turned back from Judah, because of all Manasseh had done in moving him to wrath.

²⁷And the Lord said, I will send Judah away from before my face, as I have sent Israel; I will have nothing more to do with this town, which I had made mine, even Jerusalem, and the holy house of which I said, My name will be there.

²⁸Now the rest of the acts of Josiah, and all he did, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Judah?

²⁹In his days, Pharaoh-necoh, king of Egypt, sent his armies against the king of Assyria to the river Euphrates; and King Josiah went out against him; and he put him to death at Megiddo, when he had seen him.

³⁰And his servants took his body in a carriage from Megiddo to Jerusalem, and put him into the earth there. And the people of the land took Jehoahaz, the son of Josiah, and put the holy oil on him and made him king in place of his father.

³¹Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he became king, ruling in Jerusalem for three months; his mother's name was Hamutal, the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.

³²He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, as his fathers had done.

³³And Pharaoh-necoh put him in chains at Riblah in the land of Hamath, so that he might not be king in Jerusalem; and took from the land a tax of a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold.

³⁴Then Pharaoh-necoh made Eliakim, the son of Josiah, king in place of Josiah his father, changing his name to Jehoiakim; but Jehoahaz he took away to Egypt, where he was till his death.

³⁵And Jehoiakim gave the silver and gold to Pharaoh, taxing the land by his orders to get the money; the people of the land had to give silver and gold, everyone as he was taxed, to make the payment to Pharaoh-necoh.

³⁶Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he became king; he was ruling in Jerusalem for eleven years; his mother's name was Zebidah, the daughter of Pedaiah of Rumah.

³⁷He did evil in the eyes of the Lord as his fathers had done.

24In his days, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came up and Jehoiakim was his servant for three years; then he took up arms against him.

²And the Lord sent against him bands of the Chaldaeans and of the Edomites and of the Moabites and of the children of Ammon; sending them against Judah for its destruction, as he had said by his servants the prophets.

³Only by the word of the Lord did this fate come on Judah, to take them away from before his face; because of the sins of Manasseh and all the evil he did;

⁴And because of the death of those who had done no wrong, for he made Jerusalem full of the blood of the upright; and the Lord had no forgiveness for it.

⁵Now the rest of the acts of Jehoiakim, and all he did, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Judah?

⁶So Jehoiakim went to rest with his fathers; and Jehoiachin his son became king in his place.

⁷And the king of Egypt did not come out of his land again, for the king of Babylon had taken all his country, from the stream of Egypt to the river Euphrates.

⁸Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he became king, he was ruling in Jerusalem for three months, and his mother's name was Nehushta, the daughter of Elnathan of Jerusalem.

⁹He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, as his father had done.

¹⁰At that time the armies of Nebuchadnezzar came up to Jerusalem and the town was shut in on every side.

¹¹And Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came there, while his servants were shutting in the town;

¹²Then Jehoiachin, king of Judah, went out to the king of Babylon, with his mother and his servants and his chiefs and his unsexed servants; and in the eighth year of his rule the king of Babylon took him.

¹³And he took away all the stored wealth of the Lord's house, and the goods from the king's store-house, cutting up all the gold vessels which Solomon, king of Israel, had made in the house of the Lord, as the Lord had said.

¹⁴And he took away all the people of Jerusalem and all the chiefs and all the men of war, ten thousand prisoners; and all the expert workmen and the metal-workers; only the poorest sort of the people of the land were not taken away.

¹⁵He took Jehoiachin a prisoner to Babylon, with his mother and his wives and his unsexed servants and the great men of the land; he took them all as prisoners from Jerusalem to Babylon.

¹⁶And all the men of war, seven thousand of them, and a thousand expert workmen and metal-workers, all of them strong and able to take up arms, the king of Babylon took away as prisoners into Babylon.

¹⁷And the king of Babylon made Mattaniah, his father's brother, king in place of Jehoiachin, changing his name to Zedekiah.

¹⁸Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he was king in Jerusalem for eleven years; his mother's name was Hamutal, daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.

¹⁹He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, as Jehoiakim had done.

²⁰And because of the wrath of the Lord, this came about in Jerusalem and Judah, till he had sent them all away from before him: and Zedekiah took up arms against the king of Babylon.

25Now in the ninth year of his rule, on the tenth day of the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came against Jerusalem with all his army and took up his position before it, building earthworks all round the town.

²And the town was shut in by their forces till the eleventh year of King Zedekiah.

³Now on the ninth day of the fourth month, the store of food in the town was almost gone, so that there was no food for the people of the land.

⁴So an opening was made in the wall of the town, and all the men of war went in flight by night through the doorway between the two walls which was by the king's garden; (now the Chaldaeans were stationed round the town:) and the king went by the way of the Arabah.

⁵But the Chaldaean army went after the king, and overtook him in the lowlands of Jericho, and all his army went in flight from him in every direction.

⁶And they made the king a prisoner and took him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah to be judged.

⁷And they put the sons of Zedekiah to death before his eyes, and then they put out his eyes, and chaining him with iron bands, took him to Babylon.

⁸Now 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 armed men, a servant of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem;

⁹And he had the house of the Lord and the king's house and all the houses of Jerusalem, even every great house, burned with fire;

¹⁰And the walls round Jerusalem were broken down by the Chaldaean army which was with the captain.

¹¹And the rest of the people who were still in the town, and all those who had given themselves up to the king of Babylon, and all the rest of the workmen, Nebuzaradan, the captain of the armed men, took away as prisoners;

¹²But he let the poorest of the land go on living there, to take care of the vines and the fields.

¹³And the brass pillars in the house of the Lord, and the wheeled bases, and the great brass water-vessel in the house of the Lord, were broken up by the Chaldaeans, who took the brass to Babylon.

¹⁴And the pots and the spades and the scissors for the lights and the spoons, and all the brass vessels used in the Lord's house, they took away.

¹⁵And the fire-trays and the basins; the gold of the gold vessels and the silver of the silver vessels, were all taken away by the captain of the armed men.

¹⁶The two pillars, the great water-vessel and the wheeled bases, which Solomon had made for the house of the Lord: the brass of all these vessels was without weight.

¹⁷One of the pillars was eighteen cubits high, with a crown of brass on it; the crown was three cubits high, circled with a network and apples all of brass; and the second pillar had the same.

¹⁸And the captain of the armed men took Seraiah, the chief priest, and Zephaniah, the second priest, and the three door-keepers;

¹⁹And from the town he took the unsexed servant who was over the men of war, and five of the king's near friends who were in the town, and the scribe of the captain of the army, who was responsible for getting the people of the land together in military order, and sixty men of the people of the land who were in the town.

²⁰These Nebuzaradan, the captain of the armed men, took with him to the king of Babylon at Riblah.

²¹And the king of Babylon put them to death at Riblah in the land of Hamath. So Judah was taken away prisoner from his land.

²²As for the people who were still living in the land of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, did not take away, he made Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, ruler over them.

²³Now the captains of the armed forces, hearing that the king of Babylon had made Gedaliah ruler, came with their men to Gedaliah at Mizpah; Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah, and Johanan, the son of Kareah, and Seraiah, the son of Tanhumeth the Netophathite, and Jaazaniah, the son of the Maacathite, came with all their men.

²⁴Then Gedaliah gave his oath to them and their men, saying, Have no fear because of the servants of the Chaldaeans; go on living in the land under the rule of the king of Babylon, and all will be well.

²⁵But in the seventh month, Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah, the son of Elishama, of the king's seed, came with ten men and made an attack on Gedaliah, causing his death and the death of the Jews and the Chaldaeans who were with him at Mizpah.

²⁶Then all the people, small and great, and the captains of the forces, got up and went away to Egypt, for fear of the Chaldaeans.

²⁷And in the thirty-seventh year after Jehoiachin, king of Judah, had been taken prisoner, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, Evil-merodach, king of Babylon, in the first year of his rule, took Jehoiachin, king of Judah, out of prison;

²⁸And said kind words to him, and put his seat higher than the seats of the other kings who were with him in Babylon.

²⁹And his prison clothing was changed, and he was a guest at the king's table every day for the rest of his life.

³⁰And for his food, the king gave him a regular amount every day for the rest of his life.

1Adam, Seth, Enosh;

²Kenan, Mahalalel, Jared,

³Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech;

⁴Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

⁵The sons of Japheth: Gomer and Magog and Madai and Javan and Tubal and Meshech and Tiras.

⁶And the sons of Gomer: Ashkenaz and Diphath and Togarmah.

⁷And the sons of Javan: Elishah and Tarshish, Kittim and Rodanim.

⁸The sons of Ham: Cush and Egypt, Put and Canaan.

⁹And the sons of Cush: Seba and Havilah and Sabta and Raama and Sabteca. And the sons of Raamah: Sheba and Dedan.

¹⁰And Cush was the father of Nimrod: he was the first to be a great man in the earth.

¹¹And Egypt was the father of the Ludim and the Anamim and the Lehabim and the Naphtuhim

¹²And the Pathrusim and the Casluhim and the Caphtorim (from whom came the Philistines).

¹³And Canaan was the father of Zidon, his oldest son, and Heth,

¹⁴And the Jebusite and the Amorite and the Girgashite,

¹⁵And the Hivite and the Arkite and the Sinite,

¹⁶And the Arvadite and the Zemarite and the Hamathite.

¹⁷The sons of Shem: Elam and Asshur and Arpachshad and Lud and Aram and Uz and Hul and Gether and Meshech.

¹⁸And Arpachshad was the father of Shelah, and Shelah was the father of Eber.

¹⁹And Eber had two sons: the name of the one was Peleg, because in his days a division was made of the earth; and his brother's name was Joktan.

²⁰And Joktan was the father of Almodad and Sheleph and Hazarmaveth and Jerah

²¹And Hadoram and Uzal and Diklah

²²And Ebal and Abimael and Sheba

²³And Ophir and Havilah and Jobab. All these were the sons of Joktan.

²⁴Shem, Arpachshad, Shelah,

²⁵Eber, Peleg, Reu,

²⁶Serug, Nahor, Terah,

²⁷Abram (that is Abraham).

²⁸The sons of Abraham: Isaac and Ishmael.

²⁹These are their generations: the oldest son of Ishmael, Nebaioth; then Kedar and Adbeel and Mibsam,

³⁰Mishma and Dumah, Massa, Hadad and Tema,

³¹Jetur, Naphish, and Kedemah. These are the sons of Ishmael.

³²And the sons of Keturah, Abraham's servant-wife: she was the mother of Zimran and Jokshan and Medan and Midian and Ishbak and Shuah. And the sons of Jokshan: Sheba and Dedan.

³³And the sons of Midian: Ephah and Epher and Hanoch and Abida and Eldaah. All these were the sons of Keturah.

³⁴And Abraham was the father of Isaac. The sons of Isaac: Esau and Israel.

³⁵The sons of Esau: Eliphaz, Reuel and Jeush and Jalam and Korah.

³⁶The sons of Eliphaz: Teman and Omar, Zephi and Gatam, Kenaz and Timna and Amalek.

³⁷The sons of Reuel: Nahath, Zerah, Shammah and Mizzah.

³⁸And the sons of Seir: Lotan and Shobal and Zibeon and Anah and Dishon and Ezer and Dishan.

³⁹And the sons of Lotan: Hori and Homam; and Timna was Lotan's sister.

⁴⁰The sons of Shobal: Alian and Manahath and Ebal, Shephi and Onam. And the sons of Zibeon: Aiah and Anah.

⁴¹The sons of Anah: Dishon. And the sons of Dishon: Hamran and Eshban and Ithran and Cheran.

⁴²The sons of Ezer: Bilhan and Zaavan, Jaakan. The sons of Dishan: Uz and Aran.

⁴³Now these are the kings who were ruling in the land of Edom, before there was any king over Israel: Bela, the son of Beor; his town was named Dinhabah.

⁴⁴At his death, Jobab, the son of Zerah of Bozrah, became king in his place.

⁴⁵At the death of Jobab, Husham, from the land of the Temanites, became king in his place.

⁴⁶And at the death of Husham, Hadad, the son of Bedad, who overcame Midian in the field of Moab, became king; his town was named Avith.

⁴⁷And at the death of Hadad, Samlah of Masrekah became king in his place.

⁴⁸And at the death of Samlah, Shaul of Rehoboth by the river became king in his place,

⁴⁹And at the death of Shaul, Baal-hanan, the son of Achbor, became king in his place.

⁵⁰And at the death of Baal-hanan, Hadad became king in his place; his town was named Pai, and his wife's name was Mehetabel, the daughter of Matred, the daughter of Me-zahab.

⁵¹And Hadad came to his end. Now the chiefs of Edom were: the chief of Timna, the chief of Aliah, the chief of Jetheth,

⁵²The chief of Oholibamah, the chief of Elah, the chief of Pinon,

⁵³The chief of Kenaz, the chief of Teman, the chief of Mibzar,

⁵⁴The chief of Magdiel, the chief of Iram. These are the chiefs of Edom.

2These are the sons of Israel: Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah, Issachar and Zebulun;

²Dan, Joseph and Benjamin, Naphtali, Gad and Asher.

³The sons of Judah: Er and Onan and Shelah; these three were his sons by Bathshua, the Canaanite woman. And Er, Judah's oldest son, did evil in the eyes of the Lord; and he put him to death.

⁴And Tamar, his daughter-in-law, had Perez and Zerah by him. All the sons of Judah were five.

⁵The sons of Perez: Hezron and Hamul.

⁶And the sons of Zerah: Zimri and Ethan and Heman and Calcol and Dara; five of them.

⁷And the sons of Carmi: Achan, the troubler of Israel, who did wrong about the cursed thing.

⁸And the son of Ethan: Azariah.

⁹And the sons of Hezron, the offspring of his body: Jerahmeel and Ram and Chelubai.

¹⁰And Ram was the father of Amminadab; and Amminadab was the father of Nahshon, chief of the children of Judah;

¹¹And Nahshon was the father of Salma, and Salma was the father of Boaz,

¹²And Boaz was the father of Obed, and Obed was the father of Jesse,

¹³And Jesse was the father of Eliab, his oldest son, and Abinadab, the second, and Shimea, the third,

¹⁴Nethanel, the fourth, Raddai, the fifth,

¹⁵Ozem, the sixth, David, the seventh;

¹⁶And their sisters were Zeruiah and Abigail. And Zeruiah had three sons: Abishai and Joab and Asahel.

¹⁷And Abigail was the mother of Amasa; and the father of Amasa was Jether the Ishmaelite.

¹⁸And Caleb, the son of Hezron, had children by Azubah his wife, the daughter of Jerioth; and these were her sons: Jesher and Shobab and Ardon.

¹⁹And after the death of Azubah, Caleb took as his wife Ephrath, who was the mother of Hur.

²⁰And Hur was the father of Uri; and Uri was the father of Bezalel.

²¹And after that, Hezron had connection with the daughter of Machir, the father of Gilead, whom he took as his wife when he was sixty years old; and she had Segub by him.

²²And Segub was the father of Jair, who had twenty-three towns in the land of Gilead.

²³And Geshur and Aram took the tent-towns of Jair from them, with Kenath and the small places round it, even sixty towns. All these were the sons of Machir, the father of Gilead.

²⁴And after the death of Hezron, Caleb had connection with Ephrath, his father Hezron's wife, and she gave birth to his son Asshur, the father of Tekoa.

²⁵And the sons of Jerahmeel, the oldest son of Hezron, were Ram, the oldest, and Bunah and Oren and Ozem and Ahijah.

²⁶And Jerahmeel had another wife, whose name was Atarah: she was the mother of Onam.

²⁷And the sons of Ram, the oldest son of Jerahmeel, were Maaz and Jamin and Eker.

²⁸And the sons of Onam were Shammai and Jada; and the sons of Shammai: Nadab and Abishur.

²⁹And the name of Abishur's wife was Abihail; and she had Ahban and Molid by him.

³⁰And the sons of Nadab: Seled and Appaim; but Seled came to his end without sons.

³¹And the sons of Appaim: Ishi. And the sons of Ishi: Sheshan. And the sons of Sheshan: Ahlai.

³²And the sons of Jada, the brother of Shammai: Jether and Jonathan; and Jether came to his end without sons.

³³And the sons of Jonathan: Peleth and Zaza. These were the sons of Jerahmeel.

³⁴Now Sheshan had no sons, but only daughters. And Sheshan had an Egyptian servant, whose name was Jarha.

³⁵And Sheshan gave his daughter to Jarha, his servant, as a wife; and she had Attai by him.

³⁶And Attai was the father of Nathan, and Nathan was the father of Zabad,

³⁷And Zabad was the father of Ephlal, and Ephlal was the father of Obed,

³⁸And Obed was the father of Jehu, and Jehu was the father of Azariah,

³⁹And Azariah was the father of Helez, and Helez was the father of Eleasah,

⁴⁰And Eleasah was the father of Sismai, and Sismai was the father of Shallum,

⁴¹And Shallum was the father of Jekamiah, and Jekamiah was the father of Elishama.

⁴²And the sons of Caleb, the brother of Jerahmeel, were Mareshah, his oldest son, who was the father of Ziph and Hebron.

⁴³And the sons of Hebron: Korah and Tappuah and Rekem and Shema.

⁴⁴And Shema was the father of Raham, the father of Jorkeam, and Rekem was the father of Shammai.

⁴⁵And the son of Shammai was Maon; and Maon was the father of Beth-zur.

⁴⁶And Ephah, Caleb's servant-wife, had Haran and Moza and Gazez; and Haran was the father of Gazez.

⁴⁷And the sons of Jahdai: Regem and Jotham and Geshan and Pelet and Ephah and Shaaph.

⁴⁸Maacah, Caleb's servant-wife, was the mother of Sheber and Tirhanah,

⁴⁹And Shaaph, the father of Madmannah, Sheva, the father of Machbena and the father of Gibea; and Caleb's daughter was Achsah. These were the sons of Caleb.

⁵⁰The sons of Hur, the oldest son of Ephrathah; Shobal, the father of Kiriath-jearim,

⁵¹Salma, the father of Beth-lehem, Hareph, the father of Beth-gader.

⁵²And Shobal, the father of Kiriath-jearim, had sons: Haroeh, half of the Manahathites.

⁵³And the families of Kiriath-jearim: the Ithrites and the Puthites and the Shumathites and the Mishraites; from them came the Zorathites and the Eshtaolites.

⁵⁴The sons of Salma: Beth-lehem and the Netophathites, Atroth-beth-Joab and half of the Manahathites, the Zorites.

⁵⁵And the families of scribes who were living at Jabez: the Tirathites, the Shimeathites, the Sucathites. These are the Kenites, the offspring of Hammath, the father of the family of Rechab.

3Now these were David's sons, whose birth took place in Hebron: the oldest Amnon, by Ahinoam of Jezreel; the second Daniel, by Abigail the Carmelite woman;

²The third Absalom, the son of Maacah, the daughter of Talmai, king of Geshur; the fourth Adonijah, the son of Haggith;

³The fifth Shephatiah, by Abital; the sixth Ithream, by Eglah his wife.

⁴He had six sons in Hebron; he was ruling there for seven years and six months, and in Jerusalem for thirty-three years.

⁵And in Jerusalem he had four sons, Shimea and Shobab and Nathan and Solomon, by Bath-shua, the daughter of Ammiel;

⁶And Ibhar and Elishama and Eliphelet

⁷And Nogah and Nepheg and Japhia

⁸And Elishama and Eliada and Eliphelet, nine.

⁹All these were the sons of David, in addition to the sons of his servant-wives; and Tamar was their sister.

¹⁰And Solomon's son was Rehoboam, Abijah was his son, Asa his son, Jehoshaphat his son,

¹¹Joram his son, Ahaziah his son, Joash his son,

¹²Amaziah his son, Azariah his son, Jotham his son,

¹³Ahaz his son, Hezekiah his son, Manasseh his son,

¹⁴Amon his son, Josiah his son.

¹⁵And the sons of Josiah: the oldest Johanan, the second Jehoiakim, the third Zedekiah, the fourth Shallum.

¹⁶And the sons of Jehoiakim: Jeconiah his son, Zedekiah his son.

¹⁷And the sons of Jeconiah, who was taken prisoner: Shealtiel his son,

¹⁸And Malchiram and Pedaiah and Shenazzar, Jekamiah, Hoshama and Nedabiah.

¹⁹And the sons of Pedaiah: Zerubbabel and Shimei; and the sons of Zerubbabel: Meshullam and Hananiah; and Shelomith was their sister;

²⁰And Hashubah and Ohel and Berechiah and Hasadiah, Jushab-hesed, five.

²¹And the sons of Hananiah: Pelatiah and Jeshaiah; the sons of Rephaiah, the sons of Arnan, the sons of Obadiah, the sons of Shecaniah.

²²And the sons of Shecaniah: Shemaiah; and the sons of Shemaiah: Hattush and Igal and Bariah and Neariah and Shaphat, six.

²³And the sons of Neariah: Elioenai and Hizkiah and Azrikam, three.

²⁴And the sons of Elioenai: Hodaviah and Eliashib and Pelaiah and Akkub and Johanan and Delaiah and Anani, seven.

4The sons of Judah: Perez, Hezron and Carmi and Hur and Shobal.

²And Reaiah, the son of Shobal, was the father of Jahath; and Jahath was the father of Ahumai and Lahad. These are the families of the Zorathites.

³And these were the sons of Hur, the father of Etam: Jezreel and Ishma and Idbash, and the name of their sister was Hazzelelponi;

⁴And Penuel, the father of Gedor, and Ezer, the father of Hushah. These are the sons of Hur, the oldest son of Ephrathah, the father of Beth-lehem.

⁵And Ashhur, the father of Tekoa, had two wives, Helah and Naarah.

⁶And Naarah had Ahuzzam by him, and Hepher and Temeni and Haahashtari. These were the sons of Naarah.

⁷And the sons of Helah were Zereth, Izhar and Ethnan.

⁸And Koz was the father of Anub and Zobebah, and the families of Aharhel the son of Harum.

⁹And Jabez was honoured more than his brothers; but his mother had given him the name Jabez, saying, Because I gave birth to him with sorrow.

¹⁰And Jabez made a prayer to the God of Israel, saying, If only you would truly give me a blessing, and make wider the limits of my land, and let your hand be with me, and keep me from evil, so that I may not be troubled by it! And God gave him his desire.

¹¹And Chelub, the brother of Shuhah, was the father of Mehir, who was the father of Eshton.

¹²And Eshton was the father of Bethrapha and Paseah and Tehinnah, the father of Ir-nahash. These are the men of Recah.

¹³And the sons of Kenaz: Othniel and Seraiah; and the sons of Othniel: Hathath.

¹⁴And Meonothai was the father of Ophrah; and Seraiah was the father of Joab, the father of Ge-harashim; they were expert workmen.

¹⁵And the sons of Caleb, the son of Jephunneh: Iru, Elah, and Naam; and the son of Elah: Kenaz.

¹⁶And the sons of Jehallelel: Ziph and Ziphah, Tiria and Asarel.

¹⁷And the sons of Ezrah: Jether and Mered and Epher and Jalon; and these are the sons of Bithiah, the daughter of Pharaoh, the wife of Mered. And she became the mother of Miriam and Shammai and Ishbah, the father of Eshtemoa.

¹⁸And his wife, a woman of the tribe of Judah, became the mother of Jered, the father of Gedor, and Heber, the father of Soco, and Jekuthiel, the father of Zanoah.

¹⁹And the sons of the wife of Hodiah, the sister of Naham, were the father of Keilah the Garmite, and Eshtemoa the Maacathite.

²⁰And the sons of Shimon: Amnon and Rinnah, Ben-hanan and Tilon. And the sons of Ishi: Zoheth; and the son of Zoheth. ...

²¹The sons of Shelah, the son of Judah: Er, the father of Lecah, and Laadah, the father of Mareshah, and the families of those who made delicate linen, of the family of Ashbea;

²²And Jokim, and the men of Cozeba, and Joash and Saraph, who were rulers in Moab, and went back to Beth-lehem. And the records are very old.

²³These were the potters, and the people living among planted fields with walls round them; they were there to do the king's work.

²⁴The sons of Simeon: Nemuel and Jamin, Jarib, Zerah, Shaul;

²⁵Shallum his son, Mibsam his son, Mishma his son.

²⁶And the sons of Mishma: Hammuel his son, Zaccur his son, Shimei his son.

²⁷And Shimei had sixteen sons and six daughters, but his brothers had only a small number of children, and their family was not as fertile as the children of Judah.

²⁸And they were living at Beer-sheba and Moladah and Hazar-shual,

²⁹And at Bilhah, and at Ezem, and at Tolad,

³⁰And at Bethuel, and at Hormah, and at Ziklag,

³¹And at Beth-marcaboth, and at Hazarsusim, and at Beth-biri, and at Shaaraim. These were their towns till David became king.

³²And their small towns were Etam, Ain, Rimmon, and Tochen and Ashan, five towns;

³³And all the small places round these towns, as far as Baalath-beer, the high place of the South. These were their living-places, and they have lists of their generations.

³⁴And Meshobab and Jamlech and Joshah, the son of Amaziah,

³⁵And Joel and Jehu, the son of Joshibiah, the son of Seraiah, the son of Asiel,

³⁶And Elioenai and Jaakobah and Jeshohaiah and Asaiah and Adiel and Jesimiel and Benaiah,

³⁷And Ziza, the son of Shiphi, the son of Allon, the son of Jedaiah, the son of Shimri, the son of Shemaiah;

³⁸These, whose names are given, were chiefs in their families, and their families became very great in number.

³⁹And they went to the opening into Gedor, as far as the east side of the valley, in search of grass-land for their flocks.

⁴⁰And they came to some good fertile grass-land, in a wide quiet country of peace-loving people; for the people who were living there before were of the offspring of Ham.

⁴¹And these whose names are given came in the days of Hezekiah, king of Judah, and made an attack on the Meunim who were living there, and put an end to them to this day, and took their place, because there was grass there for their flocks.

⁴²And some of them, five hundred of the sons of Simeon, went to the hill-country of Seir, with Pelatiah and Neariah and Rephaiah and Uzziel, the sons of Ishi, at their head.

⁴³And they put to death the rest of the Amalekites who had got away safely, and made it their living-place to this day.

5And the sons of Reuben, the oldest son of Israel, (for he was the oldest son, but, because he made his father's bride-bed unclean, his birthright was given to the sons of Joseph, the son of Israel; but he is not to be given the place of the oldest.

²Though Judah became stronger than his brothers, and from him came the ruler, the birthright was Joseph's:)

³The sons of Reuben, the oldest son of Israel: Hanoch and Pallu, Hezron and Carmi.

⁴The sons of Joel: Shemaiah his son, Gog his son, Shimei his son,

⁵Micah his son, Reaiah his son, Baal his son,

⁶Beerah his son, whom Tiglath-pileser, king of Assyria, took away as a prisoner: he was chief of the Reubenites.

⁷And his brothers by their families, when the list of their generations was made up: the chief, Jeiel, and Zechariah,

⁸And Bela, the son of Azaz, the son of Shema, the son of Joel, who was living in Aroer, as far as Nebo and Baal-meon;

⁹And to the east his limits went as far as the starting point of the waste land, ending at the river Euphrates, because their cattle were increased in number in the land of Gilead.

¹⁰And in the days of Saul they made war on the Hagarites, and overcame them; and they put up their tents through all the land east of Gilead.

¹¹And the sons of Gad were living opposite to them, in the land of Bashan as far as Salecah:

¹²Joel the chief, and Shapham the second, and Janai and Shaphat in Bashan;

¹³And their brothers, the men of their family: Michael and Meshullam and Sheba and Jorai and Jacan and Zia and Eber, seven of them.

¹⁴These were the sons of Abihail, 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;

¹⁵Ahi, the son of Abdiel, the son of Guni, head of their families.

¹⁶And they were living in Gilead in Bashan, in its small towns and in all the grass-land of Sirion as far as its limits.

¹⁷All these were listed under the names of their families, in the time of Jotham, king of Judah, and in the time of Jeroboam, king of Israel.

¹⁸There were forty-four thousand, seven hundred and sixty of the sons of Reuben and of the Gadites and of the half-tribe of Manasseh, all strong men, expert in the use of the body-cover, the sword, and the bow, and in the art of war, all able to take up arms.

¹⁹And they went to war against the Hagarites, with Jetur and Naphish and Nodab.

²⁰And they were helped against them, so that the Hagarites, and those with them, were given into their power. For they sent up prayers to God in the fight, and he gave ear to them, because they put their faith in him.

²¹And they took away their cattle: fifty thousand camels, two hundred and fifty thousand sheep, and two thousand asses, and a hundred thousand men.

²²And a very great number went to their death, because the war was God's purpose. And they went on living in their place till they were taken away as prisoners.

²³And the men of the half-tribe of Manasseh were living in the land: and their numbers were increased till all the land from Bashan to Baal-hermon and Senir and the mountain Hermon was theirs.

²⁴And these were the heads of their families: Epher and Ishi and Eliel and Azriel and Jeremiah and Hodaviah and Jahdiel, men of war, of great name, heads of families.

²⁵And they did evil against the God of their fathers, worshipping the gods of the people of the land, whom God had put to destruction before them.

²⁶And the God of Israel put an impulse into the heart of Pul, king of Assyria, and of Tiglath-pileser, king of Assyria, who took them away as prisoners, all the Reubenites and the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh, to Halah and Habor and Hara and to the river of Gozan, to this day.

6The sons of Levi: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari.

²And the sons of Kohath: Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel.

³And the sons of Amram: Aaron and Moses and Miriam. And the sons of Aaron: Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar.

⁴Eleazar was the father of Phinehas; Phinehas was the father of Abishua;

⁵And Abishua was the father of Bukki, and Bukki was the father of Uzzi,

⁶And Uzzi was the father of Zerahiah, and Zerahiah was the father of Meraioth;

⁷Meraioth was the father of Amariah, and Amariah was the father of Ahitub,

⁸And Ahitub was the father of Zadok, and Zadok was the father of Ahimaaz,

⁹And Ahimaaz was the father of Azariah, and Azariah was the father of Johanan,

¹⁰And Johanan was the father of Azariah, (he was priest in the house which Solomon put up in Jerusalem:)

¹¹And Azariah was the father of Amariah, and Amariah was the father of Ahitub,

¹²And Ahitub was the father of Zadok, and Zadok was the father of Shallum,

¹³And Shallum was the father of Hilkiah, and Hilkiah was the father of Azariah,

¹⁴And Azariah was the father of Seraiah, and Seraiah was the father of Jehozadak;

¹⁵And Jehozadak went as a prisoner when the Lord took away Judah and Jerusalem by the hand of Nebuchadnezzar.

¹⁶The sons of Levi; Gershom, Kohath, and Merari.

¹⁷And these are the names of the sons of Gershom: Libni and Shimei.

¹⁸And the sons of Kohath were Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel.

¹⁹The sons of Merari: Mahli and Mushi. And these are the families of the Levites listed by the names of their fathers.

²⁰Of Gershom: Libni his son, Jahath his son, Zimmah his son,

²¹Joah his son, Iddo his son, Zerah his son, Jeatherai his son.

²²The sons of Kohath: Amminadab his son, Korah his son, Assir his son,

²³Elkanah his son, and Ebiasaph his son, and Assir his son,

²⁴Tahath his son, Uriel his son, Uzziah his son, and Shaul his son.

²⁵And the sons of Elkanah: Amasai and Ahimoth.

²⁶Elkanah his son: Zophai his son, and Nahath his son,

²⁷Eliab his son, Jeroham his son, Elkanah his son, Samuel his son.

²⁸And the sons of Samuel: the oldest Joel, and the second Abiah.

²⁹The sons of Merari: Mahli, Libni his son, Shimei his son, Uzzah his son,

³⁰Shimea his son, Haggiah his son, Asaiah his son.

³¹And these are those whom David made responsible for the music in the house of the Lord, after the ark had rest.

³²They gave worship with songs before the House of the Tent of meeting, till Solomon put up the house of the Lord in Jerusalem; and they took their places for their work in their regular order.

³³And these are those who did this work, and their sons. Of the sons of the Kohathites: Heman, who made melody, the son of Joel, the son of Samuel,

³⁴The son of Elkanah, the son of Jeroham, the son of Eliel, the son of Toah,

³⁵The son of Zuph, the son of Elkanah, the son of Mahath, the son of Amasai,

³⁶The son of Elkanah, the son of Joel, the son of Azariah, the son of Zephaniah,

³⁷The son of Tahath, the son of Assir, the son of Ebiasaph, the son of Korah,

³⁸The son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, the son of Israel.

³⁹And his brother Asaph, whose place was at his right hand, Asaph, the son of Berechiah, the son of Shimea,

⁴⁰The son of Michael, the son of Baaseiah, the son of Malchijah,

⁴¹The son of Ethni, the son of Zerah, the son of Adaiah,

⁴²The son of Ethan, the son of Zimmah, the son of Shimei,

⁴³The son of Jahath, the son of Gershom, the son of Levi.

⁴⁴And on the left their brothers, the sons of Merari: Ethan, the son of Kishi, the son of Abdi, the son of Malluch,

⁴⁵The son of Hashabiah, the son of Amaziah, the son of Hilkiah,

⁴⁶The son of Amzi, the son of Bani, the son of Shemer,

⁴⁷The son of Mahli, the son of Mushi, the son of Merari, the son of Levi.

⁴⁸And their brothers the Levites were responsible for all the work of the Tent of the house of God.

⁴⁹But Aaron and his sons made offerings on the altar of burned offering, and on the altar of perfume, for all the work of the most holy place, and to take away the sin of Israel, doing everything ordered by Moses, the servant of God.

⁵⁰And these are the sons of Aaron: Eleazar his son, Phinehas his son, Abishua his son,

⁵¹Bukki his son, Uzzi his son, Zerahiah his son,

⁵²Meraioth his son, Amariah his son, Ahitub his son,

⁵³Zadok his son, Ahimaaz his son.

⁵⁴Now these are their living-places, the limits inside which they were to put up their tents: to the sons of Aaron, of the families of the Kohathites, because they had the first selection,

⁵⁵To them they gave Hebron and its outskirts in the land of Judah;

⁵⁶But the open country of the town, and the small places round it, they gave to Caleb, the son of Jephunneh.

⁵⁷And to the sons of Aaron they gave Hebron, the town to which men might go in flight and be safe, and Libnah with its outskirts, and Jattir, and Eshtemoa with its outskirts,

⁵⁸And Hilen with its outskirts, Debir with its outskirts,

⁵⁹And Ashan with its outskirts, and Beth-shemesh with its outskirts;

⁶⁰And from the tribe of Benjamin: Geba with its outskirts, and Alemeth with its outskirts, and Anathoth with its outskirts. All their towns among their families were thirteen towns.

⁶¹And to the rest of the sons of Kohath there were given by the Lord's decision ten towns out of the families of the tribe of Ephraim and out of the tribe of Dan and out of the half-tribe of Manasseh.

⁶²And to the sons of Gershom, by their families, out of the tribe of Issachar, and out of the tribe of Asher, and out of the tribe of Naphtali, and out of the tribe of Manasseh in Bashan, thirteen towns.

⁶³And to the sons of Merari, by their families, twelve towns were given by the Lord's decision, out of the tribe of Reuben, and out of the tribe of Gad, and out of the tribe of Zebulun.

⁶⁴And the children of Israel gave to the Levites the towns with their outskirts.

⁶⁵And they gave by the Lord's decision out of the tribe of the children of Judah, and out of the tribe of the children of Simeon, and out of the tribe of the children of Benjamin, these towns whose names are given.

⁶⁶And to the families of the sons of Kohath were given towns by the Lord's decision out of the tribe of Ephraim.

⁶⁷And they gave them the town to which men might go in flight and be safe, Shechem in the hill-country of Ephraim with its outskirts, and Gezer with its outskirts,

⁶⁸And Jokmeam with its outskirts, and Beth-horon with its outskirts,

⁶⁹And Aijalon with its outskirts, and Gath-rimmon with its outskirts;

⁷⁰And out of the half-tribe of Manasseh, Aner with its outskirts, and Bileam with its outskirts, for the rest of the family of the sons of Kohath.

⁷¹To the sons of Gershom were given, out of the family of the half-tribe of Manasseh, Golan in Bashan with its outskirts, and Ashtaroth with its outskirts;

⁷²And out of the tribe of Issachar, Kedesh with its outskirts, and Daberath with its outskirts,

⁷³And Ramoth with its outskirts, and Anem with its outskirts;

⁷⁴And out of the tribe of Asher, Mashal with its outskirts, and Abdon with its outskirts,

⁷⁵And Hukok with its outskirts, and Rehob with its outskirts;

⁷⁶And out of the tribe of Naphtali, Kedesh in Galilee with its outskirts, and Hammon with its outskirts, and Kiriathaim with its outskirts.

⁷⁷To the rest of the Levites, the sons of Merari, were given, out of the tribe of Zebulun, Rimmono with its outskirts, Tabor with its outskirts;

⁷⁸And on the other side of Jordan, at Jericho, on the east side of Jordan, were given them, out of the tribe of Reuben, Bezer in the waste land with its outskirts, and Jahzah with its outskirts,

⁷⁹And Kedemoth with its outskirts, and Mephaath with its outskirts;

⁸⁰And out of the tribe of Gad, Ramoth in Gilead with its outskirts, and Mahanaim with its outskirts,

⁸¹And Heshbon with its outskirts, and Jazer with its outskirts.

7And of the sons of Issachar: Tola and Puah, Jashub and Shimron, four.

²And the sons of Tola: Uzzi and Rephaiah and Jeriel and Jahmai and Ibsam and Shemuel, heads of their families; they were men of war; in the record of their generations their number in the time of David was twenty-two thousand, six hundred.

³And the sons of Uzzi; Izrahiah; and the sons of Izrahiah: Michael and Obadiah and Joel and Isshiah, five; all of them chiefs.

⁴And with them, recorded in generations by their families, were bands of fighting-men, thirty-six thousand of them, for they had a great number of wives and sons.

⁵And there were recorded among all the families of Issachar, great men of war, eighty-seven thousand.

⁶The sons of Benjamin: Bela and Becher and Jediael, three.

⁷And the sons of Bela: Ezbon and Uzzi and Uzziel and Jerimoth and Iri, five; heads of their families, great men of war; there were twenty-two thousand and thirty-four of them recorded by their families.

⁸And the sons of Becher: Zemirah and Joash and Eliezer and Elioenai and Omri and Jerimoth and Abijah and Anathoth and Alemeth. All these were the sons of Becher.

⁹And they were recorded by their generations, heads of their families, great men of war, twenty thousand, two hundred.

¹⁰And the sons of Jediael: Bilhan; and the sons of Bilhan: Jeush and Benjamin and Ehud and Chenaanah and Zethan and Tarshish and Ahishahar.

¹¹All these were the sons of Jediael, by the heads of their families, seventeen thousand, two hundred men of war, able to go out with the army for war.

¹²And Shuppim and Huppim. The sons of Dan, Hushim his son, one.

¹³The sons of Naphtali: Jahziel and Guni and Jezer and Shallum, the sons of Bilhah.

¹⁴The sons of Manasseh by his servant-wife, the Aramaean woman: she gave birth to Machir, the father of Gilead;

¹⁵(And Gilead took a wife, whose name was Maacah, and his sister's name was Hammoleketh;) and the name of his brother was Zelophehad, who was the father of daughters.

¹⁶And Maacah, the wife of Gilead, gave birth to a son to whom she gave the name Peresh; and his brother was named Sheresh; and his sons were Ulam and Rakem.

¹⁷And the son of Ulam: Bedan. These were the sons of Gilead, the son of Machir the son of Manasseh.

¹⁸And his sister Hammoleketh was the mother of Ishhod and Abiezer and Mahlah.

¹⁹And the sons of Shemida were Ahian and Shechem and Likhi and Aniam.

²⁰And the sons of Ephraim: Shuthelah and Bered his son, and Tahath his son, and Eleadah his son, and Tahath his son,

²¹And Zabad his son, and Shuthelah his son, and Ezer and Elead, whom the men of Gath, who had been living in the land from their birth, put to death, because they came down to take away their cattle.

²²And for a long time Ephraim their father went on weeping for them, and his brothers came to give him comfort.

²³After that, he had connection with his wife, and she became with child and gave birth to a son, to whom his father gave the name of Beriah, because trouble had come on his family.

²⁴And his daughter was Sheerah, the builder of Beth-horon the lower and the higher, and Uzzen-sheerah.

²⁵And Rephah was his son, and Resheph; his son was Telah, and his son was Tahan;

²⁶Ladan was his son, Ammihud his son, Elishama his son,

²⁷Nun his son, Joshua his son.

²⁸Their heritage and their living-places were Beth-el and its daughter-towns, and Naaran to the east, and Gezer to the west, with its daughter-towns, as well as Shechem and its daughter-towns as far as Azzah and its daughter-towns;

²⁹And by the limits of the children of Manasseh, Beth-shean and its daughter-towns, Taanach, Megiddo, and Dor, with their daughter-towns. In these the children of Joseph, the son of Israel, were living.

³⁰The sons of Asher: Imnah and Ishvah and Ishvi and Beriah and Serah, their sister.

³¹And the sons of Beriah: Heber and Malchiel, who was the father of Birzaith.

³²And Heber was the father of Japhlet and Shomer and Hotham and Shua, their sister.

³³And the sons of Japhlet: Pasach and Bimhal and Ashvath. These are the sons of Japhlet.

³⁴And the sons of Shomer: Ahi and Rohgah, Jehubbah and Aram.

³⁵And the sons of Hotham, his brother: Zophah and Imna and Shelesh and Amal.

³⁶The sons of Zophah: Suah and Harnepher and Shual and Beri and Imrah,

³⁷Bezer and Hod and Shamma and Shilshah and Ithran and Beera.

³⁸And the sons of Jether: Jephunneh and Pispah and Ara.

³⁹And the sons of Ulla: Arah and Hanniel and Rizia.

⁴⁰All these were the children of Asher, heads of their families, specially strong men of war, chiefs of the rulers. They were recorded in the army for war, twenty-six thousand men in number.

8And Benjamin was the father of Bela his oldest son, Ashbel the second, and Aharah the third,

²Nohah the fourth, and Rapha the fifth.

³And Bela had sons, Addar and Gera, the father of Ehud,

⁴And Abishua and Naaman and Ahoah

⁵And Gera and Shephuphan and Huram.

⁶And these are the sons of Ehud, heads of families of those living in Geba: Iglaam and Alemeth

⁷And Naaman and Ahijah and Gera; and Iglaam was the father of Uzza and Ahihud.

⁸And Shaharaim became the father of children in the country of the Moabites after driving out Hushim and Beerah his wives;

⁹And by Hodesh his wife he became the father of Jobab and Zibia and Mesha and Malcam.

¹⁰And Jeuz and Shachia and Mirmah. These were his sons, heads of families.

¹¹And Hushim became the father of Abitub and Elpaal.

¹²And the sons of Elpaal: Eber and Misham and Shemed (he was the builder of Ono and Lod and their daughter-towns);

¹³And Beriah and Shema, who were heads of the families of those who were living in Aijalon, who put to flight the people living in Gath;

¹⁴And their brothers Shashak and Jeremoth.

¹⁵And Zebadiah and Arad and Eder

¹⁶And Michael and Ishpah and Joha, the sons of Beriah;

¹⁷And Zebadiah and Meshullam and Hizki and Heber

¹⁸And Ishmerai and Izliah and Jobab, the sons of Elpaal;

¹⁹And Jakim and Zichri and Zabdi

²⁰And Elienai and Zillethai and Eliel

²¹And Adaiah and Beraiah and Shimrath, the sons of Shimei;

²²And Ishpan and Eber and Eliel

²³And Abdon and Zichri and Hanan

²⁴And Hananiah and Elam and Anathothijah

²⁵And Iphdeiah and Penuel, the sons of Shashak;

²⁶And Shamsherai and Shehariah and Athaliah

²⁷And Jaareshiah and Elijah and Zichri, the sons of Jeremoth.

²⁸These were heads of families in their generations; chief men: these were living in Jerusalem.

²⁹And in Gibeon was living the father of Gibeon, Jeiel, whose wife's name was Maacah;

³⁰And his oldest son Abdon, and Zur and Kish and Baal and Ner and Nadab

³¹And Gedor and Ahio and Zechariah and Mikloth.

³²And Mikloth was the father of Shimeah. And they were living with their brothers in Jerusalem opposite their brothers.

³³And Ner was the father of Abner, and Kish was the father of Saul, and Saul was the father of Jonathan and Malchi-shua and Abinadab and Eshbaal.

³⁴And the son of Jonathan was Merib-baal; and Merib-baal was the father of Micah.

³⁵And the sons of Micah: Pithon and Melech and Tarea and Ahaz.

³⁶And Ahaz was the father of Jehoaddah; and Jehoaddah was the father of Alemeth and Azmaveth and Zimri; and Zimri was the father of Moza;

³⁷And Moza was the father of Binea: Raphah was his son, Eleasah his son, Azel his son;

³⁸And Azel had five sons, whose names are: Azrikam, his oldest, and Ishmael and Sheariah and Obadiah and Hanan. All these were the sons of Azel.

³⁹And the sons of Eshek his brother: Ulam his oldest son, Jeush the second, and Eliphelet the third.

⁴⁰And the sons of Ulam were men of war, bowmen, and had a great number of sons and sons' sons, a hundred and fifty. All these were the sons of Benjamin.

9So all Israel was listed by their families; and, truly, they are recorded in the book of the kings of Israel. And Judah was taken away as prisoners to Babylon because of their sin.

²Now the first to take up their heritage in their towns were: Israel, the priests, the Levites, and the Nethinim.

³And in Jerusalem there were living some of the sons of Judah, and of Benjamin, and of Ephraim and Manasseh;

⁴Uthai, the son of Ammihud, the son of Omri, the son of Imri, the son of Bani, of the sons of Perez, the son of Judah.

⁵And of the Shilonites: Asaiah the oldest, and his sons.

⁶And of the sons of Zerah: Jeuel, and their brothers, six hundred and ninety.

⁷And of the sons of Benjamin: Sallu, the son of Meshullam, Judah, the son of Hassenuah,

⁸And Ibneiah, the son of Jeroham, and Elah, the son of Uzzi, the son of Michri, and Meshullam, the son of Shephatiah, the son of Reuel, the son of Ibnijah;

⁹And their brothers, in the list of their generations, nine hundred and fifty-six. All these men were heads of families, listed by the names of their fathers.

¹⁰And of the priests: Jedaiah and Jehoiarib and Jachin

¹¹And Azariah, the son of Hilkiah, the son of Meshullam, the son of Zadok, the son of Meraioth, the son of Ahitub, the ruler of the house of God;

¹²And Adaiah, the son of Jeroham, the son of Pashhur, the son of Malchijah, and Maasai, the son of Adiel, the son of Jahzerah, the son of Meshullam, the son of Meshillemith, the son of Immer;

¹³And their brothers, heads of their families, a thousand and seven hundred and sixty: able men, doing the work of the house of God.

¹⁴And of the Levites: Shemaiah, the son of Hasshub, the son of Azrikam, the son of Hashabiah, of the sons of Merari;

¹⁵And Bakbakkar, Heresh, and Galal, and Mattaniah, the son of Mica, the son of Zichri, the son of Asaph;

¹⁶And Obadiah, the son of Shemaiah, the son of Galal, the son of Jeduthun, and Berechiah, the son of Asa, the son of Elkanah, who were living in the small towns of the Netophathites.

¹⁷And the door-keepers: Shallum and Akkub and Talmon and Ahiman and their brothers: Shallum was the chief.

¹⁸Up till then they had been at the king's door to the east. They were door-keepers for the tents of the sons of Levi.

¹⁹And Shallum, the son of Kore, the son of Ebiasaph, the son of Korah, and his brothers, of his family, the Korahites, were responsible for everything which had to be done in connection with the order of worship, keepers of the doors of the Tent; their fathers had had the care of the tents of the Lord, being keepers of the doorway.

²⁰In the past Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, had been ruler over them; may the Lord be with him!

²¹Zechariah, the son of Meshelemiah, was keeper of the door of the Tent of meeting.

²²There were two hundred and twelve whose business it was to keep the doorway. These were listed by families in the country places where they were living, whom David and Samuel the seer put in their responsible positions.

²³So they and their sons had the care of the doors of the house of the Lord, the house of the Tent, as watchers.

²⁴There were keepers of the doors on the four sides, to the east, west, north, and south.

²⁵And their brothers, in the country places where they were living, were to come in every seven days to be with them from time to time.

²⁶For the four chief door-keepers, who were Levites, had a special position, looking after the rooms and the store-houses of the house of God.

²⁷Their sleeping-rooms were round the house of God, for they had the care of it, and were responsible for opening it morning by morning.

²⁸Certain of them had the care of the vessels used in worship, to keep an account of them when they came in and when they were taken out again.

²⁹And some of them were responsible for the holy things and for the vessels of the holy place, and the meal and the wine and the oil and the perfume and the spices.

³⁰And some of the sons of the priests were responsible for crushing the spices.

³¹And Mattithiah, one of the Levites, the oldest son of Shallum the Korahite, was responsible for cooking the flat cakes.

³²And some of their brothers, sons of the Kohathites, were responsible for the holy bread which was put in order before the Lord, to get it ready every Sabbath.

³³And these were those who had the ordering of the music and songs, heads of families of the Levites, who were living in the rooms, and were free from other work, for their work went on day and night.

³⁴These were heads of families of the Levites in their generations, chief men; they were living at Jerusalem.

³⁵And in Gibeon was living the father of Gibeon, Jeiel, whose wife's name was Maacah;

³⁶And Abdon his oldest son, and Zur and Kish and Baal and Ner and Nadab

³⁷And Gedor and Ahio and Zechariah and Mikloth

³⁸Mikloth was the father of Shimeam. They were living with their brothers in Jerusalem opposite their brothers.

³⁹And Ner was the father of Kish; and Kish was the father of Saul; and Saul was the father of Jonathan and Malchi-shua and Abinadab and Eshbaal.

⁴⁰And the son of Jonathan was Merib-baal; and Merib-baal was the father of Micah.

⁴¹And the sons of Micah: Pithon and Melech and Tahrea and Ahaz.

⁴²And Ahaz was the father of Jarah; and Jarah was the father of Alemeth and Azmaveth and Zimri; and Zimri was the father of Moza.

⁴³And Moza was the father of Binea; and Rephaiah was his son, Eleasah his son, Azel his son.

⁴⁴And Azel had five sons, whose names are: Azrikam, his oldest son, and Ishmael and Sheariah and Obadiah and Hanan: these were the sons of Azel.

10Now the Philistines were fighting against Israel; and the men of Israel went in flight before the Philistines, falling down wounded in Mount Gilboa.

²And the Philistines went hard after Saul and his sons, and put to death Jonathan and Abinadab and Malchi-shua, the sons of Saul.

³And the fight was going against Saul, and the archers came across him, and he was wounded by the archers.

⁴Then Saul said to the servant who had the care of his arms, Take your sword and put it through me, before these men without circumcision come and make sport of me. But his servant, full of fear, would not do so. Then Saul took out his sword, falling on it himself.

⁵And when his servant saw that Saul was dead, he did the same, and came to his death.

⁶So death overtook Saul and his three sons; all his family came to an end together.

⁷And when all the men of Israel who were in the valley saw that the men of Israel had gone in flight and that Saul and his sons were dead, they went in flight away from their towns; and the Philistines came and took them for themselves.

⁸Now the day after, when the Philistines came to take their goods from the dead, they saw Saul and his sons dead in Mount Gilboa.

⁹And they took everything off him, and took his head and his war-dress, and sent word into the land of the Philistines round about to give the news to their gods and to the people.

¹⁰And they put his war-dress in the house of their gods, and put up his head in the house of Dagon.

¹¹And when the news came to Jabesh-gilead of what the Philistines had done to Saul,

¹²All the fighting-men came up and took away Saul's body and the bodies of his sons, and took them to Jabesh, and put their bones to rest under the oak-tree in Jabesh, and took no food for seven days.

¹³So death came to Saul because of the sin which he did against the Lord, that is, because of the word of the Lord which he kept not; and because he went for directions to one who had an evil spirit,

¹⁴And not to the Lord: for this reason, he put him to death and gave the kingdom to David, the son of Jesse.

11Then all Israel came together to David at Hebron, and said, Truly, we are your bone and your flesh.

²In the past, when Saul was king, it was you who went at the head of Israel when they went out or came in; and the Lord your God said to you, You are to be the keeper of my people Israel, and their ruler.

³So all the responsible men of Israel came to the king at Hebron; and David made an agreement with them in Hebron before the Lord; and they put the holy oil on David and made him king over Israel, as the Lord had said by Samuel.

⁴Then David and all Israel went to Jerusalem (which is Jebus); and the Jebusites, the people of the land, were there.

⁵And the people of Jebus said to David, You will not come in here. But still, David took the strong place of Zion, which is the town of David.

⁶And David said, The first to overcome the Jebusites will be chief and captain. And Joab, the son of Zeruiah, went up first, and became chief.

⁷And David took the strong tower for his living-place, so it was named the town of David.

⁸And he took in hand the building of the town all round, starting from the Millo; and Joab put the rest of the town in order.

⁹And David became greater and greater in power, because the Lord of armies was with him.

¹⁰Now these are the chief of David's men of war who were his strong supporters in the kingdom, and, with all Israel, made him king, as the Lord had said about Israel.

¹¹This is the list of David's men of war: Ishbaal, the son of a Hachmonite, the chief of the three: he put to death three hundred at one time with his spear.

¹²And after him was Eleazar, the son of Dodo the Ahohite, who was one of the three great fighters.

¹³He was with David at Pas-dammim, where the Philistines had come together for the fight, near a bit of land full of barley; and the people went in flight before the Philistines.

¹⁴And he took up his position in the middle of the bit of land, and kept back their attack, and overcame the Philistines; and the Lord gave a great salvation.

¹⁵And three of the thirty went down to David, to the rock, into the strong place of Adullam; and the army of the Philistines had taken up their position in the valley of Rephaim.

¹⁶At that time David had taken cover in the strong place, and an armed force of the Philistines was in Beth-lehem.

¹⁷And David, moved by a strong desire, said, If only someone would give me a drink of the water from the water-hole of Beth-lehem by the doorway into the town!

¹⁸So the three, forcing a way through the Philistine army, got water from the water-hole of Beth-lehem, by the doorway into the town, and took it back to David; but David would not take it, but made an offering of it, draining it out to the Lord,

¹⁹Saying, By my God, far be it from me to do this! How may I take as drink the life-blood of these men who have put their lives in danger? so he did not take it. These things did the three great men of war.

²⁰And Abishai, the brother of Joab, was chief of the thirty, for he put to death three hundred with his spear, but he had not a name among the three.

²¹Of the thirty, he was the noblest, and was made their captain, but he was not equal to the first three.

²²Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, a fighting-man of Kabzeel, had done great acts; he put to death two young lions going into their secret place; and he went down into a hole and put a lion to death in time of snow.

²³And he made an attack on an Egyptian, a very tall man about five cubits high, armed with a spear like a cloth-worker's rod; he went down to him with a stick, and pulling his spear out of the hand of the Egyptian, put him to death with that same spear.

²⁴These were the acts of Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, who had a great name among the thirty men of war.

²⁵He was honoured over the thirty, but he was not equal to the first three: and David put him over his servants.

²⁶And these were the great men of war: Asahel, the brother of Joab, Elhanan, the son of Dodo of Beth-lehem,

²⁷Shammoth the Harodite, Helez the Pelonite,

²⁸Ira, the son of Ikkesh the Tekoite, Abiezer the Anathothite,

²⁹Sibbecai the Hushathite, Ilai the Ahohite,

³⁰Maharai the Netophathite, Heled, the son of Baanah the Netophathite,

³¹Ithai, the son of Ribai of Gibeah, of the children of Benjamin, Benaiah the Pirathonite,

³²Hurai of Nahale-gaash, Abiel the Arbathite,

³³Azmaveth of Bahurim, Eliahba the Shaalbonite,

³⁴The sons of Hashem the Gizonite, Jonathan, the son of Shage the Hararite,

³⁵Ahiam, the son of Sacar the Hararite, Eliphal, the son of Ur,

³⁶Hepher the Mecherathite, Ahijah the Pelonite,

³⁷Hezro the Carmelite, Naarai, the son of Ezbai,

³⁸Joel, the brother of Nathan, Mibhar, the son of Hagri,

³⁹Zelek the Ammonite, and Naharai the Berothite, the servant who had the care of the arms of Joab, the son of Zeruiah;

⁴⁰Ira the Ithrite, Gareb the Ithrite,

⁴¹Uriah the Hittite, Zabad, the son of Ahlai,

⁴²Adina, the son of Shiza the Reubenite, a chief of the Reubenites, and thirty with him;

⁴³Hanan, the son of Maacah, and Joshaphat the Mithnite,

⁴⁴Uzzia the Ashterathite, Shama and Jeiel, the sons of Hotham the Aroerite,

⁴⁵Jediael, the son of Shimri, and Joha his brother, the Tizite,

⁴⁶Eliel the Mahavite, and Jeribai and Joshaviah, the sons of Elnaam, and Ithmah the Moabite,

⁴⁷Eliel and Obed, and Jaasiel the Mezobaite.

12Now these are the men who came to David at Ziklag, while he was still shut up, because of Saul, the son of Kish; they were among the strong men, his helpers in war.

²They were armed with bows, and were able to send stones, and arrows from the bow, with right hand or left: they were Saul's brothers, of Benjamin.

³Ahiezer was their chief, then Joash, the sons of Shemaah the Gibeathite; and Jeziel and Pelet, the sons of Azmaveth; and Beracah and Jehu the Anathothite;

⁴And Ishmaiah the Gibeonite, a great man among the thirty, and their chief; and Jeremiah and Jehaziel and Johanan and Jozabad the Gederathite;

⁵Eluzai and Jerimoth and Bealiah and Shemariah and Shephatiah the Haruphite;

⁶Elkanah and Isshiah and Azarel and Joezer and Jashobeam, the Korahites;

⁷And Joelah and Zebadiah, the sons of Jeroham of Gedor.

⁸And some of the Gadites, siding with David, went to his strong place in the waste land, great and strong men, trained for war, expert in the use of arms, whose faces were like the faces of lions, and they were quick-footed like roes on the mountains;

⁹Ezer their chief, Obadiah the second, Eliab the third,

¹⁰Mishmannah the fourth, Jeremiah the fifth,

¹¹Attai the sixth, Eliel the seventh,

¹²Johanan the eighth, Elzabad the ninth,

¹³Jeremiah the tenth, Machbannai the eleventh.

¹⁴These Gadites were captains of the army; the least of them was captain over a hundred men, and the greatest over a thousand.

¹⁵It was they who went over Jordan in the first month, when the river was overflowing, and put to flight all the people of the valleys, to the east and to the west.

¹⁶And some of the children of Benjamin and Judah came to David in his strong place.

¹⁷And David went out to them, and said to them, If you have come in peace to give me help, my heart will be united with yours; but if you have come to give me up to those who would take my life, though my hands are clean from wrongdoing, then may the God of our fathers see it and give you punishment.

¹⁸Then the spirit came on Amasai, who was chief of the captains, and he said, We are yours, David, we are on your side, O son of Jesse: may peace be with you and peace be with your helpers; for God is your helper. Then David took them into his army and made them captains of the band.

¹⁹And some of the men of Manasseh came over to David, when he went with the Philistines to the war against Saul, but he gave them no help: for the lords of the Philistines, after discussion, sent him away, saying, He will go back to his master Saul, at the price of our lives.

²⁰Then when he went back to Ziklag, there came over to him, of the men of Manasseh, Adnah and Jozabad and Jediael and Michael and Jozabad and Elihu and Zillethai, captains of thousands from the armies of Manasseh.

²¹And they gave David help against the armed bands, for they were all great men of war, and captains in the army.

²²And from day to day more supporters came to David, till he had a great army like the army of God.

²³These are the numbers of the chiefs of the armed men, ready for war, who came to David at Hebron, to give the kingdom of Saul into his hands, as the Lord had said.

²⁴There were six thousand, eight hundred spearmen of the children of Judah, armed for war;

²⁵Seven thousand, one hundred of the children of Simeon, great men of war;

²⁶Of the children of Levi, four thousand, six hundred.

²⁷And Jehoiada, chief of the family of Aaron, and with him three thousand, seven hundred men;

²⁸And Zadok, a young man, great and strong in war, with twenty-two captains from his father's people.

²⁹And of the children of Benjamin, the brothers of Saul, three thousand; for up to that time the greater part of them had been true to Saul.

³⁰And of the children of Ephraim, twenty thousand, eight hundred great men of war, men of great name in their families.

³¹And from the half-tribe of Manasseh, eighteen thousand, listed by name, came to make David king.

³²And of the children of Issachar, there were two hundred chiefs, men who had expert knowledge of the times and what it was best for Israel to do, and all their brothers were under their orders.

³³Of Zebulun, there were fifty thousand men, who went out with the army, expert in ordering the fight, to give help with all sorts of arms; true-hearted men.

³⁴And of Naphtali, a thousand captains with thirty-seven thousand spearmen.

³⁵And of the Danites, twenty-eight thousand, six hundred, expert in ordering the fight.

³⁶And of Asher, forty thousand who went out with the army, expert in ordering the fight.

³⁷From the other side of Jordan, there were a hundred and twenty thousand of the Reubenites and the Gadites and the men of the half-tribe of Manasseh, armed with every sort of instrument of war.

³⁸All these men of war, expert in ordering the fight, came to Hebron with the full purpose of making David king over all Israel; and all the rest of Israel were united in their desire to make David king.

³⁹For three days they were there with David, feasting at his table, for their brothers had made ready food for them.

⁴⁰And those who were near, as far as Issachar and Zebulun and Naphtali, came with food on asses and camels and mules and oxen, with meal for food and cakes of figs and masses of grapes, and wine and oil and oxen and sheep in great numbers, for there was joy in Israel.

13Then David had discussions with the captains of thousands and the captains of hundreds and with every chief.

²And David said to all the men of Israel who had come together there, If it seems good to you and if it is the purpose of the Lord our God, let us send to all the rest of our brothers, everywhere in the land of Israel, and to the priests and the Levites in their towns and the country round them, and get them to come together here to us;

³And let us get back for ourselves the ark of our God: for in the days of Saul we did not go to it for directions.

⁴And all the people said they would do so, for it seemed right to them.

⁵So David sent for all Israel to come together, from Shihor, the river of Egypt, as far as the way into Hamath, to get the ark of God from Kiriath-jearim.

⁶And David went up, with all Israel, to Baalah, that is, to Kiriath-jearim in Judah, to get up from there the ark of God, over which the holy Name is named, the name of the Lord whose place is between the winged ones.

⁷And they put the ark of God on a new cart, and took it out of the house of Abinadab; and Uzza and Ahio were the drivers of the cart.

⁸Then David and all Israel made melody before God with all their strength, with songs and corded instruments of music, and with brass instruments and horns.

⁹And when they came to the grain-floor of Chidon, Uzza put out his hand to keep the ark in its place, for the oxen were slipping.

¹⁰And the wrath of the Lord, burning against Uzza, sent destruction on him because he had put his hand on the ark, and death came to him there before God.

¹¹And David was angry because of the Lord's outburst of wrath against Uzza, and he gave that place the name Perez-uzza, to this day.

¹²And so great was David's fear of God that day, that he said, How may I let the ark of God come to me?

¹³So David did not let the ark come back to him to the town of David, but had it turned away and put into the house of Obed-edom the Gittite.

¹⁴And the ark of God was in the house of Obed-edom for three months; and the Lord sent a blessing on the house of Obed-edom and on all he had.

14And Hiram, king of Tyre, sent men to David with cedar-trees, and stoneworkers and woodworkers for the building of his house.

²And David saw that the Lord had made his position safe as king over Israel, lifting up his kingdom on high because of his people Israel.

³And while he was living in Jerusalem, David took more wives and became the father of more sons and daughters.

⁴These are the names of the children he had in Jerusalem: Shammua and Shobab, Nathan and Solomon

⁵And Ibhar and Elishua and Elpelet

⁶And Nogah and Nepheg and Japhia

⁷And Elishama and Beeliada and Eliphelet.

⁸And when the Philistines had news that David had been made king over all Israel, they went up in search of David, and David, hearing of it, went out against them.

⁹Now the Philistines had come, and had gone out in every direction in the valley of Rephaim.

¹⁰And David, desiring directions from God, said, Am I to go up against the Philistines? and will you give them into my hands? And the Lord said, Go up; for I will give them into your hands.

¹¹So they went up to Baal-perazim, and David overcame them there, and David said, God has let the forces fighting against me be broken by my hand, as a wall is broken down by rushing water; so they gave that place the name of Baal-perazim.

¹²And the Philistines did not take their images with them in their flight; and at David's orders they were burned with fire.

¹³Then the Philistines again went out in every direction in the valley.

¹⁴And David went for directions to God; and God said to him, You are not to go up after them; but, turning away from them, come face to face with them opposite the spice-trees.

¹⁵And at the sound of footsteps in the tops of the trees, go out to the fight, for God has gone out before you to overcome the army of the Philistines.

¹⁶And David did as the Lord had said; and they overcame the army of the Philistines, attacking them from Gibeon as far as Gezer.

¹⁷And David's name was honoured in all lands; and the Lord put the fear of him on all nations.

15And David made houses for himself in the town of David; and he got ready a place for the ark of God, and put up a tent for it.

²Then David said, The ark of God may not be moved by any but the Levites, for they have been marked out by God to take the ark of God, and to do his work for ever.

³And David made all Israel come together at Jerusalem, to take the ark of the Lord to its place, which he had got ready for it.

⁴And David got together the sons of Aaron, and the Levites;

⁵Of the sons of Kohath: Uriel the chief, and his brothers, a hundred and twenty;

⁶Of the sons of Merari: Asaiah the chief, and his brothers, two hundred and twenty;

⁷Of the sons of Gershom: Joel the chief, and his brothers, a hundred and thirty;

⁸Of the sons of Elizaphan: Shemaiah the chief, and his brothers, two hundred;

⁹Of the sons of Hebron: Eliel the chief, and his brothers, eighty;

¹⁰Of the sons of Uzziel: Amminadab the chief, and his brothers, a hundred and twelve.

¹¹And David sent for Zadok and Abiathar the priests, and for the Levites, Uriel, Asaiah and Joel, Shemaiah and Eliel and Amminadab,

¹²And said to them, You are the heads of the families of the Levites: make yourselves holy, you and your brothers, so that you may take the ark of the Lord, the God of Israel, to the place which I have made ready for it.

¹³For because you did not take it at the first, the Lord our God sent punishment on us, because we did not get directions from him in the right way.

¹⁴So the priests and the Levites made themselves holy to take up the ark of the Lord, the God of Israel.

¹⁵And the sons of the Levites took up the ark of God, lifting it by its rods, as the Lord had said to Moses.

¹⁶And David gave orders to the chief of the Levites to put their brothers the music-makers in position, with instruments of music, corded instruments and brass, with glad voices making sounds of joy.

¹⁷So Heman, the son of Joel, and, of his brothers, Asaph, the son of Berechiah; and of the sons of Merari their brothers, Ethan, the son of Kushaiah, were put in position by the Levites;

¹⁸And with them their brothers of the second order, Zechariah, Bani and Jaaziel and Shemiramoth and Jehiel and Unni, Eliab and Benaiah and Maaseiah and Mattithiah and Eliphelehu and Mikneiah, and Obed-edom and Jeiel, the door-keepers.

¹⁹So those who made melody, Heman, Asaph, and Ethan, were put in position, with brass instruments, sounding loudly;

²⁰And Zechariah and Aziel and Shemiramoth and Jehiel, Unni and Eliab and Maaseiah and Benaiah, with corded instruments put to Alamoth.

²¹And Mattithiah and Eliphelehu and Mikneiah and Obed-edom and Jeiel and Azaziah, with corded instruments on the octave, to give the first note of the song.

²²And Chenaniah, chief of the Levites, was master of the music: he gave directions about the song, because he was expert.

²³And Berechiah and Elkanah were door-keepers for the ark.

²⁴And Shebaniah and Joshaphat and Nethanel and Amasai and Zechariah and Benaiah and Eliezer, the priests, made music on the horns before the ark of God; and Obed-edom and Jehiah were door-keepers for the ark.

²⁵So David, and the responsible men of Israel, and the captains over thousands, went with joy to get the ark of the agreement of the Lord out of the house of Obed-edom.

²⁶And when God gave help to the Levites who were lifting up the ark of the agreement of the Lord, they made an offering of seven oxen and seven sheep.

²⁷And David was clothed with a robe of fair linen, as were all the Levites who took up the ark, and those who made melody, and Chenaniah the master of those who made melody; and David had on a linen ephod;

²⁸So all Israel took up the ark of the agreement of the Lord, with loud cries and with horns and brass and corded instruments sounding loudly.

²⁹And when the ark of the agreement of the Lord came into the town of David, Michal, the daughter of Saul, looking out of the window, saw King David dancing and playing; and to her mind he seemed foolish.

16Then they took in the ark of God and put it inside the tent which David had put up for it; and they made offerings, burned offerings and peace-offerings before God.

²And when David had come to an end of making the burned offerings and peace-offerings, he gave the people a blessing in the name of the Lord.

³And he gave to everyone, every man and woman of Israel, a cake of bread, some meat, and a cake of dry grapes.

⁴And he put some of the Levites before the ark of the Lord as servants, to keep the acts of the Lord in memory, and to give worship and praise to the Lord, the God of Israel:

⁵Asaph the chief, and second to him Zechariah, Uzziel and Shemiramoth and Jehiel and Mattithiah and Eliab and Benaiah and Obed-edom and Jeiel, with corded instruments of music; and Asaph, with brass instruments sounding loudly;

⁶And Benaiah and Jahaziel the priests, blowing horns all the time before the ark of the agreement of God.

⁷Then on that day David first made the giving of praise to the Lord the work of Asaph and his brothers.

⁸O give praise to the Lord; give honour to his name, talking of his doings among the peoples.

⁹Let your voice be sounded in songs and melody; let all your thoughts be of the wonder of his works.

¹⁰Have glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who are searching after the Lord be glad.

¹¹Let your search be for the Lord and for his strength; let your hearts ever be turned to him.

¹²Keep in mind the great works which he has done; his wonders, and the decisions of his mouth;

¹³O you seed of Israel his servant, you children of Jacob, his loved ones.

¹⁴He is the Lord our God: he is judge of all the earth.

¹⁵He has kept his agreement in mind for ever, the word which he gave for a thousand generations;

¹⁶The agreement which he made with Abraham, and his oath to Isaac;

¹⁷And he gave it to Jacob for a law, and to Israel for an eternal agreement;

¹⁸Saying, To you will I give the land of Canaan, the measured line of your heritage:

¹⁹When you were still small in number, and strange in the land;

²⁰When they went about from one nation to another, and from one kingdom to another people;

²¹He would not let anyone do them wrong; he even kept back kings because of them,

²²Saying, Put not your hand on those who have been marked with my holy oil, and do my prophets no wrong.

²³Make songs to the Lord, all the earth; give the good news of his salvation day by day.

²⁴Make clear his glory to the nations, and his wonders to all the peoples.

²⁵For the Lord is great, and greatly to be praised; and he is more to be feared than all other gods.

²⁶For all the gods of the nations are false gods; but the Lord made the heavens.

²⁷Honour and glory are before him: strength and joy are in his holy place.

²⁸Give to the Lord, O you families of the peoples, give to the Lord glory and strength.

²⁹Give to the Lord the glory of his name; take with you an offering and come before him; give worship to the Lord in holy robes.

³⁰Be in fear before him, all the earth: the world is ordered so that it may not be moved.

³¹Let the heavens have joy and let the earth be glad; let them say among the nations, The Lord is King.

³²Let the sea be thundering with all its waters; let the field be glad, and everything which is in it;

³³Then let all the trees of the wood be sounding with joy before the Lord, for he is come to be the judge of the earth.

³⁴O give praise to the Lord, for he is good: for his mercy is unchanging for ever.

³⁵And say, Be our saviour, O God of our salvation, and let us come back, and give us salvation from the nations, so that we may give honour to your holy name and have glory in your praise.

³⁶Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, for ever and for ever. And all the people said, So be it; and gave praise to the Lord.

³⁷So he made Asaph and his brothers keep their places there before the ark of the agreement of the Lord, to do whatever had to be done before the ark at all times day by day:

³⁸And Obed-edom, the son of Jeduthun, and Hosah, with their brothers, sixty-eight of them, to be door-keepers:

³⁹And Zadok the priest, with his brothers the priests, before the House of the Lord in the high place at Gibeon;

⁴⁰To give burned offerings to the Lord on the altar of burned offerings morning and evening, every day, as it is ordered in the law of the Lord which he gave to Israel;

⁴¹And with them Heman and Jeduthun, and the rest who were marked out by name to give praise to the Lord, for his mercy is unchanging for ever;

⁴²And Heman and Jeduthun had horns and brass instruments sounding loudly, and instruments of music for the songs of God; and the sons of Jeduthun were to be at the door.

⁴³And all the people went away, every man to his house; and David went back to give a blessing to his family.

17Now when David was living in his house, he said to Nathan the prophet, See, I am living in a house of cedar-wood, but the ark of the Lord's agreement is under the curtains of a tent.

²And Nathan said to David, Do whatever is in your heart, for God is with you.

³But that same night, the word of God came to Nathan, saying,

⁴Go and say to David my servant, The Lord says, You are not to make me a house for my living-place:

⁵For from the day when I took Israel up, till this day, I have had no house, but have gone from tent to tent, and from living-place to living-place.

⁶In all the places where I have gone with all Israel, did I ever say to any of the judges of Israel, whom I made the keepers of my people, Why have you not made for me a house of cedar?

⁷So now, say to my servant David, The Lord of armies says, I took you from the fields, from keeping sheep, so that you might be a ruler over my people Israel;

⁸And I have been with you wherever you went, cutting off before you all those who were against you; and I will make your name like the name of the greatest ones of the earth.

⁹And I will make a resting-place for my people Israel, planting them there, so that they may be in the place which is theirs and never again be moved; and never again will they be made waste by evil men, as they were at first,

¹⁰From the time when I put judges over my people Israel; and I will overcome all those who are against you; and I will make you great and the head of a line of kings.

¹¹And when the time comes for you to go to your fathers, I will put in your place your seed after you, one of your sons, and I will make his kingdom strong.

¹²He will be the builder of my house, and I will make the seat of his authority certain for ever.

¹³I will be to him a father and he will be to me a son; and I will not take my mercy away from him as I took it from him who was before you;

¹⁴But I will make his place in my house and in my kingdom certain for ever; and the seat of his authority will never be overturned.

¹⁵So Nathan gave David an account of all these words and this vision.

¹⁶Then David the king went in and took his seat before the Lord, and said, Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my family, that you have been my guide till now?

¹⁷And this was only a small thing to you, O God; but your words have even been about the far-off future of your servant's family, looking on me as on one of high position, O Lord God.

¹⁸What more may David say to you? for you have knowledge of your servant.

¹⁹O Lord, because of your servant, and from your heart, you have done all these great things and let them be seen.

²⁰O Lord, there is no one like you, and no other God but you, as is clear from everything which has come to our ears.

²¹And what other nation in the earth, like your people Israel, did a god go out to take for himself, to be his people, making his name great and to be feared, driving out the nations from before your people whom you made free and took out of Egypt?

²²For your people Israel you made yours for ever; and you, Lord, became their God.

²³And now, Lord, let your words about your servant and about his family be made certain for ever, and do as you have said.

²⁴So let your words be made certain and your name be made great, when men say, The Lord of armies is the God of Israel; and when the family of David your servant is made strong before you.

²⁵For you, O my God, have let your servant see that you will make him head of a line of kings; and so it has come into your servant's heart to make his prayer to you.

²⁶And now, O Lord, you are God, and you have said you will give this good thing to your servant:

²⁷And now you have been pleased to give your blessing to the family of your servant, so that it may go on for ever before you; you, O Lord, have given your blessing, and a blessing will be on it for ever.

18And it came about after this that David made an attack on the Philistines and overcame them, and took Gath with its daughter-towns out of the hands of the Philistines.

²And he overcame Moab, and the Moabites became his servants and gave him offerings.

³Then David overcame Hadadezer, king of Zobah, near Hamath, when he was going to make his power seen by the river Euphrates.

⁴And David took from him a thousand war-carriages and seven thousand horsemen and twenty thousand footmen: and he had the leg-muscles of all the horses cut, keeping only enough of them for a hundred war-carriages.

⁵And when the Aramaeans of Damascus came to the help of Hadadezer, king of Zobah, David put to the sword twenty-two thousand Aramaeans.

⁶Then David put armed forces in Damascus, and the Aramaeans became his servants and gave him offerings. And the Lord made David overcome wherever he went.

⁷And the gold body-covers of the servants of Hadadezer, David took to Jerusalem.

⁸And from Tibhath and from Cun, towns of Hadadezer, David took a great store of brass, of which Solomon made the great brass water-vessel and the brass pillars and vessels.

⁹Now when Tou, king of Hamath, had news that David had overcome all the army of Hadadezer, king of Zobah,

¹⁰He sent his son Hadoram to King David, to give him words of peace and blessing, because he had overcome Hadadezer in the fight, for Hadadezer had been at war with Tou; and he gave him all sorts of vessels of gold and silver and brass.

¹¹These King David made holy to the Lord, together with the silver and gold he had taken from all nations; from Edom and Moab and from the children of Ammon and from the Philistines and from Amalek.

¹²And when he came back from putting to the sword eighteen thousand of the Edomites in the Valley of Salt,

¹³David put armed forces in all the towns of Edom; and all the Edomites became servants to David. The Lord made David overcome wherever he went.

¹⁴So David was king over all Israel, judging and giving right decisions for all his people.

¹⁵And Joab, the son of Zeruiah, was chief of the army; and Jehoshaphat, son of Ahilud, was keeper of the records.

¹⁶And Zadok, the son of Ahitub; and Ahimelech, the son of Abiathar, were priests; and Shavsha was the scribe;

¹⁷And Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, was over the Cherethites and the Pelethites; and the sons of David were chief of those whose places were at the king's side.

19Now it came about after this that death came to Nahash, the king of the children of Ammon, and his son became king in his place.

²And David said, I will be a friend to Hanun, the son of Nahash, because his father was a friend to me. So David sent men to him, to give him words of comfort on account of his father. And the servants of David came to Hanun, to the land of the children of Ammon, offering him comfort.

³But the chiefs of the children of Ammon said to Hanun, Does it seem to you that David is honouring your father, by sending comforters to you? is it not clear that these men have only come to go through the land and to make secret observation of it so that they may overcome it?

⁴So Hanun took David's servants, and cutting off their hair and the skirts of their robes up to the middle, sent them away.

⁵Then certain men went and gave David word of what had been done to them. And he sent out with the purpose of meeting them; for the men were greatly shamed. And the king said, Keep where you are at Jericho till your hair is long again, and then come back.

⁶And when the children of Ammon saw that they had made themselves hated by David, Hanun and the children of Ammon sent a thousand talents of silver as payment for war-carriages and horsemen from Mesopotamia and Aram-maacah and Zobah.

⁷So with this money they got thirty-two thousand war-carriages, and the help of the king of Maacah and his people, who came and took up their position in front of Medeba. And the children of Ammon came together from their towns for the fight.

⁸And David, hearing of it, sent Joab with all the army of fighting-men.

⁹So the children of Ammon came out and put their forces in position on the way into the town; and the kings who had come were stationed by themselves in the field.

¹⁰Now when Joab saw that their forces were in position against him in front and at his back, he took all the best men of Israel, and put them in line against the Aramaeans;

¹¹And the rest of the people he put in position against the children of Ammon with Abishai, his brother, at their head.

¹²And he said, If the Aramaeans are stronger and get the better of me, then come to my help; and if the children of Ammon get the better of you, I will come to your help.

¹³Take heart, and let us be strong for our people and for the towns of our God; and may the Lord do what seems good to him.

¹⁴So Joab and the people who were with him went forward into the fight against the Aramaeans, and they went in flight before him.

¹⁵And when the children of Ammon saw the flight of the Aramaeans, they themselves went in flight from Abishai, his brother, and came into the town. Then Joab came back to Jerusalem.

¹⁶And when the Aramaeans saw that Israel had overcome them, they sent men to get the Aramaeans who were on the other side of the River, with Shophach, the captain of Hadadezer's army, at their head.

¹⁷And word of this was given to David; and he got all Israel together and went over Jordan and came to Helam and put his forces in position against them. And when David's forces were in position against the Aramaeans, the fight was started.

¹⁸And the Aramaeans went in flight before Israel; and David put to the sword the men of seven thousand Aramaean war-carriages and forty thousand footmen, and put to death Shophach, the captain of the army.

¹⁹And when the servants of Hadadezer saw that they were overcome by Israel, they made peace with David and became his servants: and the Aramaeans would give no more help to the children of Ammon.

20Now in the spring, at the time when kings go out to war, Joab went out at the head of the armed forces and made waste all the land of the Ammonites and put his men in position before Rabbah, shutting it in. But David was still at Jerusalem. And Joab took Rabbah and made it waste.

²And David took the crown of Milcom from off his head; its weight was a talent of gold and it had stones of great price in it; and it was put on David's head, and he took a great store of goods from the town.

³And he took the people out of the town and put them to work with wood-cutting instruments, and iron grain-crushers, and axes. And this he did to all the towns of the children of Ammon. Then David and all the people went back to Jerusalem.

⁴Now after this there was war with the Philistines at Gezer; then Sibbecai the Hushathite put to death Sippai, one of the offspring of the Rephaim; and they were overcome.

⁵And again there was war with the Philistines; and Elhanan, the son of Jair, put to death Lahmi, the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the stem of whose spear was like a cloth-worker's rod.

⁶And again there was war at Gath, where there was a very tall man, who had twenty-four fingers and toes, six fingers on his hands and six toes on his feet; he was one of the offspring of the Rephaim.

⁷And when he put shame on Israel, Jonathan, the son of Shimea, David's brother, put him to death.

⁸These were of the offspring of the Rephaim in Gath; they came to their death by the hands of David and his servants.

21Now Satan, designing evil against Israel, put into David's mind the impulse to take the number of Israel.

²And David said to Joab and the captains of the people, Now let all Israel, from Beer-sheba to Dan, be numbered; and give me word so that I may be certain of their number.

³And Joab said, May the Lord make his people a hundred times more in number than they are; but, my lord king, are they not all my lord's servants? why would my lord have this done? why will he become a cause of sin to Israel?

⁴But the king's word was stronger than Joab's. So Joab went out and went through all Israel and came to Jerusalem.

⁵And Joab gave David the number of all the people; all the men of Israel, able to take up arms, were one million, one hundred thousand men; and those of Judah were four hundred and seventy thousand men, able to take up arms.

⁶But Levi and Benjamin were not numbered among them, for Joab was disgusted with the king's order.

⁷And God was not pleased with this thing; so he sent punishment on Israel.

⁸Then David said to God, Great has been my sin in doing this; but now, be pleased to take away the sin of your servant, for I have done very foolishly.

⁹Then the word of the Lord came to Gad, David's seer, saying,

¹⁰Go and say to David, The Lord says, Three things are offered to you: say which of them you will have, so that I may do it to you.

¹¹So Gad came to David and said to him, The Lord says, Take whichever you will:

¹²Three years when there will not be enough food; or three months of war, when you will go in flight before your haters, being in great danger of the sword; or three days of the sword of the Lord, disease in the land, and the angel of the Lord taking destruction through all the land of Israel. Now give thought to the answer I am to take back to him who sent me.

¹³And David said to Gad, This is a hard decision for me to make: let me come into the hands of the Lord, for great are his mercies: let me not come into the hands of men.

¹⁴So the Lord sent disease on Israel, causing the death of seventy thousand men.

¹⁵And God sent an angel to Jerusalem for its destruction: and when he was about to do so, the Lord saw, and had regret for the evil, and said to the angel of destruction, It is enough; do no more. Now the angel of the Lord was by the grain-floor of Ornan the Jebusite.

¹⁶And David, lifting up his eyes, saw the angel of the Lord there between earth and heaven, with an uncovered sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem. Then David and the responsible men, clothed in haircloth, went down on their faces.

¹⁷And David said to God, Was it not I who gave the order for the people to be numbered? It is I who have done the sin and the great wrong; but these are only sheep; what have they done? let your hand, O Lord God, be lifted up against me and against my family, but not against your people to send disease on them.

¹⁸Then the angel of the Lord gave orders to Gad to say to David that he was to go and put up an altar to the Lord on the grain-floor of Ornan the Jebusite.

¹⁹And David went up, as Gad had said in the name of the Lord.

²⁰And Ornan, turning back, saw the angel, and his four sons who were with him went to a secret place. Now Ornan was crushing his grain.

²¹And when David came, Ornan, looking, saw him, and came out from the grain-floor and went down on his face to the earth before him.

²²Then David said to Ornan, Give me the place where this grain-floor is, so that I may put up an altar here to the Lord: let me have it for its full price; so that this disease may be stopped among the people.

²³And Ornan said to David, Take it, and let my lord the king do what seems right to him. See, I give you the oxen for burned offerings and the grain-cleaning instruments for fire-wood, and the grain for the meal offering; I give it all.

²⁴And King David said to Ornan, No; I will certainly give you the full price for it, because I will not take for the Lord what is yours, or give a burned offering without payment.

²⁵So David gave Ornan six hundred shekels of gold by weight for the place.

²⁶And David put up an altar there to the Lord, offering burned offerings and peace-offerings with prayers to the Lord; and he gave him an answer from heaven, sending fire on the altar of burned offering.

²⁷Then the Lord gave orders to the angel, and he put back his sword into its cover.

²⁸At that time, when David saw that the Lord had given him an answer on the grain-floor of Ornan the Jebusite, he made an offering there.

²⁹For the House of the Lord, which Moses had made in the waste land, and the altar of burned offerings, were at that time in the high place at Gibeon.

³⁰But David was not able to go before it to get directions from the Lord, so great was his fear of the sword of the angel of the Lord.

22Then David said, This is the house of the Lord God, and this is the altar for Israel's burned offerings.

²And David gave orders to get together all the men from strange lands who were in the land of Israel; and he put stone-cutters to work, cutting stones for building the house of God.

³And he got together a great store of iron, for the nails for the doors and for the joins; and brass, more in weight than might be measured;

⁴And cedar-trees without number, for the Zidonians and the men of Tyre came with a great amount of cedar-trees for David.

⁵And David said, Solomon my son is young and untested, and the house which is to be put up for the Lord is to be very great, a thing of wonder and glory through all countries; so I will make ready what is needed for it. So David got ready a great store of material before his death.

⁶Then he sent for his son Solomon, and gave him orders for the building of a house for the Lord, the God of Israel.

⁷And David said to Solomon, My son, it was my desire to put up a house for the name of the Lord my God.

⁸But the word of the Lord came to me saying, You have taken lives without number and made great wars; I will not let you be the builder of a house for my name, because of the lives you have taken on the earth before my eyes.

⁹But you will have a son who will be a man of rest; and I will give him rest from wars on every side. His name will be Solomon, and in his time I will give Israel peace and quiet;

¹⁰He will be the builder of a house for my name; he will be to me a son, and I will be to him a father; and I will make the seat of his rule over Israel certain for ever.

¹¹Now, my son, may the Lord be with you; and may you do well, and put up the house of the Lord your God, as he has said of you.

¹²Only may the Lord give you wisdom, and knowledge of his orders for Israel, so that you may keep the law of the Lord your God.

¹³And all will go well for you, if you take care to keep the laws and the rules which the Lord gave to Moses for Israel: be strong and take heart; have no fear and do not be troubled.

¹⁴Now see, poor though I am, I have got ready for the house of the Lord a hundred thousand talents of gold and a million talents of silver; and a weight of brass and iron greater than may be measured; and wood and stone have I made ready, and you may put more to it.

¹⁵And you have a great number of workmen, cutters and workers of stone and wood, and experts in every sort of work,

¹⁶In gold and silver and brass and iron more than may be numbered. Up! then, and to work; and may the Lord be with you.

¹⁷Then David gave orders to all the chiefs of Israel to give their help to Solomon his son, saying,

¹⁸Is not the Lord your God with you? and has he not given you rest on every side? for the Lord has given the people of the land into my hands, and the land is overcome before the Lord and before his people.

¹⁹Now give your heart and soul to the worship of the Lord your God; and get to work on the building of the holy place of the Lord God, so that you may put the ark of the Lord's agreement and the holy vessels of God in the house which is to be made for the name of the Lord.

23Now David was old and full of days; and he made his son Solomon king over Israel.

²And he got together all the chiefs of Israel, with the priests and the Levites.

³And the Levites, all those of thirty years old and over, were numbered; and the number of them, by heads, man by man, was thirty-eight thousand.

⁴Of these, twenty-four thousand were to be overseers of the work of the house of the Lord, and six thousand were judges and men of authority;

⁵Four thousand were door-keepers; and four thousand gave praise to the Lord with the instruments which I made, said David, for giving praise.

⁶And David put them into divisions under the names of the sons of Levi: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari.

⁷Of the Gershonites: Ladan and Shimei.

⁸The sons of Ladan: Jehiel the chief, and Zetham and Joel, three.

⁹The sons of Shimei: Shelomoth and Haziel and Haran, three; these were the heads of the families of Ladan.

¹⁰And the sons of Shimei: Jahath, Zizah and Jeush and Beriah; these four were the sons of Shimei.

¹¹Jahath was the chief and Zizah the second; but Jeush and Beriah had only a small number of sons, so they were grouped together as one family.

¹²The sons of Kohath: Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel, four.

¹³The sons of Amram: Aaron and Moses; and Aaron was made separate and holy, he and his sons for ever, for the care of the most holy things and the burning of offerings before the Lord, to do his work and give blessings in his name for ever.

¹⁴And the sons of Moses, the man of God, were put into the list of the tribe of Levi.

¹⁵The sons of Moses: Gershom and Eliezer.

¹⁶The sons of Gershom: Shebuel the first.

¹⁷And the sons of Eliezer: Rehabiah the first; and Eliezer had no other sons, but Rehabiah had a great number.

¹⁸The sons of Izhar: Shelomith the first.

¹⁹The sons of Hebron: Jeriah the first, Amariah the second, Jahaziel the third, and Jekameam the fourth.

²⁰The sons of Uzziel: Micah the first, and Isshiah the second.

²¹The sons of Merari: Mahli and Mushi; the sons of Mahli: Eleazar and Kish.

²²And at his death Eleazar had no sons, but only daughters, and their relations, the sons of Kish, took them as wives.

²³The sons of Mushi: Mahli and Eder and Jeremoth, three.

²⁴These were the sons of Levi, grouped by families, the heads of the families of those who were numbered by name, by heads, all those of twenty years old and over who did the work of the house of the Lord.

²⁵For David said, The Lord, the God of Israel, has given his people rest, and he has made his resting-place in Jerusalem for ever;

²⁶And from now, there will be no need for the House of the Lord, and the vessels used in it, to be moved about by the Levites.

²⁷So among the last acts of David was the numbering of the sons of Levi, from twenty years old and over.

²⁸Their place was by the side of the sons of Aaron in all the work of the house of the Lord, in the open spaces and in the rooms, in the making clean of all the holy things, in doing all the work of the house of the Lord,

²⁹The holy bread was in their care, and the crushed grain for the meal offering, of unleavened cakes or meal cooked over the fire or in water; they had control of all sorts of weights and measures;

³⁰They had to take their places every morning to give praise and make melody to the Lord, and in the same way at evening;

³¹At every offering of burned offerings to the Lord, on Sabbaths, and at the new moons, and on the regular feasts, in the number ordered by the law, at all times before the Lord;

³²And they had the care of the Tent of meeting and the holy place, under the direction of the sons of Aaron their brothers, for the work of the house of the Lord.

24Now the divisions into which the sons of Aaron were grouped were these: the sons of Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar.

²But Nadab and Abihu came to their end before their father, and had no children; so Eleazar and Ithamar did the work of priests.

³And David, with Zadok of the sons of Eleazar, and Ahimelech of the sons of Ithamar, made distribution of them into their positions for their work.

⁴And there were more chiefs among the sons of Eleazar than among the sons of Ithamar; and this is how they were grouped: of the sons of Eleazar there were sixteen, all heads of families; and of the sons of Ithamar, heads of families, there were eight.

⁵So they were put into groups, by the Lord's decision, one with another; for there were rulers of the holy place and rulers of the house of God among the sons of Eleazar and the sons of Ithamar.

⁶And Shemaiah, the son of Nethanel the scribe, who was a Levite, put down their names in writing, the king being present with the rulers, and Zadok the priest, and Ahimelech, the son of Abiathar, and the heads of families of the priests and the Levites; one family being taken for Eleazar and then one for Ithamar, and so on.

⁷Now the first name to come out was that of Jehoiarib; the second Jedaiah,

⁸The third Harim, the fourth Seorim,

⁹The fifth Malchijah, the sixth Mijamin,

¹⁰The seventh Hakkoz, the eighth Abijah,

¹¹The ninth Jeshua, the tenth Shecaniah,

¹²The eleventh Eliashib, the twelfth Jakim,

¹³The thirteenth Huppah, the fourteenth Jeshebeab,

¹⁴The fifteenth Bilgah, the sixteenth Immer,

¹⁵The seventeenth Hezir, the eighteenth Happizzez,

¹⁶The nineteenth Pethahiah, the twentieth Jehezkel,

¹⁷The twenty-first Jachin, the twenty-second Gamul,

¹⁸The twenty-third Delaiah, the twenty-fourth Maaziah.

¹⁹So they were put into their different groups, to take their places in the house of the Lord, in agreement with the rules made by Aaron their father, as the Lord, the God of Israel, had given him orders.

²⁰And of the rest of the sons of Levi: of the sons of Amram, Shubael; of the sons of Shubael, Jehdeiah.

²¹Of Rehabiah; of the sons of Rehabiah, Isshiah the chief.

²²Of the Izharites, Shelomoth; of the sons of Shelomoth, Jahath.

²³And the sons of Hebron: Jeriah the chief, Amariah the second, Jahaziel the third, Jekameam the fourth.

²⁴The sons of Uzziel, Micah; of the sons of Micah, Shamir.

²⁵The brother of Micah, Isshiah; of the sons of Isshiah, Zechariah.

²⁶The sons of Merari: Mahli and Mushi; the sons of Jaaziah.

²⁷The sons of Merari: of Jaaziah, Shoham and Zaccur and Ibri.

²⁸Of Mahli: Eleazar, who had no sons.

²⁹Of Kish: the sons of Kish, Jerahmeel.

³⁰And the sons of Mushi: Mahli and Eder and Jerimoth. These were the sons of the Levites by their families.

³¹Selection was made of these in the same way as of their brothers the sons of Aaron, David the king being present, with Zadok, and Ahimelech, and the heads of families of the priests and of the Levites; the families of the chief in the same way as those of his younger brother.

25Further, David and the chiefs of the servants of the holy place made selection of certain of the sons of Asaph and of Heman and of Jeduthun for the work of prophets, to make melody with corded instruments and brass; and the number of the men for the work they had to do was:

²Of the sons of Asaph: Zaccur and Joseph and Nethaniah and Asharelah, sons of Asaph; under the direction of Asaph, acting as a prophet under the orders of the king;

³Of Jeduthun: the six sons of Jeduthun, Gedaliah and Zeri and Jeshaiah, Hashabiah and Mattithiah; under the direction of their father Jeduthun who, acting as a prophet, with corded instruments gave praise and glory to the Lord.

⁴Of Heman, the sons of Heman: Bukkiah, Mattaniah, Uzziel, Shebuel and Jerimoth, Hananiah, Hanani, Eliathah, Giddalti and Romamti-ezer, Joshbekashah, Mallothi, Hothir, Mahazioth;

⁵All these were sons of Heman, the king's seer in the words of God. And to make great his power God gave Heman fourteen sons and three daughters.

⁶All these, under the direction of their father, made music in the house of the Lord, with brass and corded instruments, for the worship of the house of God; Asaph, Jeduthun, and Heman being under the orders of the king.

⁷And the number of them, with their brothers who were trained and expert in making melody to the Lord, was two hundred and eighty-eight.

⁸And selection was made of them for their special work, all having equal chances, small as well as great, the teacher as the learner.

⁹Now of the group of Asaph, the first name to come out was Joseph; the second Gedaliah; he and his brothers and sons were twelve?

¹⁰The third Zaccur, with his sons and his brothers, twelve;

¹¹The fourth Izri, with his sons and his brothers, twelve;

¹²The fifth Nethaniah, with his sons and his brothers, twelve;

¹³The sixth Bukkiah, with his sons and his brothers, twelve;

¹⁴The seventh Jesharelah, with his sons and his brothers, twelve;

¹⁵The eighth Jeshaiah, with his sons and his brothers, twelve;

¹⁶The ninth Mattaniah, with his sons and his brothers, twelve;

¹⁷The tenth Shimei, with his sons and his brothers, twelve;

¹⁸The eleventh Azarel, with his sons and his brothers, twelve;

¹⁹The twelfth Hashabiah, with his sons and his brothers, twelve;

²⁰The thirteenth Shubael, with his sons and his brothers, twelve;

²¹The fourteenth Mattithiah, with his sons and his brothers, twelve;

²²The fifteenth Jeremoth, with his sons and his brothers, twelve;

²³The sixteenth Hananiah, with his sons and his brothers, twelve;

²⁴The seventeenth Joshbekashah, with his sons and his brothers, twelve;

²⁵The eighteenth Hanani, with his sons and his brothers, twelve;

²⁶The nineteenth Mallothi, with his sons and his brothers, twelve;

²⁷The twentieth Eliathah, with his sons and his brothers, twelve;

²⁸The twenty-first Hothir, with his sons and his brothers, twelve;

²⁹The twenty-second Giddalti, with his sons and his brothers, twelve;

³⁰The twenty-third Mahazioth, with his sons and his brothers, twelve;

³¹The twenty-fourth Romamti-ezer, with his sons and his brothers, twelve.

26For the divisions of the door-keepers: of the Korahites, Meshelemiah, the son of Kore, of the sons of Ebiasaph.

²And Meshelemiah had sons: Zechariah the oldest, Jediael the second, Zebadiah the third, Jathniel the fourth,

³Elam the fifth, Jehohanan the sixth, Eliehoenai the seventh.

⁴And Obed-edom had sons: Shemaiah the oldest, Jehozabad the second, Joah the third, and Sacar the fourth, and Nethanel the fifth,

⁵Ammiel the sixth, Issachar the seventh, Peullethai the eighth; for the blessing of God was on him.

⁶And Shemaiah his son had sons, rulers over the family of their father, for they were able men.

⁷The sons of Shemaiah: Othni and Rephael and Obed, Elzabad, whose brothers were great men of war, Elihu and Semachiah.

⁸All these were sons of Obed-edom: they and their sons and their brothers, able men and strong for the work; sixty-two sons of Obed-edom.

⁹Meshelemiah had sons and brothers, eighteen able men.

¹⁰And Hosah, a son of the children of Merari, had sons: Shimri the chief (for though he was not the oldest, his father made him chief);

¹¹Hilkiah the second, Tebaliah the third, Zechariah the fourth: Hosah had thirteen sons and brothers.

¹²Of these were the divisions of the door-keepers, men of authority, having responsible positions like their brothers to be servants in the house of the Lord.

¹³And the families were taken by the decision of the Lord for every door; the small family had the same chance as the great.

¹⁴And the care of the door on the east came out for Shelemiah. Then the name of Zechariah his son, a man wise in discussion, came out, and the door on the north was given to him.

¹⁵To Obed-edom, that on the south; and to his sons, the store-house.

¹⁶To Hosah, the door on the west, by the door of Shallecheth, at the footway which goes up, watch by watch.

¹⁷On the east were six Levites a day, and on the north and the south four a day, and for the store-house two and two.

¹⁸For the pillared way, on the west, four at the footway and two at the pillared way itself.

¹⁹These were the divisions of door-keepers, of the sons of the Korahites and of the sons of Merari.

²⁰And the Levites their brothers were responsible for the stores of the house of God and the holy things.

²¹The sons of Ladan: sons of the Gershonites of the family of Ladan, heads of families of Ladan the Gershonite, Jehieli.

²²The sons of Jehieli: Zetham and Joel, his brother, had the care of the stores of the house of the Lord.

²³Of the Amramites, of the Izharites, of the Hebronites, of the Uzzielites:

²⁴And Shebuel, the son of Gershom, the son of Moses, was controller of the stores.

²⁵And his brothers: of Eliezer, Rehabiah his son, and Jeshaiah his son, and Joram his son, and Zichri his son, and Shelomoth his son.

²⁶Shelomoth and his brothers were responsible for all the store of holy things which David the king and the heads of families, the captains of thousands and of hundreds, and the captains of the army, had given to the Lord.

²⁷From the goods taken in war, they gave, as a holy offering, materials for the building of the house of the Lord.

²⁸And everything Samuel the prophet and Saul, the son of Kish, and Abner, the son of Ner, and Joab, the son of Zeruiah, had made holy; whatever anyone had given, it was under the care of Shelomoth and his brothers.

²⁹Of the Izharites, Chenaniah and his sons had to do all the public business of Israel, in relation to judges and men in authority.

³⁰Of the Hebronites, Hashabiah and his brothers, seventeen hundred able men, were overseers of Israel on the other side of the Jordan, to the west, being responsible for all the work of the Lord's house and for the work done by the king's servants.

³¹Of the Hebronites, Jerijah was the chief of all the Hebronites, in their generations by families. In the fortieth year of the rule of David a search was made, and able men were seen among them at Jazer of Gilead.

³²And his brothers were two thousand, seven hundred able men, heads of families, whom King David made overseers over the Reubenites and the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh, in everything to do with God, and for the king's business.

27Now the number of the children of Israel, that is, the heads of families, and the captains of thousands and of hundreds, and the men in authority who were servants of the king in anything to do with the divisions which came in and went out month by month through all the months of the year, in every division were twenty-four thousand.

²Over the first division for the first month was Ishbaal, the son of Zabdiel; and in his division were twenty-four thousand.

³He was of the sons of Perez, and the chief of all the captains of the army for the first month.

⁴And over the division for the second month was Eleazar, the son of Dodai the Ahohite, the ruler; and in his division were twenty-four thousand.

⁵The third captain of the army for the third month was Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada the priest; and in his division were twenty-four thousand.

⁶This is the same Benaiah who was the great man of the thirty, chief of the thirty; and in his division was Ammizabad his son.

⁷The fourth captain for the fourth month was Asahel, the brother of Joab, and Zebadiah his son after him; and in his division were twenty-four thousand.

⁸The fifth captain for the fifth month was Shamhuth the Izrahite; and in his division were twenty-four thousand.

⁹The sixth captain for the sixth month was Ira, the son of Ikkesh the Tekoite; and in his division were twenty-four thousand.

¹⁰The seventh captain for the seventh month was Helez the Pelonite, of the sons of Ephraim; and in his division were twenty-four thousand.

¹¹The eighth captain for the eighth month was Sibbecai the Hushathite, of the Zerahites; and in his division were twenty-four thousand.

¹²The ninth captain for the ninth month was Abiezer the Anathothite, of the Benjamites; and in his division were twenty-four thousand.

¹³The tenth captain for the tenth month was Maharai the Netophathite, of the Zerahites; and in his division were twenty-four thousand.

¹⁴The eleventh captain for the eleventh month was Benaiah the Pirathonite, of the sons of Ephraim; and in his division were twenty-four thousand.

¹⁵The twelfth captain for the twelfth month was Heldai the Netophathite, of Othniel; and in his division were twenty-four thousand.

¹⁶And over the tribes of Israel: the ruler of the Reubenites was Eliezer, the son of Zichri; of the Simeonites, Shephatiah, the son of Maacah;

¹⁷Of Levi, Hashabiah, the son of Kemuel; of Aaron, Zadok;

¹⁸Of Judah, Elihu, one of the brothers of David; of Issachar, Omri, the son of Michael;

¹⁹Of Zebulun, Ishmaiah, the son of Obadiah; of Naphtali, Jerimoth, the son of Azriel;

²⁰Of the children of Ephraim, Hoshea, the son of Azaziah; of the half-tribe of Manasseh, Joel, the son of Pedaiah;

²¹Of the half-tribe of Manasseh in Gilead, Iddo, the son of Zechariah; of Benjamin, Jaasiel, the son of Abner;

²²Of Dan, Azarel, the son of Jeroham. These were the captains of the tribes of Israel.

²³But David did not take the number of those who were under twenty years old, for the Lord had said that he would make Israel like the stars of heaven in number.

²⁴The numbering was started by Joab, the son of Zeruiah, but he did not go on to the end; and because of it, wrath came on Israel and the number was not recorded in the history of King David.

²⁵And Azmaveth, the son of Adiel, was controller of the king's property; Jonathan, the son of Uzziah, had control of all store-houses in country places and in the towns and little towns and strong places;

²⁶Ezri, the son of Chelub, had authority over the field-workers and farmers;

²⁷Shimei the Ramathite was responsible for the vine-gardens; Zabdi the Shiphmite was responsible for the produce of the vine-gardens and for all the stores of wine;

²⁸Baal-hanan the Gederite was responsible for the olive-trees and the sycamore-trees in the lowlands; and Joash for the stores of oil;

²⁹And Shitrai the Sharonite was responsible for the herds in the grass-lands of Sharon, and Shaphat, the son of Adlai, for those in the valleys;

³⁰Obil the Ishmaelite had control of the camels and Jehdeiah the Meronothite of the she-asses;

³¹The flocks were in the care of Jaziz the Hagarite. All these were the controllers of King David's property.

³²Now Jonathan, David's father's brother, expert in discussion, and a man of good sense, was a scribe; and Jehiel the son of Hachmoni, had the care of the king's sons;

³³And Ahithophel was the king's expert in discussion and Hushai the Archite was the king's friend.

³⁴After Ahithophel was Jehoiada, the son of Benaiah, and Abiathar; and the captain of the king's army was Joab.

28And David got together at Jerusalem all the rulers of Israel, the chiefs of the tribes and the captains of the divisions waiting on the king in turn, and the captains of thousands and the captains of hundreds and the controllers of all the goods and property of the king and his sons, with the unsexed servants and the great men of war.

²Then David the king got up and said, Give ear to me, my brothers and my people; it was my desire to put up a house, a resting-place for the ark of the Lord's agreement, and for the foot-rest of our God; and I had got material ready for the building of it.

³But God said to me, You are not to be the builder of a house for my name, because you are a man of war and have taken life;

⁴Though the Lord, the God of Israel, took me out of all my father's family, to be king over Israel for ever, marking out Judah to be chief, and, of the people of Judah, my father's family; and among the sons of my father he was pleased to make me king over all Israel;

⁵And of all my sons (for the Lord has given me a great number of sons) he has made selection of Solomon to take his place on the seat of the kingdom of the Lord over Israel.

⁶And he said to me, Solomon your son will be the builder of my house and the open spaces round it; for I have taken him to be my son, and I will be his father.

⁷I will keep his kingdom in its place for ever, if he is strong at all times to do my orders and keep my rules, as at this day.

⁸So now, before the eyes of all Israel, the people of the Lord, and in the hearing of our God, keep and be true to the orders of the Lord your God; so that you may have this good land for yourselves and give it for a heritage to your children after you for ever.

⁹And you, Solomon my son, get knowledge of the God of your father, and be his servant with a true heart and with a strong desire, for the Lord is the searcher of all hearts, and has knowledge of all the designs of men's thoughts; if you make search for him, he will be near you; but if you are turned away from him, he will give you up for ever.

¹⁰Now then, take note; for the Lord has made selection of you to be the builder of a house for the holy place. Be strong and do it.

¹¹Then David gave to his son Solomon the design of the doorway of the house of God and of its houses and its store-houses, and the higher rooms and the inner rooms and the place for the mercy-seat;

¹²And the design of all he had in his heart for the outer squares of the house of the Lord, and for the rooms all round it, and for the store-houses of the house of the Lord, and for the store-houses for the holy things;

¹³And for the divisions of the priests and Levites, and for all the work in connection with the worship of the house of the Lord, and all the vessels used in the house of the Lord;

¹⁴Of gold, by weight, for the vessels of gold, for all the vessels of different uses; and silver for all the vessels of silver by weight, for vessels of different uses;

¹⁵And gold by weight for the light-supports and the vessels for the lights, the weight of gold needed for every support and every vessel for lights; and for the silver light-supports, the weight of silver needed for every support and for the different vessels as every one was to be used;

¹⁶And gold by weight for the tables for the holy bread for every table, and silver for the silver tables;

¹⁷Clear gold for the meat-hooks and the basins and the cups; for the gold basins, gold enough by weight for every basin; and silver by weight for every silver basin;

¹⁸And the best gold for the altar of perfumes; and gold for the design of the carriage, for the winged ones whose wings were outstretched covering the ark of the Lord's agreement.

¹⁹All this, said David, the design for all these things, has been made dear to me in writing by the hand of the Lord.

²⁰And David said to his son Solomon, Be strong and of a good heart and do your work; have no fear and do not be troubled, for the Lord God, my God, is with you; he will not give you up, and his face will not be turned away from you, till all the work necessary for the house of the Lord is complete.

²¹And see, there are the divisions of the priests and Levites for all the work of the house of God; and every trained and expert workman will be ready to do for you whatever is needed; and the captains and the people will be under your orders in everything.

29And David the king said to all the people, Solomon my son, the only one who has been marked out by God, is still young and untested, and the work is great, for this great house is not for man, but for the Lord God.

²Now as far as I am able, I have made ready what is needed for the house of my God; the gold for the things of gold, and the silver for the silver things, and the brass for the brass things, iron for the things of iron, and wood for the things of wood; beryls and jewels to be framed, and stones of different colours for ornament; all sorts of stones of great price, and polished building-stone, as much as is needed and more.

³And because this house of God is dear to me, I give my private store of gold and silver to the house of my God, in addition to all I have got ready for the holy house;

⁴Even three thousand talents of gold of Ophir and seven thousand talents of the best silver, for plating the walls of the house:

⁵Gold for the gold things, and silver for the silver things, and for every sort of work to be done by the expert workmen. Who then will come forward, offering himself this day for the Lord's work?

⁶Then the heads of families and the chiefs of the tribes of Israel, and the captains of thousands and of hundreds, with the controllers of the king's business, freely gave themselves;

⁷And they gave for the use of the house of the Lord, five thousand talents and ten thousand darics of gold, and ten thousand talents of silver, and eighteen thousand talents of brass, and a hundred thousand talents of iron.

⁸And those who had stones of great price gave them to the store of the house of the Lord, under the care of Jehiel the Gershonite.

⁹Then the people were glad because their offerings were freely given, for with a true heart they freely gave what they had to the Lord; and David the king was full of joy.

¹⁰So David gave praise to the Lord before all the people; and David said, Praise be to you, O Lord the God of Israel, our father for ever and ever.

¹¹Yours, O Lord, is the strength and the power and the glory, and the authority and the honour: for everything in heaven and on earth is yours; yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are lifted up as head over all.

¹²Wealth and honour come from you, and you are ruler over all, and in your hand is power and strength; it is in your power to make great, and to give strength to all.

¹³So now, our God, we give you praise, honouring the glory of your name.

¹⁴But who am I and what is my people, that we have power to give so freely in this way? for all things come from you, and what we have given you is yours.

¹⁵For we, as all our fathers were, are like men from a strange country before you, who have got a place for a time in the land; our days on the earth are like a shade, and there is no hope of going on.

¹⁶O Lord our God, all this store, which we have made ready for the building of a house for your holy name, comes from your hand and is yours.

¹⁷And I am conscious, my God, that you are the searcher of hearts, taking pleasure in righteousness. As for me, with an upright heart I have freely given all these things; and I have seen with joy your people who are here to make their offerings freely to you.

¹⁸O Lord, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Israel, our fathers, keep this for ever in the deepest thoughts of your people, and let their hearts be fixed and true to you;

¹⁹And give to Solomon my son a true heart, to keep your orders, your rules, and your laws, and to do all these things, and to put up this great house for which I have made ready.

²⁰And David said to all the people, Now give praise to the Lord your God. And all the people gave praise to the Lord, the God of their fathers, with bent heads worshipping the Lord and the king.

²¹And they made offerings to the Lord, and gave burned offerings to the Lord, on the day after, a thousand oxen, a thousand sheep, and a thousand lambs, with their drink offerings, and a great wealth of offerings for all Israel.

²²And with great joy they made a feast before the Lord that day. And they made Solomon, the son of David, king a second time, putting the holy oil on him to make him holy to the Lord as ruler, and on Zadok as priest.

²³So Solomon was put on the seat of the Lord as king in place of his father David, and everything went well for him; and all Israel was under his authority.

²⁴And all the chiefs and the men of war and all the sons of King David put themselves under the authority of Solomon the king.

²⁵And the Lord made Solomon great in the eyes of all Israel, clothing him with glory and honour such as no other king in Israel had had before him.

²⁶Now David, the son of Jesse, was king over all Israel.

²⁷For forty years he was ruling as king over Israel, seven years in Hebron and thirty-three years in Jerusalem.

²⁸And he came to his end after a long life, full of days and great wealth and honour; and Solomon his son became king in his place.

²⁹Now all the acts of David, first and last, are recorded in the words of Samuel the seer, and the words of Nathan the prophet, and the words of Gad the seer;

³⁰Together with all his rule and his power, and the events which took place in his time, in Israel and in all the kingdoms of other lands.

1And Solomon, the son of David, made himself strong in his kingdom, and the Lord his God was with him, and made him very great.

²And Solomon sent word to all Israel, to the captains of thousands and of hundreds and to the judges and to every chief in all Israel, heads of their families.

³Then Solomon, and all the men of Israel with him, went to the high place at Gibeon, because the Tent of meeting of God, which Moses, the servant of the Lord, had made in the waste land, was there.

⁴But the ark of God had been moved by David from Kiriath-jearim to the place which he had made ready for it, for he had put up a tent for it at Jerusalem.

⁵And the altar of brass which Bezalel, the son of Uri, the son of Hur, had made, was there before the Tent of the Lord; and Solomon and all the people went to give worship there.

⁶And Solomon went up there to the brass altar before the Lord at the Tent of meeting, offering on it a thousand burned offerings.

⁷In that night God came to Solomon in a vision, and said to him, Say what I am to give you.

⁸And Solomon said to God, Great was your mercy to David my father, and you have made me king in his place.

⁹Now, O Lord God, let your word to David my father come true; for you have made me king over a people like the dust of the earth in number.

¹⁰Give me now wisdom and knowledge, so that I may go out and come in before this people: for who is able to be the judge of this great people of yours?

¹¹And God said to Solomon, Because this was in your heart, and you did not make request for money, property, or honour, or for the destruction of your haters, or for long life; but you have made request for wisdom and knowledge for yourself, so that you may be the judge of my people over whom I have made you king:

¹²Wisdom and knowledge are given to you; and I will give you wealth and honour, such as no king has had before you or ever will have after you.

¹³So Solomon went back from the high place at Gibeon, from before the Tent of meeting, to Jerusalem; and he was king over Israel.

¹⁴And Solomon got together war-carriages and horsemen; he had one thousand, four hundred carriages and twelve thousand horsemen, which he kept, some in the carriage-towns and some with the king at Jerusalem.

¹⁵And the king made silver and gold as common as stones in Jerusalem, and cedar like the sycamore-trees of the lowland in number.

¹⁶And Solomon's horses came out of Egypt; the king's traders got them from Kue at a price.

¹⁷A war-carriage might be got from Egypt for six hundred shekels of silver, and a horse for a hundred and fifty: they got them at the same rate for all the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Aram.

2Now it was Solomon's purpose to put up a house for the name of the Lord and a house for himself as king.

²And Solomon had seventy thousand men numbered for transport, and eighty thousand for cutting stone in the mountains, and three thousand, six hundred as overseers.

³And Solomon sent to Huram, king of Tyre, saying, As you did for my father David, sending him cedar-trees for the building of his house,

⁴See! I am building a house for the name of the Lord my God, to be made holy to him, where perfumes of sweet spices will be burned before him, and the holy bread will be placed at all times, and burned offerings will be offered morning and evening, on the Sabbaths and at the new moons, and on the regular feasts of the Lord our God. This is a law for ever to Israel.

⁵And the house which I am building is to be great, for our God is greater than all gods.

⁶But who may have strength enough to make a house for him, seeing that the heaven and the heaven of heavens are not wide enough to be his resting-place? who am I then to make a house for him? But I am building it only for the burning of perfume before him.

⁷So now send me an expert worker in gold and silver and brass and iron? in purple and red and blue, and in the cutting of all sorts of ornament, to be with the expert workmen who are here in Judah and in Jerusalem, whom my father David got together.

⁸And send me cedar-trees, cypress-trees and sandal-wood from Lebanon, for, to my knowledge, your servants are expert wood-cutters in Lebanon; and my servants will be with yours,

⁹To get trees for me in great numbers, for the house which I am building is to be great and a wonder.

¹⁰And I will give as food to your servants, the wood-cutters, twenty thousand measures of grain, and twenty thousand measures of barley and twenty thousand measures of wine and twenty thousand measures of oil.

¹¹Then Huram, king of Tyre, sent Solomon an answer in writing, saying, Because of his love for his people the Lord has made you king over them.

¹²And Huram said, Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, maker of heaven and earth, who has given to David the king a wise son, full of wisdom and good sense, to be the builder of a house for the Lord and a house for himself as king.

¹³And now I am sending you a wise and expert man, Huram who is as my father,

¹⁴The son of a woman of the daughters of Dan, whose father was a man of Tyre, an expert worker in gold and silver and brass and iron, in stone and wood, in purple and blue and fair linen and red, trained in the cutting of every sort of ornament and the invention of every sort of design; let him be given a place among your expert workmen and those of my lord, your father David.

¹⁵So now let my lord send to his servants the grain and the oil and the wine as my lord has said;

¹⁶And we will have wood cut from Lebanon, as much as you have need of, and will send it to you on flat boats by sea to Joppa, and from there you may take it up to Jerusalem.

¹⁷Then Solomon took the number of all the men from strange lands who were living in Israel, as his father David had done; there were a hundred and fifty-three thousand, six hundred.

¹⁸Seventy thousand he put to the work of transport, eighty thousand to cutting stone in the mountains, and three thousand, six hundred as overseers to put the people to work.

3Then Solomon made a start at building the house of the Lord on Mount Moriah in Jerusalem, where the Lord had been seen by his father David, in the place which David had made ready in the grain-floor of Ornan the Jebusite.

²The building was started in the second month in the fourth year of his rule.

³And Solomon put the base of the house of God in position; by the older measure it was sixty cubits long and twenty cubits wide.

⁴And the covered way in front of the house was twenty cubits long, as wide as the house, and a hundred and twenty cubits high, all plated inside with the best gold.

⁵And the greater house was roofed with cypress-wood, plated with the best gold and ornamented with designs of palm-trees and chains.

⁶And the house was made beautiful with stones of great value, and the gold was gold of Parvaim.

⁷All the house was plated with gold, the supports, the steps, the walls and the doors; and the walls were ornamented with designs of winged ones.

⁸And he made the most holy place; it was twenty cubits long, and twenty cubits wide, like the greater house, and was plated all over with the best gold; six hundred talents were used for it.

⁹And fifty shekels weight of gold was used for the nails. He had all the higher rooms plated with gold.

¹⁰And in the most holy place he made images of two winged beings, covering them with gold.

¹¹Their outstretched wings were twenty cubits across; one wing, five cubits long, touching the wall of the house, and the other, of the same size, meeting the wing of the other winged one.

¹²And in the same way, the wings of the other, five cubits long, were stretched out, one touching the wall and the other meeting the wing of the first winged one.

¹³Their outstretched wings were twenty cubits across; they were placed upright on their feet, facing the inner part of the house.

¹⁴And he made the veil of blue and purple and red, of the best linen, worked with winged ones.

¹⁵And in front of the house he made two pillars, thirty-five cubits high, with crowns on the tops of them, five cubits high.

¹⁶And he made chains, like neck ornaments, and put them on the tops of the pillars, and a hundred apples on the chains.

¹⁷He put up the pillars in front of the Temple, one on the right side and one on the left, naming the one on the right Jachin and that on the left Boaz.

4Then he made a brass altar, twenty cubits long, twenty cubits wide and ten cubits high.

²And he made the great water-vessel of metal, round in form, measuring ten cubits across from edge to edge; it was five cubits high and thirty cubits round.

³And under it was a design of flowers all round it, ten to a cubit, circling the water-vessel in two lines; they were made from liquid metal at the same time as the water-vessel.

⁴It was supported on twelve oxen, three facing to the north, three to the west, three to the south, and three to the east, the water-vessel resting on top of them; their back parts were all turned to the middle of it.

⁵It was as thick as a man's open hand, and the edge of it was curved like the edge of a cup, like a lily flower; it would take three thousand baths.

⁶And he made ten washing-vessels, putting five on the right side and five on the left; such things as were used in making the burned offering were washed in them; but the great water-vessel was to be used by the priests for washing themselves.

⁷And he made the ten gold supports for the lights, as directions had been given for them, and he put them in the Temple, five on the right side and five on the left.

⁸He made ten tables, and put them in the Temple, five on the right side and five on the left. And he made a hundred gold basins.

⁹Then he made the open space for the priests, and the great open space and its doors, plating the doors with brass.

¹⁰He put the great water-vessel on the right side of the house to the east, facing south.

¹¹And Huram made all the pots and the spades and the basins. So he came to the end of all the work he did for King Solomon in the house of God:

¹²The two pillars, and the two crowns on the tops of the pillars, and the network covering the two cups of the crowns on the tops of the pillars;

¹³And the four hundred apples for the network, two lines of apples for the network covering the two cups of the crowns on the pillars.

¹⁴And he made the ten bases and the ten washing-vessels which were on the bases;

¹⁵The great water-vessel with the twelve oxen under it.

¹⁶All the pots and the spades and the meat-hooks and their vessels, which Huram, who was as his father, made for King Solomon for the house of the Lord, were of polished brass.

¹⁷The king made them of liquid metal in the lowland of Jordan, in the soft earth between Succoth and Zeredah.

¹⁸So Solomon made all these vessels, a very great store of them, and the weight of the brass used was not measured.

¹⁹And Solomon made all the vessels used in the house of God, the gold altar and the tables on which the holy bread was placed,

²⁰And the supports for the lights with their lights, to be burning in the regular way in front of the inmost room, of the best gold;

²¹The flowers and the vessels for the lights and the instruments used for them, were all of gold; it was the best gold.

²²The scissors and the basins and the spoons and the fire-trays, of the best gold; and the inner doors of the house, opening into the most holy place, and the doors of the Temple, were all of gold.

5So all the work which Solomon did for the house of the Lord was complete. And Solomon took the holy things which David his father had given, the silver and the gold and all the vessels, and put them in the store-houses of the house of God.

²Then Solomon sent for all the responsible men of Israel, all the chiefs of the tribes and the heads of families of the children of Israel, to come to Jerusalem and take the ark of the Lord's agreement up out of the town of David, which is Zion.

³And all the men of Israel came together to the king at the feast in the seventh month.

⁴All the responsible men of Israel came, and the Levites took up the ark.

⁵They took up the ark and the Tent of meeting and all the holy vessels which were in the Tent; all these the priests, the Levites, took up.

⁶And King Solomon and all the men of Israel who had come together there with him, were before the ark, making offerings of sheep and oxen more than might be numbered.

⁷And the priests took the ark of the Lord's agreement and put it in its place, in the inner room of the house, in the most holy place, under the wings of the winged ones.

⁸For their wings were outstretched over the place where the ark was, covering the ark and its rods.

⁹The rods were so long that their ends were seen from the holy place before the inmost room; but they were not seen from outside; and there they are to this day.

¹⁰Nothing was in the ark but the two flat stones which Moses put there at Horeb, where the Lord made an agreement with the children of Israel when they came out of Egypt.

¹¹Now when the priests had come out of the holy place, (for all the priests who were present had made themselves holy, not keeping to their divisions;

¹²And the Levites who made the music, all of them, Asaph, Heman, Jeduthun, and their sons and brothers, robed in fair linen, were in their places with their brass and corded instruments at the east side of the altar, and with them a hundred and twenty priests blowing horns;)

¹³And when the players on horns, and those who made melody in song, with one voice were sounding the praise and glory of the Lord; with loud voices and with wind instruments, and brass and corded instruments of music, praising the Lord and saying, He is good; his mercy is unchanging for ever: then the house was full of the cloud of the glory of the Lord,

¹⁴So that the priests were not able to keep their places to do their work because of the cloud; for the house of God was full of the glory of the Lord.

6Then Solomon said, O Lord, to the sun you have given the heaven for a living-place, but your living-place was not seen by men,

²So I have made for you a living-place, a house in which you may be for ever present.

³Then, turning his face about, the king gave a blessing to all the men of Israel; and they were all on their feet together.

⁴And he said, Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, who himself gave his word to my father David, and with his strong hand has made his word come true, saying,

⁵From the day when I took my people out of the land of Egypt, no town in all the tribes of Israel has been marked out by me for the building of a house for the resting-place of my name; and I took no man to be a ruler over my people Israel;

⁶But now I have made selection of Jerusalem, that my name might be there, and of David, to be over my people Israel.

⁷Now it was in the heart of my father David to put up a house for the name of the Lord, the God of Israel.

⁸But the Lord said to David my father, You did well to have in your heart the desire to make a house for my name:

⁹But you yourself will not be the builder of the house; but your son, the offspring of your body, he it is who will put up a house for my name.

¹⁰And the Lord has kept his word; for I have taken my father David's place on the seat of the kingdom of Israel, as the Lord gave his word; and I have made the house for the name of the Lord the God of Israel.

¹¹And there I have put the ark, in which is the agreement of the Lord, which he made with the people of Israel.

¹²Then he took his place in front of the altar of the Lord, all the men of Israel being present,

¹³(For Solomon had made a brass stage, five cubits long, five cubits wide and three cubits high, and had put it in the middle of the open space; on this he took his place and went down on his knees before all the meeting of Israel, stretching out his hands to heaven.)

¹⁴And he said, O Lord, the God of Israel, there is no God like you in heaven or on earth; keeping faith and mercy unchanging for your servants, while they go in your ways with all their hearts;

¹⁵For you have kept the word which you gave to your servant David, my father; with your mouth you said it and with your hand you have made it come true this day.

¹⁶So now, O Lord, the God of Israel, let your word to your servant David, my father, come true, when you said, You will never be without a man to take his place before me on the seat of the kingdom of Israel; if only your children give attention to their ways, walking in my law, as you have done before me.

¹⁷So now, O Lord, the God of Israel, make your word come true which you said to your servant David.

¹⁸But is it truly possible that God may be housed with men on earth? see, heaven and the heaven of heavens are not wide enough to be your resting-place: how much less this house which I have made:

¹⁹Still, let your heart be turned to the prayer of your servant and to his prayer for grace, O Lord my God, and give ear to the cry and the prayer which your servant makes before you;

²⁰That your eyes may be open to this house day and night, to this place of which you have said that you would put your name there; to give ear to the prayer which your servant may make, turning to this place.

²¹And give ear to the prayers of your servant and of your people Israel, when they make their prayers, turning to this place; give ear from heaven your living-place; and hearing have mercy.

²²If a man does wrong to his neighbour and has to take an oath, and comes before your altar to take his oath in this house:

²³Then let your ear be open in heaven, and be the judge of your servants, giving punishment to the wrongdoer, so that his sin may come on his head; and, by your decision, keeping from evil him who has done no wrong.

²⁴And if your people Israel are overcome in war, because of their sin against you; if they are turned to you again, honouring your name, making prayers and requesting your grace in this house:

²⁵Then give ear from heaven, and let the sin of your people Israel have forgiveness, and take them back again to the land which you gave to them and to their fathers.

²⁶When heaven is shut up and there is no rain, because of their sin against you: if they make prayers with their faces turned to this place, honouring your name and turning away from their sin when you send trouble on them:

²⁷Then give ear from heaven, so that the sin of your servants and the sin of your people Israel may have forgiveness, when you make clear to them the good way in which they are to go; and send rain on your land which you have given to your people for their heritage.

²⁸If there is no food in the land, if there is disease, if the fruits of the earth are damaged by heat or water, locust or worm; if their towns are shut in by their attackers: whatever trouble or whatever disease there may be:

²⁹Whatever prayer or request for your grace is made by any man, or by all your people Israel, whatever his trouble may be, whose hands are stretched out to this house:

³⁰Then give ear from heaven your living-place, answering with forgiveness, and give to every man, whose secret heart is open to you, the reward of all his ways; (for you, and you only, have knowledge of the hearts of the children of men;)

³¹So that they may give you worship, walking in your ways, as long as they are living in the land which you gave to our fathers.

³²And as for the man from a strange land, who is not of your people Israel but comes from a far country because of the glory of your name and your strong hand and your outstretched arm; when he comes to make his prayer, turning to this house:

³³Then give ear from heaven your living-place, and give him his desire, whatever it may be; so that all the peoples of the earth may have knowledge of your name, worshipping you as do your people Israel, and may see that this house which I have made is truly named by your name.

³⁴If your people go out to war against their attackers, by whatever way you may send them, if they make their prayers to you turning their faces to this town of yours and to this house which I have put up for your name:

³⁵Then give ear from heaven to their prayer and their cry for grace, and see right done to them.

³⁶If they do wrong against you, (for no man is without sin,) and you are angry with them, and give them up into the power of those who are fighting against them, so that they take them away prisoners to a land far off or near;

³⁷And if they take thought, in the land where they are prisoners, turning again to you, crying out in prayer to you in that land, and saying, We are sinners, we have done wrong, we have done evil;

³⁸If with all their heart and soul they are turned again to you, in the land where they are prisoners, the land where they have been taken, and make their prayers, turning their eyes to their land which you gave to their fathers, and to the town which you took for yourself, and the house which I have made for your name:

³⁹Then give ear from heaven your living-place to their prayer and their cry, and see right done to them, answering with forgiveness your people who have done wrong against you.

⁴⁰Now, O my God, may your eyes be open and your ears awake to the prayers made in this place.

⁴¹Up! now, O Lord God, come back to your resting-place, you and the ark of your strength: let your priests, O Lord God, be clothed with salvation, and let your saints be glad in what is good.

⁴²O Lord God, let him whom you have taken for yourself never be given up by you: keep in mind your mercies to David your servant.

7Now when Solomon's prayers were ended, fire came down from heaven, burning up all the offerings; and the house was full of the glory of the Lord.

²And the priests were not able to go into the house of the Lord, for the Lord's house was full of the glory of the Lord.

³And all the children of Israel were looking on when the fire came down, and the glory of the Lord was on the house; and they went down on their knees, with their faces to the earth, worshipping and praising the Lord, and saying, He is good; for his mercy is unchanging for ever.

⁴Then the king and all the people made offerings before the Lord.

⁵King Solomon made an offering of twenty-two thousand oxen, and a hundred and twenty thousand sheep. So the king and all the people kept the feast of the opening of the house of God.

⁶And the priests were in their places, and the Levites with their instruments of music for the Lord's song, which David the king had made for the praise of the Lord whose mercy is unchanging for ever, when David gave praise by their hand; and the priests were sounding horns before them; and all Israel were on their feet.

⁷Then Solomon made holy the middle of the open square in front of the house of the Lord, offering the burned offerings there, and the fat of the peace-offerings; for there was not room on the brass altar which Solomon had made for all the burned offerings and the meal offerings and the fat.

⁸So Solomon kept the feast at that time for seven days, and all Israel with him, a very great meeting, for the people had come together from the way into Hamath and from as far as the river of Egypt.

⁹And on the eighth day they had a holy meeting; the offerings for making the altar holy went on for seven days, and the feast for seven days.

¹⁰And on the twenty-third day of the seventh month, he sent the people away to their tents, full of joy and glad in their hearts, because of all the good which the Lord had done to David and to Solomon and to Israel his people.

¹¹So Solomon came to the end of building the house of the Lord and the king's house; and everything which it was in his mind to make in the house of the Lord and for himself had been well done.

¹²Now the Lord came to Solomon in a vision by night, and said to him, I have given ear to your prayer, and have taken this place for myself as a house where offerings are to be made.

¹³If, at my word, heaven is shut up, so that there is no rain, or if I send locusts on the land for its destruction, or if I send disease on my people;

¹⁴If my people, on whom my name is named, make themselves low and come to me in prayer, searching for me and turning from their evil ways; then I will give ear from heaven, overlooking their sin, and will give life again to their land.

¹⁵Now my eyes will be open and my ears awake to the prayers made in this place.

¹⁶For I have taken this house for myself and made it holy, so that my name may be there for ever; and my eyes and my heart will be there at all times.

¹⁷And as for you, if you will go on your way before me as David your father did, doing whatever I have given you orders to do and keeping my laws and my decisions:

¹⁸Then I will make strong the seat of your kingdom, as I gave my word to David your father, saying, You will never be without a man to be ruler in Israel.

¹⁹But if you are turned away from me, and do not keep my orders and my laws which I have put before you, but go and make yourselves servants to other gods, giving them worship:

²⁰Then I will have this people uprooted out of my land which I have given them; and this house, which I have made holy for my name, I will put away from before my eyes, and make it an example and a word of shame among all peoples.

²¹And this house will become a mass of broken walls, and everyone who goes by will be overcome with wonder, and will say, Why has the Lord done so to this land and to this house?

²²And their answer will be, Because they were turned away from the Lord, the God of their fathers, who took them out of the land of Egypt, and took for themselves other gods and gave them worship and became their servants: that is why he has sent all this evil on them.

8Now at the end of twenty years, in which time Solomon had put up the house of the Lord and a house for himself,

²He took in hand the building up of the towns which Huram had given him, causing the children of Israel to make living-places for themselves there.

³And Solomon went to Hamath-zobah and overcame it.

⁴And he put up the buildings of Tadmor in the waste land, and of all the store-towns in Hamath;

⁵And of Beth-horon the higher and the lower, walled towns with walls and doorways and locks;

⁶And of Baalath, and all the store-towns which Solomon had, and the towns where he kept his war-carriages and his horse men, and everything which it was his pleasure to put up in Jerusalem and in Lebanon and in all the land under his rule.

⁷As for all the rest of the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, who were not of Israel:

⁸Their men who were still living in the land, and whom the children of Israel had not put an end to, these Solomon put to forced work, as is done to this day;

⁹But Solomon did not make use of the children of Israel as servants for his work; they were men of war, his chiefs and his captains, and captains of his war-carriages and his horsemen.

¹⁰Now these were the chief men in authority whom King Solomon had: two hundred and fifty of them, in authority over the people.

¹¹Then Solomon made Pharaoh's daughter come up from the town of David to the house which he had made for her; for he said, I will not have my wife living in the house of David, king of Israel, because those places where the ark of the Lord has come are holy.

¹²Then Solomon made burned offerings to the Lord on the altar of the Lord which he had put up in front of the covered way,

¹³Offering every day what had been ordered by Moses, on the Sabbaths and at the new moon and at the regular feasts three times a year, that is at the feast of unleavened bread, the feast of weeks, and the feast of tents.

¹⁴And he gave the divisions of the priests their places for their work, as ordered by his father David, and to the Levites he gave their work of praise and waiting on the priests, to do what was needed day by day; and he gave the door-keepers their places in turn at every door; for so David, the man of God, had given orders.

¹⁵All the orders given by the king to the priests and Levites, in connection with any business or stores, were done with care.

¹⁶And all the work of Solomon was complete, from the day when he put the base of the Lord's house in position, till Solomon had come to the end of building the Lord's house.

¹⁷Then Solomon went to Ezion-geber and to Eloth by the sea in the land of Edom.

¹⁸And Huram sent him, by his servants, ships and experienced seamen, who went with the servants of Solomon to Ophir and came back with four hundred and fifty talents of gold, which they took to King Solomon.

9Now the queen of Sheba, hearing great things of Solomon, came to Jerusalem to put his wisdom to the test with hard questions; and with her came a very great train, and camels weighted down with spices, and great stores of gold and jewels: and when she came to Solomon she had talk with him of everything in her mind.

²And Solomon gave her answers to all her questions; there was no secret which he did not make clear to her.

³And when the queen of Sheba had seen the wisdom of Solomon, and the house which he had made,

⁴And the food at his table, and all his servants seated there, and those who were waiting on him in their places, and their robes, and his wine-servants and their robes, and the burned offerings which he made in the house of the Lord, there was no more spirit in her.

⁵And she said to the king, The account which was given to me in my country of your acts and your wisdom was true.

⁶But I had no faith in what was said about you, till I came and saw for myself; and truly, word was not given me of half your great wisdom; you are much greater than they said.

⁷Happy are your wives and happy these your servants whose place is ever before you, hearing your words of wisdom.

⁸Praise be to the Lord your God whose pleasure it was to put you on the seat of his kingdom to be king for the Lord your God: because, in his love for Israel, it was the purpose of your God to make them strong for ever, he made you king over them, to be their judge in righteousness.

⁹And she gave the king a hundred and twenty talents of gold, and a great store of spices and jewels: never had such spices been seen as the queen of Sheba gave to Solomon.

¹⁰And the servants of Huram and the servants of Solomon, in addition to gold from Ophir, came back with sandal-wood and jewels.

¹¹And with the sandal-wood the king made steps for the house of the Lord and for the king's house, and instruments of music for the makers of melody; never before had such been seen in the land of Judah.

¹²And King Solomon gave the queen of Sheba all her desire, whatever she made request for, in addition to what she had taken to the king. So she went back to her country with her servants.

¹³Now the weight of gold which came to Solomon in one year was six hundred and sixty-six talents;

¹⁴And in addition to what he got from traders of different sorts, all the kings of Arabia and the rulers of the country gave gold and silver to Solomon.

¹⁵And King Solomon made two hundred body-covers of hammered gold, every one having six hundred shekels of gold in it.

¹⁶And he made three hundred smaller body-covers of hammered gold, using three hundred shekels of gold for every cover, and the king put them in the house of the Woods of Lebanon.

¹⁷Then the king made a great ivory seat, plated with the best gold.

¹⁸There were six steps up to it, and a foot-rest of gold fixed to it, and arms on the two sides of the seat, with two lions at the side of the arms.

¹⁹And twelve lions were placed on one side and on the other side on the six steps: there was nothing like it in any kingdom.

²⁰All King Solomon's drinking-vessels were of gold, and all the vessels of the house of the Woods of Lebanon were of the best gold: no one gave a thought to silver in the days of Solomon.

²¹For the king had Tarshish-ships sailing with the servants of Huram: once every three years the Tarshish-ships came back with gold and silver, ivory and monkeys and peacocks.

²²And King Solomon was greater than all the kings of the earth in wealth and in wisdom.

²³And all the kings of the earth came to see Solomon and to give ear to his wisdom, which God had put into his heart.

²⁴And everyone took with him an offering, vessels of silver and vessels of gold, and robes, and coats of metal, and spices, and horses and beasts for transport, regularly year by year.

²⁵Solomon had four thousand buildings for his horses and his war-carriages, and twelve thousand horsemen whom he kept, some in the carriage-towns and some with the king in Jerusalem.

²⁶And he was ruler over all the kings from the River to the land of the Philistines, as far as the limit of Egypt.

²⁷The king made silver as common as stones in Jerusalem and cedars like the sycamore-trees of the lowlands in number.

²⁸They got horses for Solomon from Egypt and from every land.

²⁹Now the rest of the acts of Solomon, first and last, are they not recorded in the history of Nathan the prophet, and in the words of Ahijah the prophet of Shiloh, and in the visions of Iddo the seer about Jeroboam, the son of Nebat?

³⁰Solomon was king over Israel in Jerusalem for forty years.

³¹And Solomon went to rest with his fathers, and was put into the earth in the town of David his father; and Rehoboam his son became king in his place.

10And Rehoboam went to Shechem, where all Israel had come together to make him king.

²And when Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, had news of it, (for he was in Egypt where he had gone in flight from King Solomon,) he came back from Egypt.

³And they sent for him; and Jeroboam and all Israel came to Rehoboam and said,

⁵And he said to them, Come to me again after three days. So the people went away.

⁶Then King Rehoboam took the opinion of the old men who had been with Solomon his father when he was living, and said, In your opinion, what answer am I to give to this people?

⁷And they said to him, If you are kind to this people, pleasing them and saying good words to them, then they will be your servants for ever.

⁸But he gave no attention to the opinion of the old men, but went to the young men of his generation who were waiting before him.

⁹And he said to them, What is your opinion? What answer are we to give to this people who have said to me, Make less the weight of the yoke which your father put on us?

¹⁰And the young men of his generation said to him, This is the answer to give to the people who came to you saying, Your father put a hard yoke on us, but will you make it less; say to them, My little finger is thicker than my father's body;

¹¹If my father put a hard yoke on you, I will make it harder: my father gave you punishment with whips, but I will give you blows with snakes.

¹²So Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam on the third day, as the king had given orders, saying, Come to me again on the third day.

¹³And the king gave them a rough answer. So King Rehoboam gave no attention to the suggestion of the old men,

¹⁴But gave them the answer put forward by the young men, saying, My father made your yoke hard, but I will make it harder; my father gave you punishment with whips, but I will give it with snakes.

¹⁵So the king did not give ear to the people; for this came about by the purpose of God, so that the Lord might give effect to his word which he had said by Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam, the son of Nebat.

¹⁶And when all Israel saw that the king would give no attention to them, the people in answer said to the king, What part have we in David? what is our heritage in the son of Jesse? every man to your tents, O Israel; now see to your house, David. So all Israel went to their tents.

¹⁷But Rehoboam was still king over those of the children of Israel who were living in the towns of Judah.

¹⁸Then Rehoboam sent Adoniram, the overseer of the forced work; and he was stoned to death by all Israel. And King Rehoboam went quickly and got into his carriage to go in flight to Jerusalem.

¹⁹So Israel was turned away from the family of David to this day.

11And Rehoboam came to Jerusalem, and got together the men of Judah and Benjamin, a hundred and eighty thousand of his best fighting-men, to make war against Israel and get the kingdom back for Rehoboam.

²But the word of the Lord came to Shemaiah, the man of God, saying,

³Say to Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, king of Judah, and to all Israel in Judah and Benjamin,

⁴The Lord has said, You are not to go to war against your brothers: let every man go back to his house, for this thing is my purpose. So they gave ear to the words of the Lord and were turned back from fighting against Jeroboam.

⁵Now Rehoboam kept in Jerusalem, building walled towns in Judah.

⁶He was the builder of Beth-lehem and Etam and Tekoa

⁷And Beth-zur and Soco and Adullam

⁸And Gath and Mareshah and Ziph

⁹And Adoraim and Lachish and Azekah

¹⁰And Zorah and Aijalon and Hebron, walled towns in Judah and Benjamin.

¹¹And he made the walled towns strong, and he put captains in them and stores of food, oil, and wine.

¹²And in every town he put stores of body-covers and spears, and made them very strong. And Judah and Benjamin were his.

¹³And the priests and Levites who were in all Israel came together to him from every part of their country.

¹⁴For the Levites gave up their living-places and their property, and came to Judah and Jerusalem; for Jeroboam and his sons had sent them away, not letting them be priests to the Lord;

¹⁵And he himself made priests for the high places, and for the images of he-goats and oxen which he had made.

¹⁶And after them, from all the tribes of Israel, all those whose hearts were fixed and true to the Lord, the God of Israel, came to Jerusalem to make offerings to the Lord, the God of their fathers.

¹⁷So they went on increasing the power of the kingdom of Judah, and made Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, strong for three years; and for three years they went in the ways of David and Solomon.

¹⁸And Rehoboam took as his wife Mahalath, the daughter of Jerimoth, the son of David and of Abihail, the daughter of Eliab, the son of Jesse;

¹⁹And she had sons by him, Jeush, Shemariah, and Zaham.

²⁰And after her he took Maacah, the daughter of Absalom; and she had Abijah and Attai and Ziza and Shelomith by him.

²¹Maacah, the daughter of Absalom, was dearer to Rehoboam than all his wives and his servant-wives: (for he had eighteen wives and sixty servant-wives, and was the father of twenty-eight sons and sixty daughters.)

²²Rehoboam made Abijah, the son of Maacah, chief and ruler among his brothers, for it was his purpose to make him king.

²³And in his wisdom he had his sons stationed in every walled town through all the lands of Judah and Benjamin; and he gave them a great store of food, and took wives for them.

12Now when Rehoboam's position as king had been made certain, and he was strong, he gave up the law of the Lord, and all Israel with him.

²Now in the fifth year of King Rehoboam, Shishak, king of Egypt, came up against Jerusalem, because of their sin against the Lord,

³With twelve hundred war-carriages and sixty thousand horsemen: and the people who came with him out of Egypt were more than might be numbered: Lubim and Sukkiim and Ethiopians.

⁴And he took the walled towns of Judah, and came as far as Jerusalem.

⁵Now Shemaiah the prophet came to Rehoboam and the chiefs of Judah, who had come together in Jerusalem because of Shishak, and said to them, The Lord has said, Because you have given me up, I have given you up into the hands of Shishak.

⁶Then the chiefs of Israel and the king made themselves low and said, The Lord is upright.

⁷And the Lord, seeing that they had made themselves low, said to Shemaiah, They have made themselves low: I will not send destruction on them, but in a short time I will give them salvation, and will not let loose my wrath on Jerusalem by the hand of Shishak.

⁸But still they will become his servants, so that they may see how different my yoke is from the yoke of the kingdoms of the lands.

⁹So Shishak, king of Egypt, came up against Jerusalem and took away all the stored wealth of the house of the Lord and the king's house: he took everything away, and with the rest the gold body-covers which Solomon had made.

¹⁰And in their place King Rehoboam had other body-covers made of brass and gave them into the care of the captains of the armed men who were stationed at the door of the king's house.

¹¹And whenever the king went into the house of the Lord, the armed men went with him taking the body-covers, and then took them back to their room.

¹²And when he made himself low, the wrath of the Lord was turned back from him, and complete destruction did not come on him, for there was still some good in Judah.

¹³So King Rehoboam made himself strong in Jerusalem and was ruling there. Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he became king, and he was ruling for seventeen years in Jerusalem, the town which the Lord had made his out of all the tribes of Israel, to put his name there; and his mother's name was Naamah, an Ammonite woman.

¹⁴And he did evil because his heart was not true to the Lord.

¹⁵Now the acts of Rehoboam, first and last, are they not recorded in the words of Shemaiah the prophet and Iddo the seer? And there were wars between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all their days.

¹⁶And Rehoboam went to rest with his fathers, and was put into the earth in the town of David; and Abijah his son became king in his place.

13In the eighteenth year of King Jeroboam, Abijah became king over Judah.

²He was king in Jerusalem for three years; his mother's name was Maacah, the daughter of Uriel of Gibeah. And there was war between Abijah and Jeroboam.

³And Abijah went out to the fight with an army of men of war, four hundred thousand of his best men; and Jeroboam put his forces in line against him, eight hundred thousand of his best men of war.

⁴And Abijah took up his position on Mount Zemaraim, in the hill-country of Ephraim, and said, Give ear to me, O Jeroboam and all Israel:

⁵Is it not clear to you that the Lord, the God of Israel, gave the rule over Israel to David and to his sons for ever, by an agreement made with salt?

⁶But Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, the servant of Solomon, the son of David, took up arms against his lord.

⁷And certain foolish and good-for-nothing men were joined with him, and made themselves strong against Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, when he was young and untested and not able to keep them back.

⁸And now it is your purpose to put yourselves against the authority which the Lord has put into the hands of the sons of David, and you are a very great number, and you have with you the gold oxen which Jeroboam made to be your gods.

⁹And after driving out the priests of the Lord, the sons of Aaron and the Levites, have you not made priests for yourselves as the people of other lands do? so that anyone who comes to make himself priest by offering an ox or seven sheep, may be a priest of those who are no gods.

¹⁰But as for us, the Lord is our God, and we have not been turned away from him; we have priests who do the work of the Lord, even the sons of Aaron and the Levites in their places;

¹¹By whom burned offerings and perfumes are sent up in smoke before the Lord every morning and every evening; and they put out the holy bread on its table and the gold support for the lights with its lights burning every evening; for we keep the orders given to us by the Lord our God, but you have gone away from him.

¹²And now God is with us at our head, and his priests with their loud horns sounding against you. O children of Israel, do not make war on the Lord, the God of your fathers, for it will not go well for you.

¹³But Jeroboam had put some of his men to make a surprise attack on them from the back, so some were facing Judah and others were stationed secretly at their back.

¹⁴And Judah, turning their faces, saw that they were being attacked in front and at the back; and they gave a cry for help to the Lord, while the priests were sounding their horns.

¹⁵And the men of Judah gave a loud cry; and at their cry, God put fear into Jeroboam and all Israel before Abijah and Judah.

¹⁶And the children of Israel went in flight before Judah, and God gave them up into their hands.

¹⁷And Abijah and his people put them to death with great destruction: five hundred thousand of the best of Israel were put to the sword.

¹⁸So at that time the children of Israel were overcome, and the children of Judah got the better of them, because they put their faith in the Lord, the God of their fathers.

¹⁹And Abijah went after Jeroboam and took some of his towns, Beth-el with its small towns and Jeshanah with its small towns and Ephron with its small towns.

²⁰And Jeroboam did not get back his power again in the life-time of Abijah; and the Lord sent death on him.

²¹But Abijah became great, and had fourteen wives, and became the father of twenty-two sons and sixteen daughters.

²²And the rest of the acts of Abijah, and his ways and his sayings, are recorded in the account of the prophet Iddo.

14So Abijah went to rest with his fathers, and they put him into the earth in the town of David, and Asa his son became king in his place; in his time the land was quiet for ten years.

²And Asa did what was good and right in the eyes of the Lord his God;

³For he took away the altars of strange gods and the high places, and had the upright stones broken and the wood pillars cut down;

⁴And he made Judah go after the Lord, the God of their fathers, and keep his laws and his orders.

⁵And he took away the high places and the sun-images from all the towns of Judah; and the kingdom was quiet under his rule.

⁶He made walled towns in Judah, for the land was quiet and there were no wars in those years, because the Lord had given him rest.

⁷He said to Judah, Let us make these towns, building walls round them with towers and doors and locks. The land is still ours, because we have been true to the Lord our God; we have been true to him and he has given us rest on every side. So they went on building and all went well for them.

⁸And Asa had an army of three hundred thousand men of Judah armed with body-covers and spears, and two hundred and eighty thousand of Benjamin armed with body-covers and bows; all these were men of war.

⁹And Zerah the Ethiopian, with an army of a million, and three hundred war-carriages, came out against them to Mareshah.

¹⁰And Asa went out against him, and they put their forces in position in the valley north of Mareshah.

¹¹And Asa made prayer to the Lord his God and said, Lord, you only are able to give help against the strong to him who has no strength; come to our help, O Lord our God, for our hope is in you, and in your name we have come out against this great army. O Lord, you are our God; let not man's power be greater than yours.

¹²So the Lord sent fear on the Ethiopians before Asa and Judah; and the Ethiopians went in flight.

¹³And Asa and the people who were with him went after them as far as Gerar; and so great was the destruction among the Ethiopians that they were not able to get their army together again, for they were broken before the Lord and before his army; and they took away a great amount of their goods.

¹⁴And they overcame all the towns round Gerar, because the Lord sent fear on them; and they took away their goods from the towns, for there were stores of wealth in them.

¹⁵And they made an attack on the tents of the owners of the cattle, and took away great numbers of sheep and camels and went back to Jerusalem.

15And the spirit of God came on Azariah, the son of Oded;

²And he came face to face with Asa and said to him, Give ear to me, Asa and all Judah and Benjamin: the Lord is with you while you are with him; if your heart's desire is for him, he will be near you, but if you give him up, he will give you up.

³Now for a long time Israel has been without the true God, and without a teaching priest and without the law;

⁴But when in their trouble they were turned to the Lord, the God of Israel, searching after him, he let their search be rewarded.

⁵In those times there was no peace for him who went out or for him who came in, but great trouble was on all the people of the lands.

⁶And they were broken by divisions, nation against nation and town against town, because God sent all sorts of trouble on them.

⁷But be you strong and let not your hands be feeble, for your work will be rewarded.

⁸And Asa, hearing these words of Azariah, the son of Oded the prophet, took heart and put away all the disgusting things out of all the land of Judah and Benjamin, and out of the towns which he had taken from the hill-country of Ephraim; and he made new again the altar of the Lord in front of the covered way of the Lord's house.

⁹And he got together all Judah and Benjamin and those of Ephraim and Manasseh and Simeon who were living with them; for numbers of them came to him out of Israel when they saw that the Lord his God was with him.

¹⁰So they came together at Jerusalem in the third month, in the fifteenth year of the rule of Asa.

¹¹And that day they made offerings to the Lord of the things they had taken in war, seven hundred oxen and seven thousand sheep.

¹²And they made an agreement to be true to the Lord, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and all their soul;

¹³And that anyone, small or great, man or woman, who was not true to the Lord, the God of Israel, would be put to death.

¹⁴And they made an oath to the Lord, with a loud voice, sounding wind-instruments and horns.

¹⁵And all Judah was glad because of the oath, for they had taken it with all their heart, turning to the Lord with all their desire; and he was with them and gave them rest on every side.

¹⁶And Asa would not let Maacah, his mother, be queen, because she had made a disgusting image for Asherah; and Asa had her image cut down and broken up and burned by the stream Kidron.

¹⁷But the high places were not taken away out of Israel; but still the heart of Asa was true to the Lord all his life.

¹⁸He took into the house of God all the things which his father had made holy and those which he himself had made holy, silver and gold and vessels.

¹⁹And there was no more war till the thirty-fifth year of the rule of Asa.

16In the thirty-sixth year of the rule of Asa, Baasha, king of Israel, went up against Judah, building Ramah so that no one was able to go out or in to Asa, king of Judah.

²Then Asa took silver and gold out of the stores of the Lord's house and of the king's store-house, and sent to Ben-hadad, king of Aram, at Damascus, saying,

³Let there be an agreement between me and you as there was between my father and your father: see, I have sent you silver and gold; go and put an end to your agreement with Baasha, king of Israel, so that he may give up attacking me.

⁴And Ben-hadad did as King Asa said, and sent the captains of his armies against the towns of Israel, attacking Ijon and Dan and Abel-maim, and all the store-towns of Naphtali.

⁵Then Baasha, hearing of it, put a stop to the building of Ramah, and let his work come to an end.

⁶Then King Asa, with all Judah, took away the stones and wood with which Baasha was building Ramah, and he made use of them for building Geba and Mizpah.

⁷At that time Hanani the seer came to Asa, king of Judah, and said to him, Because you have put your faith in the king of Aram and not in the Lord your God, the army of the king of Aram has got away out of your hands.

⁸Were not the Ethiopians and the Lubim a very great army, with war-carriages and horsemen more than might be numbered? but because your faith was in the Lord, he gave them up into your hands.

⁹For the eyes of the Lord go this way and that, through all the earth, letting it be seen that he is the strong support of those whose hearts are true to him. In this you have done foolishly, for from now you will have wars.

¹⁰Then Asa was angry with the seer, and put him in prison, burning with wrath against him because of this thing. And at the same time Asa was cruel to some of the people.

¹¹Now the acts of Asa, first and last, are recorded in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel.

¹²In the thirty-ninth year of his rule, Asa had a very bad disease of the feet; but he did not go to the Lord for help in his disease, but to medical men.

¹³So Asa went to rest with his fathers, and death came to him in the forty-first year of his rule.

¹⁴And they put him into the resting-place which he had made for himself in the town of David, in a bed full of sweet perfumes of all sorts of spices, made by the perfumer's art, and they made a great burning for him.

17And Jehoshaphat his son became king in his place, and made himself strong against Israel.

²He put forces in all the walled towns of Judah, and responsible chiefs in the land of Judah and in the towns of Ephraim, which Asa his father had taken.

³And the Lord was with Jehoshaphat, because he went in the early ways of his father, not turning to the Baals,

⁴But turning to the God of his father and keeping his laws, and not doing as Israel did.

⁵So the Lord made his kingdom strong; and all Judah gave offerings to Jehoshaphat, and he had great wealth and honour.

⁶His heart was lifted up in the ways of the Lord; and he went so far as to take away the high places and the wood pillars out of Judah.

⁷In the third year of his rule he sent Benhail and Obadiah and Zechariah and Nethanel and Micaiah, his captains, as teachers into the towns of Judah;

⁸And with them, Shemaiah and Nethaniah and Zebadiah and Asahel and Shemiramoth and Jehonathan and Adonijah and Tobijah and Tob-adonijah, the Levites; and Elishama and Jehoram the priests.

⁹And they gave teaching in Judah and had the book of the law of the Lord with them; they went through all the towns of Judah teaching the people.

¹⁰And the fear of the Lord was on all the kingdoms of the lands round Judah, so that they made no wars against Jehoshaphat.

¹¹And some of the Philistines took offerings to Jehoshaphat, and made him payments of silver; and the Arabians gave him flocks, seven thousand, seven hundred sheep, and seven thousand, seven hundred he-goats.

¹²Jehoshaphat became greater and greater, and made strong towers and store-towns in Judah.

¹³He had much property in the towns of Judah; he had forces of armed men, great and strong, in Jerusalem.

¹⁴This is the number of them, listed by their families, the captains of thousands of Judah: Adnah, the captain, and with him three hundred thousand men of war;

¹⁵Second to him Jehohanan, the captain, and with him two hundred and eighty thousand;

¹⁶After him Amasiah, the son of Zichri, who freely gave himself to the Lord, and with him two hundred thousand men of war;

¹⁷And the captains of Benjamin: Eliada, a great man of war, and with him two hundred thousand armed with bows and body-covers;

¹⁸And after him Jehozabad, and with him a hundred and eighty thousand trained for war.

¹⁹These were the men who were waiting on the king, in addition to those placed by the king in the walled towns through all Judah.

18Now Jehoshaphat had great wealth and honour, and his son was married to Ahab's daughter.

²And after some years he went down to Samaria to see Ahab. And Ahab made a feast for him and the people who were with him, putting to death great numbers of sheep and oxen; and he got Jehoshaphat to go with him to Ramoth-gilead.

³For Ahab, king of Israel, said to Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, Will you go with me to Ramoth-gilead? And he said, I am as you are, and my people as your people; we will be with you in the war.

⁴Then Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, Let us now get directions from the Lord.

⁵So the king of Israel got together all the prophets, four hundred men, and said to them, Am I to go to Ramoth-gilead to make war or not? And they said, Go up: for God will give it into the hands of the king.

⁶But Jehoshaphat said, Is there no other prophet of the Lord here from whom we may get directions?

⁷And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, There is still one man by whom we may get directions from the Lord, but I have no love for him, because he has never been a prophet of good to me, but only of evil: he is Micaiah, the son of Imla. And Jehoshaphat said, Let not the king say so.

⁸Then the king of Israel sent for one of his unsexed servants and said, Go quickly and come back with Micaiah, the son of Imla.

⁹Now the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, were seated on their seats of authority, dressed in their robes, by the doorway into Samaria; and all the prophets were acting as prophets before them.

¹⁰And Zedekiah, the son of Chenaanah, made himself iron horns and said, The Lord says, Pushing back the Aramaeans with these, you will put an end to them completely.

¹¹And all the prophets said the same thing, saying, Go up to Ramoth-gilead, and it will go well for you, for the Lord will give it into the hands of the king.

¹²Now the servant who had gone to get Micaiah said to him, See now, all the prophets with one voice are saying good things to the king; so let your words be like theirs, and say good things.

¹³And Micaiah said, By the living Lord, whatever the Lord says to me I will say.

¹⁴When he came to the king, the king said to him, Micaiah, are we to go to Ramoth-gilead to make war or not? And he said, Go up, and it will go well for you; and they will be given up into your hands.

¹⁵And the king said to him, Have I not, again and again, put you on your oath to say nothing to me but what is true in the name of the Lord?

¹⁶Then he said, I saw all Israel wandering on the mountains like sheep without a keeper; and the Lord said, These have no master: let them go back, every man to his house in peace.

¹⁷And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, Did I not say that he would not be a prophet of good to me, but of evil?

¹⁸Then he said, Give ear now to the word of the Lord: I saw the Lord seated on his seat of power, and all the army of heaven in their places, at his right hand and at his left.

¹⁹And the Lord said, How may Ahab, king of Israel, be tricked into going up to Ramoth-gilead to his death? And one said one thing and one another.

²⁰Then a spirit came forward and took his place before the Lord and said, I will get him to do it by a trick. And the Lord said to him, How?

²¹And he said, I will go out and be a spirit of deceit in the mouth of all his prophets. And the Lord said, Your trick will have its effect on him: go out and do so.

²²And now, see, the Lord has put a spirit of deceit in the mouth of these prophets of yours; and the Lord has said evil against you.

²³Then Zedekiah, the son of Chenaanah, came near and gave Micaiah a blow on the side of his face, saying, Where is the spirit of the Lord whose word is in you?

²⁴And Micaiah said, Truly, you will see on that day when you go into an inner room to keep yourself safe.

²⁵And the king of Israel said, Take Micaiah and send him back to Amon, the ruler of the town, and to Joash, the king's son;

²⁶And say, By the king's order this man is to be put in prison, and given prison food till I come back in peace.

²⁷And Micaiah said, If you come back at all in peace, the Lord has not sent his word by me.

²⁸So the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, went up to Ramoth-gilead.

²⁹And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, I will make a change in my clothing, so that I do not seem to be the king, and will go into the fight; but do you put on your robes. So the king of Israel made a change in his dress, and they went to the fight.

³⁰Now the king of Aram had given orders to the captains of his war-carriages, saying, Make no attack on small or great, but only on the king of Israel.

³¹So when the captains of the war-carriages saw Jehoshaphat, they said, It is the king of Israel. And turning about, they came round him, but Jehoshaphat gave a cry, and the Lord came to his help, and God sent them away from him.

³²Now when the captains of the war-carriages saw that he was not the king of Israel, they went back from going after him.

³³And a certain man sent an arrow from his bow without thought of its direction, and gave the king of Israel a wound where his breastplate was joined to his clothing; so he said to the driver of his war-carriage, Go to one side and take me away out of the army, for I am badly wounded.

³⁴But the fight became more violent while the day went on; and the king of Israel was supported in his war-carriage facing the Aramaeans till the evening; and by sundown he was dead.

19And Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, went back to his house in Jerusalem in peace.

²And Jehu, the son of Hanani the seer, went to King Jehoshaphat and said to him, Is it right for you to go to the help of evil-doers, loving the haters of the Lord? because of this, the wrath of the Lord has come on you.

³But still there is some good in you, for you have put away the wood pillars out of the land, and have given your heart to the worship of God.

⁴And Jehoshaphat was living in Jerusalem; and he went out again among the people, from Beer-sheba to the hill-country of Ephraim, guiding them back to the Lord, the God of their fathers.

⁵And he put judges through all the land, in every walled town of Judah,

⁶And said to the judges, Take care what you do, for you are judging not for man but for the Lord, and he is with you in the decisions you give.

⁷So now let the fear of the Lord be in you; do your work with care; for in the Lord our God there is no evil, or respect for high position, or taking of payment to do wrong.

⁸Then in Jerusalem he gave authority to certain of the Levites and the priests and the heads of families of Israel to give decisions for the Lord, and in the causes of those living in Jerusalem.

⁹And he gave them their orders, saying, You are to do your work in the fear of the Lord, in good faith and with a true heart.

¹⁰And if any cause comes before you from your brothers living in their towns, where the death punishment is in question, or where there are questions of law or order, or rules or decisions, make them take care that they are not in the wrong before the Lord, so that wrath may not come on you and on your brothers; do this and you yourselves will not be in the wrong.

¹¹And now, Amariah, the chief priest, is over you in all questions to do with the Lord; and Zebadiah the son of Ishmael, the head of the family of Judah, in everything to do with the king's business; and the Levites will be overseers for you. Be strong to do the work; and may the Lord be with the upright.

20Now after this, the children of Moab and the children of Ammon, and with them some of the Meunim, made war against Jehoshaphat.

²And they came to Jehoshaphat with the news, saying, A great army is moving against you from Edom across the sea; and now they are in Hazazon-tamar (which is En-gedi).

³Then Jehoshaphat, in his fear, went to the Lord for directions, and gave orders all through Judah for the people to go without food.

⁴And Judah came together to make prayer for help from the Lord; from every town of Judah they came to give worship to the Lord.

⁵And Jehoshaphat took his place in the meeting of Judah and Jerusalem, in the house of the Lord in front of the new open space,

⁶And said, O Lord, the God of our fathers, are you not God in heaven? are you not ruler over all the kingdoms of the nations? and in your hands are power and strength so that no one is able to keep his place against you.

⁷Did you not, O Lord our God, after driving out the people of this land before your people Israel, give it to the seed of Abraham, your friend, for ever?

⁸And they made it their living-place, building there a holy house for your name, and saying,

⁹If evil comes on us, the sword, or punishment, or disease, or need of food, we will come to this house and to you, (for your name is in this house,) crying to you in our trouble, and you will give us salvation in answer to our cry.

¹⁰And now, see, the children of Ammon and Moab and the people of Mount Seir, whom you kept Israel from attacking when they came out of Egypt, so that turning to one side they did not send destruction on them:

¹¹See now, how as our reward they have come to send us out of your land which you have given us as our heritage.

¹²O our God, will you not be their judge? for our strength is not equal to this great army which is coming against us; and we are at a loss what to do: but our eyes are on you.

¹³And all Judah were waiting before the Lord, with their little ones, their wives, and their children.

¹⁴Then, before all the meeting, the spirit of the Lord came on Jahaziel, the son of Zechariah, son of Benaiah, son of Jeiel, son of Mattaniah, a Levite and one of the family of Asaph;

¹⁵And he said, Give ear, O Judah, and you people of Jerusalem, and you, King Jehoshaphat: the Lord says to you, Have no fear and do not be troubled on account of this great army; for the fight is not yours but God's.

¹⁶Go down against them tomorrow: see, they are coming up by the slope of Ziz; at the end of the valley, before the waste land of Jeruel, you will come face to face with them.

¹⁷There will be no need for you to take up arms in this fight; put yourselves in position, and keep where you are, and you will see the salvation of the Lord with you, O Judah and Jerusalem: have no fear and do not be troubled: go out against them tomorrow, for the Lord is with you.

¹⁸Then Jehoshaphat went down with his face to the earth, and all Judah and the people of Jerusalem gave worship to the Lord, falling down before him.

¹⁹And the Levites, the children of the Kohathites and the Korahites, got to their feet and gave praise to the Lord, the God of Israel, with a loud voice.

²⁰And early in the morning they got up and went out to the waste land of Tekoa: and when they were going out, Jehoshaphat took his station and said to them, Give ear to me, O Judah and you people of Jerusalem: have faith in the Lord your God and you will be safe; have faith in his prophets and all will go well for you.

²¹And after discussion with the people, he put in their places those who were to make melody to the Lord, praising him in holy robes, while they went at the head of the army, and saying, May the Lord be praised, for his mercy is unchanging for ever.

²²And at the first notes of song and praise the Lord sent a surprise attack against the children of Ammon and Moab and the people of Mount Seir, who had come against Judah; and they were overcome.

²³And the children of Ammon and Moab made an attack on the people of Mount Seir with a view to their complete destruction; and when they had put an end to the people of Seir, everyman's hand was turned against his neighbour for his destruction.

²⁴And Judah came to the watchtower of the waste land, and looking in the direction of the army, they saw only dead bodies stretched on the earth; no living man was to be seen.

²⁵And when Jehoshaphat and his people came to take their goods from them, they saw beasts in great numbers, and wealth and clothing and things of value, more than they were able to take away; all this they took for themselves, and they were three days getting it away, there was so much.

²⁶On the fourth day they all came together in the Valley of Blessing, and there they gave blessing to the Lord; for which cause that place has been named the Valley of Blessing to this day.

²⁷Then all the men of Judah and Jerusalem went back, with Jehoshaphat at their head, coming back to Jerusalem with joy; for the Lord had made them glad over their haters.

²⁸So they came to Jerusalem with corded instruments and wind-instruments into the house of the Lord.

²⁹And the fear of God came on all the kingdoms of the lands, when they had news of how the Lord made war on those who came against Israel.

³⁰So the kingdom of Jehoshaphat was quiet, for the Lord gave him rest on every side.

³¹And Jehoshaphat was king over Judah: he was thirty-five years old when he became king, and he was ruling for twenty-five years in Jerusalem: his mother's name was Azubah, the daughter of Shilhi.

³²He went in the ways of his father Asa, not turning away, but doing right in the eyes of the Lord.

³³The high places, however, were not taken away, and the hearts of the people were still not true to the God of their fathers.

³⁴Now as for the rest of the acts of Jehoshaphat, first and last, they are recorded in the words of Jehu, the son of Hanani, which were put in the book of the kings of Israel.

³⁵After this Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, became friends with Ahaziah, king of Israel, who did much evil:

³⁶Together they made ships to go to Tarshish, building them in Ezion-geber.

³⁷Then the word of Eliezer the prophet, the son of Dodavahu of Mareshah, came against Jehoshaphat, saying, Because you have let yourself be joined with Ahaziah, the Lord has sent destruction on your works. And the ships were broken and were not able to go to Tarshish.

21And Jehoshaphat went to rest with his fathers, and his body was put into the earth in the town of David. And Jehoram his son became king in his place.

²And he had brothers, sons of Jehoshaphat, Azariah, Jehiel, Zechariah, Azariah, Michael, and Shephatiah; all these were sons of Jehoshaphat, king of Israel.

³And their father gave them much silver and gold and things of great value, as well as walled towns in Judah; but the kingdom he gave to Jehoram, because he was the oldest.

⁴Now when Jehoram had taken his place over his father's kingdom, and had made his position safe, he put all his brothers to death with the sword, as well as some of the princes of Israel.

⁵Jehoram was thirty-two years old when he became king; and he was ruling in Jerusalem for eight years.

⁶He went in the ways of the kings of Israel, and did as the family of Ahab did, for the daughter of Ahab was his wife; and he did evil in the eyes of the Lord.

⁷But it was not the Lord's purpose to send destruction on the family of David, because of the agreement he had made with David, when he said he would give to him and to his sons a light for ever.

⁸In his time Edom made themselves free from the rule of Judah, and took a king for themselves.

⁹Then Jehoram went over with his captains and all his war-carriages ... made an attack by night on the Edomites, whose forces were all round him ... on the captains of the war-carriages.

¹⁰So Edom made themselves free from the rule of Judah, to this day: and at the same time Libnah made itself free from his rule; because he was turned away from the Lord, the God of his fathers.

¹¹And more than this, he made high places in the mountains of Judah, teaching the people of Jerusalem to go after false gods, and guiding Judah away from the true way.

¹²And a letter came to him from Elijah the prophet, saying, The Lord, the God of your father David, says, Because you have not kept to the ways of your father Jehoshaphat or the ways of Asa, king of Judah,

¹³But have gone in the way of the kings of Israel, and have made Judah and the people of Jerusalem go after false gods, as the family of Ahab did: and because you have put to death your father's sons, your brothers, who were better than yourself:

¹⁴Now, truly, the Lord will send a great destruction on your people and your children and your wives and everything which is yours:

¹⁵And you yourself will undergo the cruel pains of a disease in your stomach, so that day by day your inside will be falling out because of the disease.

¹⁶Then the Philistines and the Arabians, who are by Ethiopia, were moved by the Lord to make war on Jehoram;

¹⁷And they came up against Judah, forcing a way into it, and took away all the goods in the king's house, as well as his sons and his wives; so that he had no son but only Jehoahaz, the youngest.

¹⁸And after all this the Lord sent on him a disease of the stomach from which it was impossible for him to be made well.

¹⁹And time went on, and after two years, his inside falling out because of the disease, he came to his death in cruel pain. And his people made no burning for him like the burning made for his fathers.

²⁰He was thirty-two years old when he became king, and he was ruling in Jerusalem for eight years: and at his death he was not regretted; they put his body into the earth in the town of David, but not in the resting-place of the kings.

22And the people of Jerusalem made Ahaziah, his youngest son, king in his place, for the band of men who came with the Arabians to the army had put all the older sons to death. So Ahaziah, the son of Jehoram, became king.

²Ahaziah was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he was ruling in Jerusalem for one year. His mother's name was Athaliah, the daughter of Omri.

³He went in the ways of the family of Ahab, for his mother was his teacher in evil-doing.

⁴And he did evil in the eyes of the Lord, as the family of Ahab did; for after the death of his father they were his guides to his destruction.

⁵Acting on their suggestion, he went with Jehoram, son of Ahab, king of Israel, to make war on Hazael, king of Aram, at Ramoth-gilead: and Joram was wounded by the bowmen.

⁶And he went back to Jezreel to get well from the wounds which they had given him at Ramah when he was fighting against Hazael, king of Aram. And Ahaziah, the son of Jehoram, king of Judah, went down to Jezreel to see Jehoram, the son of Ahab, because he was ill.

⁷Now by the purpose of God, Ahaziah's journey to see Jehoram was the cause of his downfall: for when he came there, he went out with Jehoram against Jehu, the son of Nimshi, who had been marked out by the Lord for the destruction of the family of Ahab.

⁸Now when Jehu was effecting the punishment of the family of Ahab, he came to the princes of Judah and the sons of Ahaziah's brothers, the servants of Ahaziah, and put them to death.

⁹And he went in search of Ahaziah; and when they came where he was, (for he was in a secret place in Samaria,) they took him to Jehu and put him to death; then they put his body to rest in the earth, for they said, He is the son of Jehoshaphat, whose heart was true to the Lord. So the family of Ahaziah had no power to keep the kingdom.

¹⁰Now when Athaliah, the mother of Ahaziah, saw that her son was dead, she had all the rest of the seed of the kingdom of Judah put to death.

¹¹But Jehoshabeath, the daughter of the king, secretly took Joash, the son of Ahaziah, away from among the king's sons who were put to death, and put him and the woman who took care of him in a bedroom. So Jehoshabeath, the daughter of King Jehoram, the wife of Jehoiada the priest and sister of Ahaziah, kept him safe from Athaliah, so that she did not put him to death.

¹²And she kept him safe with her in the house of God for six years, while Athaliah was ruling the land.

23In the seventh year, Jehoiada made himself strong, and made an agreement with the captains of hundreds, Azariah, the son of Jeroham, Ishmael, the son of Jehohanan, Azariah, the son of Obed, Maaseiah, the son of Adaiah, and Elishaphat, the son of Zichri.

²And they went through Judah, getting together the Levites and the heads of families in Israel from all the towns of Judah, and they came to Jerusalem.

³And all the people made an agreement with the king in the house of God. And he said to them, Truly, the king's son will be king, as the Lord has said about the sons of David.

⁴This is what you are to do: let a third of you, of the priests and Levites, who come in on the Sabbath, keep the doors;

⁵And a third are to be stationed at the king's house; and a third at the doorway of the horses: while all the people are waiting in the open spaces round the house of the Lord.

⁶But let no one come into the house of the Lord but only the priests and those of the Levites who have work to do there; they may go in for they are holy; but the rest of the people are to keep the orders of the Lord.

⁷And the Levites are to make a circle round the king, every man being armed; and any man who comes into the house is to be put to death; you are to keep with the king when he comes in and when he goes out.

⁸So the Levites and all Judah did as Jehoiada the priest had given them orders: every one took with him his men, those who were to come in and those who were to go out on the Sabbath; for Jehoiada had not sent away the divisions.

⁹Then Jehoiada the priest gave to the captains of hundreds the spears and body-covers which had been King David's and which were kept in the house of God.

¹⁰And he put all the people in position, every man with his instruments of war in his hand, from the right side of the house to the left, by the altar and the house and all round the king.

¹¹Then they made the king's son come out, and they put the crown on his head and gave him the arm-bands and made him king: and Jehoiada and his sons put the holy oil on him and said, Long life to the king.

¹²Now Athaliah, hearing the noise of the people running and praising the king, came to the people in the house of the Lord:

¹³And looking, she saw the king in his place by the pillar at the doorway, and the captains and the horns by his side; and all the people of the land were giving signs of joy and sounding the horns; and the makers of melody were playing on instruments of music, taking the chief part in the song of praise. Then Athaliah, violently parting her robes, said, Broken faith, broken faith!

¹⁴Then Jehoiada the priest gave orders to the captains of hundreds who had authority over the army, saying, Take her outside the lines, and let anyone who goes after her be put to death with the sword. For the priest said, Let her not be put to death in the house of the Lord.

¹⁵So they put their hands on her, and she went to the king's house by the doorway of the king's horses; and there she was put to death.

¹⁶And Jehoiada made an agreement between the Lord and all the people and the king, that they would be the Lord's people.

¹⁷Then all the people went to the house of Baal and had it pulled down, and its altars and images broken up; and Mattan, the priest of Baal, they put to death before the altars.

¹⁸And Jehoiada put the work and the care of the house of the Lord into the hands of the priests and the Levites, who had been grouped in divisions by David to make burned offerings to the Lord, as it is recorded in the law of Moses, with joy and song as David had said.

¹⁹And he put door-keepers at the doors of the Lord's house, to see that no one who was unclean in any way might come in.

²⁰Then he took the captains of hundreds and the chiefs and the rulers of the people and all the people of the land, and they came down with the king from the house of the Lord through the higher doorway into the king's house, and put the king on the seat of the kingdom.

²¹So all the people of the land were glad and the town was quiet, for they had put Athaliah to death with the sword.

24Joash was seven years old when he became king, and he was ruling for forty years in Jerusalem: his mother's name was Zibiah of Beer-sheba.

²And Joash did what was right in the eyes of the Lord as long as Jehoiada the priest was living.

³And Jehoiada took two wives for him, and he became the father of sons and daughters.

⁴Now after this Joash had a desire to put the house of the Lord into good order again;

⁵And getting together the priests and Levites, he said to them, Go out into the towns of Judah year by year, and get from all Israel money to keep the house of your God in good condition; and see that this is done without loss of time. The Levites, however, were slow in doing so.

⁶Then the king sent for Jehoiada, the chief priest, and said to him, Why have you not given the Levites orders that the tax fixed by Moses, the servant of the Lord, and by the meeting of Israel, for the Tent of witness, is to be got in from Judah and Jerusalem and handed over?

⁷For the house of the Lord had been broken up by Athaliah, that evil woman, and her sons; and all its holy things they had given to the Baals.

⁸So at the king's order they made a chest and put it outside the doorway of the house of the Lord.

⁹And an order was sent out through all Judah and Jerusalem that payment was to be made to the Lord of the tax which Moses, the servant of God, had put on Israel in the waste land.

¹⁰And all the chiefs and all the people came gladly and put their money into the chest, till they had all given.

¹¹So when the chest was taken to the king's servants by the Levites, and they saw that there was much money in it, the king's scribe and the chief priest's servant took the money out, and put the chest back in its place. They did this day by day, and got together a great amount of money.

¹²Then the king and Jehoiada gave it to those who were responsible for getting the work done on the Lord's house, and with it they got wall-builders and woodworkers and metal-workers to put the house of the Lord in good order again.

¹³So the workmen did their work, making good what was damaged and building up the house of God till it was strong and beautiful again.

¹⁴And when the work was done, they took the rest of the money to the king and Jehoiada, and it was used for making the vessels for the house of the Lord, all the vessels needed for the offerings, the spoons and the vessels of gold and silver. And as long as Jehoiada was living, the regular burned offerings were offered in the house of the Lord.

¹⁵But Jehoiada became old and full of days, and he came to his end; he was a hundred and thirty years old at the time of his death.

¹⁶And they put him into his last resting-place in the town of David, among the kings, because he had done good in Israel for God and for his house.

¹⁷Now after the death of Jehoiada, the chiefs of Judah came and went down on their faces before the king. Then the king gave ear to them.

¹⁸And they gave up the house of the Lord God of their fathers, and became worshippers of pillars of wood and of the images; and because of this sin of theirs, wrath came on Judah and Jerusalem.

¹⁹And the Lord sent them prophets to make them come back to him; and they gave witness against them, but they would not give ear.

²⁰Then the spirit of God came on Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada the priest, and, getting up before the people, he said to them, God has said, Why do you go against the orders of the Lord, so that everything goes badly for you? because you have given up the Lord, he has given you up.

²¹But when they had made a secret design against him, he was stoned with stones, by the king's order, in the outer square of the Lord's house.

²²So King Joash did not keep in mind how good Jehoiada his father had been to him, but put his son to death. And in the hour of his death he said, May the Lord see it and take payment!

²³Now in the spring, the army of the Aramaeans came up against him; they came against Judah and Jerusalem, putting to death all the great men of the people and sending all the goods they took from them to the king of Damascus.

²⁴For though the army of Aram was only a small one, the Lord gave a very great army into their hands, because they had given up the Lord, the God of their fathers. So they put into effect the punishment of Joash.

²⁵And when they had gone away from him, (for he was broken with disease,) his servants made a secret design against him because of the blood of the son of Jehoiada the priest, and they put him to death on his bed; and they put his body into the earth in the town of David, but not in the resting-place of the kings.

²⁶Those who made designs against him were Zabad, the son of Shimeath, an Ammonite woman, and Jehozabad, the son of Shimrith, a Moabite woman.

²⁷Now the story of his sons, and all the words said by the prophet against him, and the building up again of the Lord's house, are recorded in the account in the book of the kings. And Amaziah his son became king in his place.

25Amaziah was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he was ruling in Jerusalem for twenty-nine years; his mother's name was Jehoaddan of Jerusalem.

²He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, but his heart was not completely true to the Lord.

³Now when he became strong in the kingdom, he put to death those men who had taken the life of the king his father.

⁴But he did not put their children to death, for he kept the orders of the Lord recorded in the book of the law of Moses, saying, The fathers are not to be put to death for their children or the children for their fathers, but a man is to be put to death for the sin which he himself has done.

⁵Then Amaziah got all Judah together and put them in order by their families, even all Judah and Benjamin, under captains of thousands and captains of hundreds: and he had those of twenty years old and over numbered, and they came to three hundred thousand of the best fighting-men, trained for war and in the use of the spear and the body-cover.

⁶And for a hundred talents of silver, he got a hundred thousand fighting-men from Israel.

⁷But a man of God came to him, saying, O king, let not the army of Israel go with you; for the Lord is not with Israel, that is, the children of Ephraim.

⁸But go yourself, and be strong in war; God will not let you go down before those who are fighting against you; for God has power to give help or to send you down before your attackers.

⁹Then Amaziah said to the man of God, But what is to be done about the hundred talents which I have given for the armed band of Israel? And the man of God in answer said, God is able to give you much more than this.

¹⁰So Amaziah, separating the armed band which had come to him from Ephraim, sent them back again; which made them very angry with Judah, and they went back burning with wrath.

¹¹Then Amaziah took heart, and went out at the head of his people and came to the Valley of Salt, where he put to death ten thousand of the children of Seir;

¹²And ten thousand more the children of Israel took living, and made them go up to the top of the rock, pushing them down from the top of the rock so that their bodies were broken by the fall.

¹³But the men of the band which Amaziah sent back and did not take with him to the fight, made attacks on the towns of Judah from Samaria to Beth-horon, putting to death three thousand of their people and taking away a great store of their goods.

¹⁴Now when Amaziah came back from the destruction of the Edomites, he took the gods of the children of Seir and made them his gods, worshipping them and burning offerings before them.

¹⁵And so the wrath of the Lord was moved against Amaziah, and he sent a prophet to him, who said, Why have you gone after the gods of the people who have not given their people salvation from your hands?

¹⁶But while he was talking to him the king said to him, Have we made you one of the king's government? say no more, or it will be the cause of your death. Then the prophet gave up protesting, and said, It is clear to me that God's purpose is your destruction, because you have done this and have not given ear to my words.

¹⁷Then Amaziah, king of Judah, acting on the suggestion of his servants, sent to Joash, the son of Jehoahaz, the son of Jehu, king of Israel, saying, Come, let us have a meeting face to face.

¹⁸And Joash, king of Israel, sent to Amaziah, king of Judah, saying, The thorn-tree in Lebanon sent to the cedar in Lebanon, saying, Give your daughter to my son for a wife: and a beast from the woodland in Lebanon went by, crushing the thorn under his feet.

¹⁹You say, See, I have overcome Edom; and your heart is lifted up with pride: now keep in your country; why do you make causes of trouble, putting yourself, and Judah with you, in danger of downfall?

²⁰But Amaziah gave no attention; and this was the purpose of God, so that he might give them up into the hands of Joash, because they had gone after the gods of Edom.

²¹And so Joash, king of Israel, went up; and he and Amaziah, king of Judah, came face to face at Beth-shemesh in Judah.

²²And Judah was overcome before Israel, and they went in flight, every man to his tent.

²³And Joash, king of Israel, made Amaziah, king of Judah, the son of Joash, the son of Jehoahaz, prisoner at Beth-shemesh, and took him to Jerusalem; and he had the wall of Jerusalem pulled down from the doorway of Ephraim to the doorway in the angle, four hundred cubits.

²⁴And he took all the gold and silver and all the vessels which were in the house of the Lord, under the care of Obed-edom, and all the wealth from the king's house, as well as those whose lives would be the price of broken faith, and went back to Samaria.

²⁵Amaziah, son of Joash, king of Judah, went on living for fifteen years after the death of Joash, the son of Jehoahaz, king of Israel.

²⁶Now the rest of the acts of Amaziah, first and last, are they not recorded in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel?

²⁷Now from the time when Amaziah gave up worshipping the Lord, they made secret designs against him in Jerusalem; and he went in flight to Lachish: but they sent to Lachish after him and put him to death there.

²⁸And they took his body on horseback and put it into the earth with his fathers in the town of David.

26Then all the people of Judah took Uzziah, who was sixteen years old, and made him king in place of his father Amaziah.

²He was the builder of Eloth, which he got back for Judah after the death of the king.

³Uzziah was sixteen years old when he became king, and he was ruling in Jerusalem for fifty-two years; his mother's name was Jechiliah of Jerusalem.

⁴He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, as his father Amaziah had done.

⁵He gave himself to searching after God in the days of Zechariah, who made men wise in the fear of God; and as long as he was true to the Lord, God made things go well for him.

⁶He went out and made war against the Philistines, pulling down the walls of Gath and Jabneh and Ashdod, and building towns in the country round Ashdod and among the Philistines.

⁷And God gave him help against the Philistines, and against the Arabians living in Gur-baal, and against the Meunim.

⁸The Ammonites gave offerings to Uzziah: and news of him went out as far as the limit of Egypt; for he became very great in power.

⁹Uzziah made towers in Jerusalem, at the doorway in the angle and at the doorway in the valley and at the turn of the wall, arming them.

¹⁰And he put up towers in the waste land and made places for storing water, for he had much cattle, in the low hills and in the table land; and he had farmers and vine-keepers in the mountains and in the fertile land, for he was a lover of farming.

¹¹In addition, Uzziah had an army of fighting-men who went out to war in bands, as they had been listed by Jeiel the scribe and Maaseiah the ruler, under the authority of Hananiah, one of the king's captains.

¹²The heads of families, the strong men of war, were two thousand, six hundred.

¹³And under their orders was a trained army of three hundred and seven thousand, five hundred, of great strength in war, helping the king against any who came against him.

¹⁴And Uzziah had all these forces armed with body-covers and spears and head-covers and coats of metal and bows and stones for sending from leather bands.

¹⁵And in Jerusalem he made machines, the invention of expert men, to be placed on the towers and angles of the walls for sending arrows and great stones. And his name was honoured far and wide; for he was greatly helped till he was strong.

¹⁶But when he had become strong, his heart was lifted up in pride, causing his destruction; and he did evil against the Lord his God; for he went into the Temple of the Lord for the purpose of burning perfumes on the altar of perfumes.

¹⁷And Azariah the priest went in after him, with eighty of the Lord's priests, who were strong men;

¹⁸And they made protests to Uzziah the king, and said to him, The burning of perfumes, Uzziah, is not your business but that of the priests, the sons of Aaron, who have been made holy for this work: go out of the holy place, for you have done wrong, and it will not be to your honour before God.

¹⁹Then Uzziah was angry; and he had in his hand a vessel for burning perfume; and while his wrath was bitter against the priests, the mark of the leper's disease came out on his brow, before the eyes of the priests in the house of the Lord by the altar of perfumes.

²⁰And Azariah, the chief priest, and all the priests, looking at him, saw the mark of the leper on his brow, and they sent him out quickly and he himself went out straight away, for the Lord's punishment had come on him.

²¹So King Uzziah was a leper till the day of his death, living separately in his private house; for he was cut off from the house of God; and Jotham his son was ruling over his house, judging the people of the land.

²²Now the rest of the acts of Uzziah, first and last, were recorded by Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz.

²³So Uzziah went to rest with his fathers; and they put his body into the earth in the field used for the resting-place of the kings, for they said, He is a leper: and Jotham his son became king in his place.

27Jotham was twenty-five years old when he became king; and he was ruling in Jerusalem for sixteen years; and his mother's name was Jerushah, the daughter of Zadok.

²He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, as his father Uzziah had done; but he did not go into the Temple of the Lord. And the people still went on in their evil ways.

³He put up the higher doorway of the house of the Lord, and did much building on the wall of the Ophel.

⁴In addition, he made towns in the hill-country of Judah, and strong buildings and towers in the woodlands.

⁵He went to war with the king of the children of Ammon and overcame them. That year, the children of Ammon gave him a hundred talents of silver, and ten thousand measures of grain and ten thousand measures of barley. And the children of Ammon gave him the same amount the second year and the third.

⁶So Jotham became strong, because in all his ways he made the Lord his guide.

⁷Now the rest of the acts of Jotham, and all his wars and his ways, are recorded in the book of the kings of Israel and Judah.

⁸He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he was ruling in Jerusalem for sixteen years.

⁹And Jotham went to rest with his fathers, and they put his body into the earth in the town of David; and Ahaz his son became king in his place.

28Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he was ruling in Jerusalem for sixteen years; he did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord, like David his father:

²But he went in the ways of the kings of Israel and made images of metal for the Baals.

³More than this, he had offerings burned in the valley of the son of Hinnom, and made his children go through fire, copying the disgusting ways of the nations whom the Lord had sent out of the land before the children of Israel.

⁴And he made offerings and had perfumes burned in the high places and on the hills and under every green tree.

⁵So the Lord his God gave him up into the hands of the king of Aram; and they overcame him, and took away a great number of his people as prisoners to Damascus. Then he was given into the hands of the king of Israel, who sent great destruction on him.

⁶For Pekah, the son of Remaliah, in one day put to death a hundred and twenty thousand men of Judah, all of them good fighting-men; because they had given up the Lord, the God of their fathers.

⁷And Zichri, a great fighting-man of Ephraim, put to death Maaseiah, the king's son, and Azrikam, the controller of his house, and Elkanah, who was second in authority to the king.

⁸And the children of Israel took away as prisoners from their brothers, two hundred thousand, women and sons and daughters, and a great store of their goods, and took them to Samaria.

⁹But a prophet of the Lord was there, named Oded; and he went out in front of the army which was coming into Samaria and said to them, Truly, because the Lord, the God of your fathers, was angry with Judah, he gave them up into your hands, and you have put them to death in an outburst of wrath stretching up to heaven.

¹⁰And now your purpose is to keep the children of Judah and Jerusalem as men-servants and women-servants under your yoke: but are there no sins against the Lord your God to be seen among yourselves?

¹¹And now give ear to me, and send back the prisoners whom you have taken from your brothers: for the wrath of the Lord is burning against you.

¹²Then certain of the heads of the children of Ephraim, Azariah, the son of Johanan, Berechiah, the son of Meshillemoth Jehizkiah, the son of Shallum, and Amasa the son of Hadlai, put themselves against those who had come from the war,

¹³And said to them, You are not to let these prisoners come here; for what you are designing to do will be a cause of sin against the Lord to us, making even greater our sin and our wrongdoing, which now are great enough, and his wrath is burning against Israel.

¹⁴So the armed men gave up the prisoners and the goods they had taken to the heads and the meeting of the people.

¹⁵And those men who have been named went up and took the prisoners, clothing those among them who were uncovered, with things from the goods which had been taken in the war, and putting robes on them and shoes on their feet; and they gave them food and drink and oil for their bodies, and seating all the feeble among them on asses, they took them to Jericho, the town of palm-trees, to their people, and then went back to Samaria.

¹⁶At that time King Ahaz sent for help to the king of Assyria.

¹⁷For the Edomites had come again, attacking Judah and taking away prisoners.

¹⁸And the Philistines, forcing their way into the towns of the lowlands and the south of Judah, had taken Beth-shemesh and Aijalon and Gederoth and Soco, with their daughter-towns, as well as Timnah and Gimzo and their daughter-towns, and were living there.

¹⁹For the Lord made Judah low, because of Ahaz, king of Israel; for he had given up all self-control in Judah, sinning greatly against the Lord.

²⁰Then Tiglath-pileser, king of Assyria, came to him, but was a cause of trouble and not of strength to him.

²¹For Ahaz took a part of the wealth from the house of the Lord, and from the house of the king and of the great men, and gave it to the king of Assyria; but it was no help to him.

²²And in the time of his trouble, this same King Ahaz did even more evil against the Lord.

²³For he made offerings to the gods of Damascus, who were attacking him, and said, Because the gods of the kings of Aram are giving them help, I will make offerings to them so that they may give me help. But they were the cause of his downfall, and of that of all Israel.

²⁴And Ahaz got together the vessels of the house of God, cutting up all the vessels of the house of God, and shutting the doors of the Lord's house; and he made altars in every part of Jerusalem.

²⁵And in every town of Judah he made high places where perfumes were burned to other gods, awaking the wrath of the Lord, the God of his fathers.

²⁶Now the rest of his acts and all his ways, first and last, are recorded in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel.

²⁷And Ahaz went to rest with his fathers, and they put his body into the earth in Jerusalem; but they did not put him in the resting-place of the kings of Israel: and Hezekiah his son became king in his place.

29Hezekiah became king when he was twenty-five years old; and he was king in Jerusalem for twenty-nine years; and his mother's name was Abijah, the daughter of Zechariah.

²He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, as his father David had done.

³In the first year of his rule, in the first month, opening the doors of the Lord's house, he made them strong.

⁴And he sent for the priests and the Levites, and got them together in the wide place on the east side,

⁵And said to them, Give ear to me, O Levites: now make yourselves holy, and make holy the house of the Lord, the God of your fathers, and take away everything unclean from the holy place.

⁶For our fathers have done evil, sinning in the eyes of the Lord our God, and have given him up, turning away their faces from the house of the Lord, and turning their backs on him.

⁷The doors of his house have been shut and the lights put out; no perfumes have been burned or offerings made to the God of Israel in his holy place.

⁸And so the wrath of the Lord has come on Judah and Jerusalem, and he has given them up to be a cause of fear and wonder and shame, as your eyes have seen.

⁹For see, our fathers have been put to death with the sword, and our sons and daughters and wives have been taken away prisoners because of this.

¹⁰Now it is my purpose to make an agreement with the Lord, the God of Israel, so that the heat of his wrath may be turned away from us.

¹¹My sons, take care now: for you have been marked out by the Lord to come before him and to be his servants, burning offerings to him.

¹²Then the Levites took their places; Mahath, the son of Amasai, and Joel, the son of Azariah, among the Kohathites; and of the sons of Merari, Kish, the son of Abdi, and Azariah, the son of Jehallelel; and of the Gershonites, Joah, the son of Zimmah, and Eden, the son of Joah;

¹³And of the sons of Elizaphan, Shimri and Jeuel; and of the sons of Asaph, Zechariah and Mattaniah;

¹⁴And of the sons of Heman, Jehuel and Shimei; and of the sons of Jeduthun, Shemaiah and Uzziel.

¹⁵And they got their brothers together and made themselves holy, and went in, as the king had said by the word of the Lord, to make the house of the Lord clean.

¹⁶And the priests went into the inner part of the house of the Lord to make it clean, and everything unclean which was to be seen in the Temple of the Lord they took out into the outer square of the Lord's house, and the Levites got it together and took it away to the stream Kidron.

¹⁷On the first day of the first month the work of making the house holy was started, and on the eighth day they came to the covered way of the Lord; in eight days they made the Lord's house holy, and on the sixteenth day of the first month the work was done.

¹⁸Then they went in to King Hezekiah and said, We have made all the house of the Lord clean, as well as the altar of burned offerings with all its vessels, and the table for the holy bread, with all its vessels.

¹⁹And all the vessels which were turned out by King Ahaz in his sin while he was king, we have put in order and made holy, and now they are in their places before the altar of the Lord.

²⁰Then Hezekiah the king got up early, and got together the great men of the town, and went up to the house of the Lord.

²¹And they took with them seven oxen and seven male sheep and seven lambs and seven he-goats as a sin-offering for the kingdom and for the holy house and for Judah. And he gave orders to the sons of Aaron, the priests, that these were to be offered on the altar of the Lord.

²²So they put the oxen to death and their blood was given to the priests to be drained out against the altar; then they put the male sheep to death, draining out their blood against the altar, and they put the lambs to death, draining out their blood against the altar.

²³Then they took the he-goats for the sin-offering, placing them before the king and the meeting of the people, and they put their hands on them:

²⁴And the priests put them to death, and made a sin-offering with their blood on the altar, to take away the sin of all Israel: for the king gave orders that the burned offering and the sin-offering were for all Israel.

²⁵Then he put the Levites in their places in the house of the Lord, with brass and corded instruments of music as ordered by David and Gad, the king's seer, and Nathan the prophet: for the order was the Lord's, given by his prophets.

²⁶So the Levites took their places with David's instruments, and the priests with their horns.

²⁷And Hezekiah gave the word for the burned offering to be offered on the altar. And when the burned offering was started, then the song of the Lord was started, with the blowing of horns and with all the instruments of David, king of Israel.

²⁸And all the people gave worship, to the sound of songs and the blowing of horns; and this went on till the burned offering was ended.

²⁹And at the end of the offering, the king and all who were present with him gave worship with bent heads.

³⁰Then King Hezekiah and the captains gave orders to the Levites to give praise to God in the words of David and Asaph the seer. And they made songs of praise with joy, and with bent heads gave worship.

³¹Then Hezekiah made answer and said, Now that you have given yourselves to the Lord, come near and take offerings and praise-offerings into the house of the Lord. So all the people took in offerings and praise-offerings: and those whose hearts were moved, took in burned offerings.

³²The number of burned offerings which the people took in was seventy oxen, a hundred male sheep, and two hundred lambs: all these were for burned offerings to the Lord.

³³And the holy things were six hundred oxen and three thousand sheep.

³⁴There were not enough priests for the work of cutting up all the burned offerings; so their brothers the Levites gave them help till the work was done and the priests had made themselves holy: for the Levites were more upright in heart to make themselves holy than the priests.

³⁵And there was a great amount of burned offerings, with the fat of the peace-offerings and the drink offerings for every burned offering. So the work of the Lord's house was put in order.

³⁶And Hezekiah and all the people were full of joy, because God had made the people ready: for the thing was done suddenly.

30Then Hezekiah sent word to all Israel and Judah, and sent letters to Ephraim and Manasseh, requesting them to come to the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, to keep the Passover to the Lord, the God of Israel.

²For the king, after discussion with his chiefs and all the body of the people in Jerusalem, had made a decision to keep the Passover in the second month.

³It was not possible to keep it at that time, because not enough priests had made themselves holy, and the people had not come together in Jerusalem.

⁴And the thing was right in the eyes of the king and all the people.

⁵So it was ordered that word was to be sent out through all Israel, from Beer-sheba to Dan, that they were to come to keep the Passover to the Lord, the God of Israel, at Jerusalem: because they had not kept it in great numbers in agreement with the law.

⁶So runners went with letters from the king and his chiefs through all Israel and Judah, by the order of the king, saying, O children of Israel, come back again to the Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, so that he may come again to that small band of you which has been kept safe out of the hands of the kings of Assyria.

⁷Do not be like your fathers and your brothers, who were sinners against the Lord, the God of their fathers, so that he made them a cause of fear, as you see.

⁸Now do not be hard-hearted, as your fathers were; but give yourselves to the Lord, and come into his holy place, which he has made his for ever, and be the servants of the Lord your God, so that the heat of his wrath may be turned away from you.

⁹For if you come back to the Lord, those who took away your brothers and your children will have pity on them, and let them come back to this land: for the Lord your God is full of grace and mercy, and his face will not be turned away from you if you come back to him.

¹⁰So the runners went from town to town through all the country of Ephraim and Manasseh as far as Zebulun: but they were laughed at and made sport of.

¹¹However, some of Asher and Manasseh and Zebulun put away their pride and came to Jerusalem.

¹²And in Judah the power of God gave them one heart to do the orders of the king and the captains, which were taken as the word of the Lord.

¹³So a very great number of people came together at Jerusalem to keep the feast of unleavened bread in the second month.

¹⁴And they got to work and took away all the altars in Jerusalem, and they put all the vessels for burning perfumes into the stream Kidron.

¹⁵Then on the fourteenth day of the second month they put the Passover lambs to death: and the priests and the Levites were shamed, and made themselves holy and took burned offerings into the house of the Lord.

¹⁶And they took their places in their right order, as it was ordered in the law of Moses, the man of God: the priests draining out on the altar the blood given them by the Levites.

¹⁷For there were still a number of the people there who had not made themselves holy: so the Levites had to put Passover lambs to death for those who were not clean, to make them holy to the Lord.

¹⁸For a great number of the people from Ephraim and Manasseh, Issachar and Zebulun, had not made themselves clean, but they took the Passover meal, though not in the right way. For Hezekiah had made prayer for them, saying, May the good Lord have mercy on everyone

¹⁹Who, with all his heart, is turned to God the Lord, the God of his fathers, even if he has not been made clean after the rules of the holy place.

²⁰And the Lord gave ear to Hezekiah, and made the people well.

²¹So the children of Israel who were present in Jerusalem kept the feast of unleavened bread for seven days with great joy: and the Levites and the priests gave praise to the Lord day by day, making melody to the Lord with loud instruments.

²²And Hezekiah said kind words to the Levites who were expert in the ordering of the worship of the Lord: so they kept the feast for seven days, offering peace-offerings and praising the Lord, the God of their fathers.

²³And by the desire of all the people, the feast went on for another seven days, and they kept the seven days with joy.

²⁴For Hezekiah, king of Judah, gave to the people for offerings, a thousand oxen and seven thousand sheep; and the rulers gave a thousand oxen and ten thousand sheep; and a great number of priests made themselves holy.

²⁵And all the people of Judah, with the priests and the Levites, and those who had come from Israel, and men from other lands who had come from Israel or who were living in Judah, were glad with great joy.

²⁶So there was great joy in Jerusalem: for nothing like this had been seen in Jerusalem from the time of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel.

²⁷Then the priests and the Levites gave the people a blessing: and the voice of their prayer went up to the holy place of God in heaven.

31Now when all this was over, all the men of Israel who were present went out into the towns of Judah, causing the stone pillars to be broken up and the wood pillars to be cut down, pulling down the high places and the altars in all Judah and Benjamin, as well as in Ephraim and Manasseh, till all were gone. Then all the children of Israel went back to their towns, every man to his property.

²Then Hezekiah put in order the divisions of the priests and Levites, every man in his division, in relation to his work, for the burned offerings and peace-offerings, and for the ordering of worship and for giving praise at the doors of the Lord's house.

³And he gave the king's part of his private property for the burned offerings, that is, for the morning and evening offerings, and the offerings for the Sabbath and the new moons and the regular feasts, as it is recorded in the law of the Lord.

⁴In addition, he gave orders to the people of Jerusalem to give to the priests and Levites that part which was theirs by right, so that they might be strong in keeping the law of the Lord.

⁵And when the order was made public, straight away the children of Israel gave, in great amounts, the first-fruits of their grain and wine and oil and honey, and of the produce of their fields; and they took in a tenth part of everything, a great store.

⁶And the children of Israel and Judah, who were living in the towns of Judah came with the tenth part of their oxen and sheep, and a tenth of all the holy things which were to be given to the Lord their God, and put them in great masses.

⁷The first store of things was put down in the third month, and in the seventh month the masses were complete.

⁸And when Hezekiah and the rulers came and saw all the store of goods, they gave praise to the Lord and to his people Israel.

⁹Then Hezekiah put questions to the priests and Levites about the store of goods.

¹⁰And Azariah, the chief priest, of the family of Zadok, said in answer, From the time when the people first came with their offerings into the house of the Lord, we have had food enough, and more than enough: for the blessing of the Lord is on his people; and there is this great store which has not been used.

¹¹Then Hezekiah said that store-rooms were to be made ready in the house of the Lord; and this was done.

¹²And in them they put all the offerings and the tenths and the holy things, keeping nothing back, and over them was Conaniah the Levite, with Shimei his brother second to him.

¹³And Jehiel and Azaziah and Nahath and Asahel and Jerimoth and Jozabad and Eliel and Ismachiah and Mahath and Benaiah were overseers, under the directions of Conaniah and Shimei his brother, by the order of Hezekiah the king and Azariah, the ruler of the house of God.

¹⁴And Kore, the son of Imnah the Levite, the keeper of the east door, had control of the offerings freely given to God, and the distribution of the offerings of the Lord and the most holy things.

¹⁵And under him were Eden and Miniamin and Jeshua and Shemaiah and Amariah and Shecaniah, in the towns of the priests, who were made responsible for giving it to all their brothers, by divisions, to small and great:

¹⁶As well as to all the males, of three years old and over, listed by their families, who went into the house of the Lord to do what was needed day by day, for their special work with their divisions.

¹⁷And the families of the priests were listed by their fathers' names, but the Levites, of twenty years old and over, were listed in relation to their work in their divisions;

¹⁸And in the lists were all their little ones and their wives and their sons and daughters, through all the people: they made themselves holy in the positions which they were given.

¹⁹And as for the sons of Aaron, the priests, living in the country on the outskirts of their towns, every different town there were men, marked out by name, to give their part of the goods to all the males among the priests, and to all who were listed among the Levites.

²⁰This Hezekiah did through all Judah; he did what was good and right and true before the Lord his God.

²¹And for everything he undertook, in connection with the work of the house of God and his law and orders, he got directions from God and did it with serious purpose; and things went well for him.

32Now after these things and this true-hearted work, Sennacherib, king of Assyria, came into Judah, and put his army in position before the walled towns of Judah, designing to make his way into them by force.

²And when Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib had come for the purpose of fighting against Jerusalem,

³He took up with his rulers and men of war the question of stopping up the water-springs outside the town; and they gave him their support.

⁴So they got together a great number of people, and had all the water-springs and the stream flowing through the land stopped up, saying, Why let the kings of Assyria come and have much water?

⁵Then he took heart, building up the wall where it was broken down, and making its towers higher, and building another wall outside; and he made strong the Millo in the town of David, and got together a great store of all sorts of instruments of war.

⁶And he put war chiefs over the people, and sent for them all to come together to him in the wide place at the doorway into the town, and to give them heart he said to them,

⁷Be strong and take heart; have no fear, and do not be troubled on account of the king of Assyria and all the great army with him: for there is a greater with us.

⁸With him is an arm of flesh; but we have the Lord our God, helping us and fighting for us. And the people put their faith in what Hezekiah, king of Judah, said.

⁹After this, Sennacherib, king of Assyria, sent his servants to Jerusalem (at that time he was stationed with all his army in front of Lachish), to say to Hezekiah and all the men of Judah in Jerusalem,

¹⁰Sennacherib, king of Assyria, says, In what are you placing your hope, waiting here in the walled town of Jerusalem?

¹¹Is it not Hezekiah who has got you to do it, causing your death from need of food and water, by saying, The Lord our God will give us salvation out of the hands of the king of Assyria?

¹²Has not this same Hezekiah taken away his high places and his altars, saying to Judah and Jerusalem, Give worship before one altar only, burning offerings on it?

¹³Have you no knowledge of what I and my fathers have done to all the peoples of every land? were the gods of the nations of those lands able to keep their land from falling into my hands?

¹⁴Who was there among all the gods of those nations, which my fathers put to destruction, who was able to keep his people safe from my hands? and is it possible that your God will keep you safe from my hands?

¹⁵So do not be tricked by Hezekiah or let him get you to do this, and do not put any faith in what he says: for no god of any nation or kingdom has been able to keep his people safe from my hands, or the hands of my fathers: how much less will your God keep you safe from my hands!

¹⁶And his servants said even more against the Lord God and against his servant Hezekiah.

¹⁷And he sent letters, in addition, to put shame on the Lord, the God of Israel, and to say evil against him, saying, As the gods of the nations of other lands have not been able to keep their people safe from my hands, no more will the God of Hezekiah keep his people safe from my hands.

¹⁸These things they said, crying out with a loud voice in the Jews' language, to the people of Jerusalem who were on the wall, with the purpose of troubling them and putting fear into them, so that they might take the town;

¹⁹Talking of the God of Jerusalem as if he was like the gods of the peoples of the earth, the work of men's hands.

²⁰And Hezekiah the king, and Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, made prayer because of this, crying out to heaven.

²¹And the Lord sent an angel who put to death all the men of war and the chiefs and the captains in the army of the king of Assyria. So he went back to his country in shame. And when he came into the house of his god, his sons, the offspring of his body, put him to death there with the sword.

²²So the Lord gave Hezekiah and the people of Jerusalem salvation from the power of Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, and from all others, giving them rest on every side.

²³And great numbers came to Jerusalem with offerings for the Lord, and things of great price for Hezekiah, king of Judah: so that he was honoured among all nations from that time.

²⁴In those days Hezekiah was ill and near death; and he made prayer to the Lord, and the Lord in answer gave him a sign.

²⁵But Hezekiah did not do as had been done to him; for his heart was lifted up in pride; and so wrath came on him and on Judah and Jerusalem.

²⁶But then, Hezekiah, in sorrow for what he had done, put away his pride; and he and all Jerusalem made themselves low, so that the wrath of the Lord did not come on them in Hezekiah's life-time.

²⁷And Hezekiah had very great wealth and honour; and he made himself store-houses for his gold and silver and jewels and spices, and for body-covers and all sorts of beautiful vessels.

²⁸And store-houses for the produce of grain and wine and oil; and buildings for all sorts of beasts and flocks.

²⁹And he made towns for himself, and got together much property in flocks and herds: for God had given him great wealth.

³⁰It was Hezekiah who had the higher spring of the water of Gihon stopped, and the water taken down on the west side of the town of David. In everything he undertook, Hezekiah did well.

³¹However, in the business of the representatives sent by the rulers of Babylon to get news of the wonder which had taken place in the land, God gave up guiding him, testing him to see what was in his heart.

³²Now the rest of the acts of Hezekiah, and the good he did, are recorded in the vision of Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, and in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel.

³³So Hezekiah went to rest with his fathers, and they put his body into the higher part of the resting-places of the sons of David: and all Judah and the people of Jerusalem gave him honour at his death. And Manasseh his son became king in his place.

33Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he was ruling for fifty-five years in Jerusalem.

²He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, copying the disgusting ways of the nations whom the Lord had sent out of the land before the children of Israel.

³For he put up again the high places which had been pulled down by his father Hezekiah; and he made altars for the Baals, and pillars of wood, and was a worshipper and servant of all the stars of heaven;

⁴And he made altars in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, In Jerusalem will my name be for ever.

⁵And he made altars for all the stars of heaven in the two outer squares of the house of the Lord.

⁶More than this, he made his children go through the fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom; and he made use of secret arts, and signs for reading the future, and unnatural powers, and gave positions to those who had control of spirits and to wonder-workers: he did much evil in the eyes of the Lord, moving him to wrath.

⁷And he put the image he had made in the house of God, the house of which God had said to David and to Solomon his son, In this house, and in Jerusalem, the town which I have made mine out of all the tribes of Israel, will I put my name for ever:

⁸And never again will I let the feet of Israel be moved out of the land which I have given to their fathers; if only they will take care to do all my orders, even all the law and the orders and the rules given to them by Moses.

⁹And Manasseh made Judah and the people of Jerusalem go out of the true way, so that they did more evil than those nations whom the Lord gave up to destruction before the children of Israel.

¹⁰And the word of the Lord came to Manasseh and his people, but they gave no attention.

¹¹So the Lord sent against them the captains of the army of Assyria, who made Manasseh a prisoner and took him away in chains to Babylon.

¹²And crying out to the Lord his God in his trouble, he made himself low before the God of his fathers,

¹³And made prayer to him; and in answer to his prayer God let him come back to Jerusalem and to his kingdom. Then Manasseh was certain that the Lord was God.

¹⁴After this he made an outer wall for the town of David, on the west side of Gihon in the valley, as far as the way into the town by the fish doorway; and he put a very high wall round the Ophel; and he put captains of the army in all the walled towns of Judah.

¹⁵He took away the strange gods and the image out of the house of the Lord, and all the altars he had put up on the hill of the Lord's house and in Jerusalem, and put them out of the town.

¹⁶And he put the altar of the Lord in order, offering peace-offerings and praise-offerings on it, and said that all Judah were to be servants of the Lord, the God of Israel.

¹⁷However, the people still made offerings in the high places, but only to the Lord their God.

¹⁸Now the rest of the acts of Manasseh, and his prayer to his God, and the words which the seers said to him in the name of the Lord, the God of Israel, are recorded among the acts of the kings of Israel.

¹⁹And the prayer which he made to God, and how God gave him an answer, and all his sin and his wrongdoing, and the places where he made high places and put up pillars of wood and images, before he put away his pride, are recorded in the history of the seers.

²⁰So Manasseh went to rest with his fathers, and they put his body to rest in his house, and Amon his son became king in his place.

²¹Amon was twenty-two years old when he became king; and he was ruling for two years in Jerusalem.

²²He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, as Manasseh his father had done; and Amon made offerings to all the images which his father Manasseh had made, and was their servant.

²³He did not make himself low before the Lord, as his father Manasseh had done, but went on sinning more and more.

²⁴And his servants made a secret design against him, and put him to death in his house.

²⁵But the people of the land put to death all those who had taken part in the design against King Amon, and made his son Josiah king in his place.

34Josiah was eight years old when he became king; he was ruling in Jerusalem for thirty-one years.

²And he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, walking in the ways of his father David, without turning to the right hand or to the left.

³In the eighth year of his rule, while he was still young, his heart was first turned to the God of his father David; and in the twelfth year he undertook the clearing away of all the high places and the pillars and the images of wood and metal from Judah and Jerusalem.

⁴He had the altars of the Baals broken down, while he himself was present; and the sun-images which were placed on high over them he had cut down; and the pillars of wood and the metal images he had broken up and crushed to dust, dropping the dust over the resting-places of the dead who had made offerings to them.

⁵And he had the bones of the priests burned on their altars, and so he made Judah and Jerusalem clean.

⁶And in all the towns of Manasseh and Ephraim and Simeon as far as Naphtali, he made waste their houses round about.

⁷He had the altars and the pillars of wood pulled down and the images crushed to dust, and all the sun-images cut down, through all the land of Israel, and then he went back to Jerusalem.

⁸Now in the eighteenth year of his rule, when the land and the house had been made clean, he sent Shaphan, the son of Azaliah, and Maaseiah, the ruler of the town, and Joah, the son of Joahaz, the recorder, to make good what was damaged in the house of the Lord his God.

⁹And they came to Hilkiah, the chief priest, and gave him all the money which had been taken into the house of God, which the Levites, the keepers of the door, had got from Manasseh and Ephraim and those of Israel who had not been taken away as prisoners, and from all Judah and Benjamin and the people of Jerusalem.

¹⁰And they gave it to the overseers of the work of the Lord's house, and the overseers gave it to the workmen working in the house, for building it up and making good what was damaged;

¹¹Even to the woodworkers and builders to get cut stone and wood for joining the structure together and for making boards for the houses which the kings of Judah had given up to destruction.

¹²And the men did the work well; and those who had authority over them were Jahath and Obadiah, Levites of the sons of Merari, and Zechariah and Meshullam, of the sons of the Kohathites, who were to be responsible for seeing that the work was done; and others of the Levites, who were expert with instruments of music,

¹³Had authority over the transport workers, giving directions to all who were doing any sort of work; and among the Levites there were scribes and overseers and door-keepers.

¹⁴Now when they were taking out the money which had come into the Lord's house, Hilkiah the priest came across the book of the law of the Lord, which he had given by the mouth of Moses.

¹⁵Then Hilkiah said to Shaphan the scribe, I have made discovery of the book of the law in the house of the Lord. And Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan.

¹⁶And Shaphan took the book to the king; and he gave him an account of what had been done, saying, Your servants are doing all they have been given to do;

¹⁷They have taken out all the money which was in the Lord's house and have given it to the overseers and to the workmen.

¹⁸Then Shaphan the scribe said to the king, Hilkiah the priest has given me a book; and he made a start at reading some of it to the king.

¹⁹And the king, hearing the words of the law, took his robe in his hands, violently parting it as a sign of his grief.

²⁰And he gave orders to Hilkiah and to Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, and Abdon, the son of Micah, and Shaphan the scribe and Asaiah, the king's servant, saying,

²¹Go and get directions from the Lord for me and for those who are still in Israel and for Judah, about the words of this book which has come to light; for great is the wrath of the Lord which has been let loose on us, because our fathers have not kept the word of the Lord or done what is recorded in this book.

²²So Hilkiah, and those whom the king sent, went to Huldah the woman prophet, the wife of Shallum, the son of Tokhath, the son of Hasrah, the keeper of the robes (now she was living in Jerusalem, in the second part of the town); and they had talk with her about this thing.

²³And she said to them, The Lord, the God of Israel, has said, Say to the man who sent you to me,

²⁴These are the words of the Lord: See, I will send evil on this place and on its people, even all the curses in the book which they have been reading before the king of Judah;

²⁵Because they have given me up, burning offerings to other gods and moving me to wrath by all the works of their hands; so my wrath is let loose on this place and will not be put out.

²⁶But to the king of Judah who sent you to get directions from the Lord, say, This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, has said: Because you have given ear to my words,

²⁷And your heart was soft, and you made yourself low before God, on hearing his words about this place and its people, and with weeping and signs of grief have made yourself low before me, I have given ear to you, says the Lord God.

²⁸See, I will let you go to your fathers, and be put in your last resting-place in peace, and your eyes will not see all the evil which I will send on this place and on its people. So they took this news back to the king.

²⁹Then the king sent and got together all the responsible men of Judah and of Jerusalem.

³⁰And the king went up to the house of the Lord, with all the men of Judah and the people of Jerusalem, and the priests and the Levites and all the people, small and great; and they were present at his reading of the book of the law which had come to light in the house of the Lord.

³¹Then the king, taking his place by the pillar, made an agreement before the Lord, to go in the way of the Lord, and to keep his orders and his decisions and his rules with all his heart and with all his soul, and to keep the words of the agreement recorded in this book.

³²And he made all the people in Jerusalem and Benjamin give their word to keep it. And the people of Jerusalem kept the agreement of God, the God of their fathers.

³³Josiah took away all the disgusting things out of all the lands of the children of Israel, and made all who were in Israel servants of the Lord their God. And as long as he was living they were true to the Lord, the God of their fathers.

35And Josiah kept a Passover to the Lord in Jerusalem; on the fourteenth day of the first month they put the Passover lamb to death.

²And he gave the priests their places, making them strong for the work of the house of God.

³And he said to the Levites, the teachers of all Israel, who were holy to the Lord, See, the holy ark is in the house which Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel, made; it will no longer have to be transported on your backs: now be the servants of the Lord your God and his people Israel,

⁴And make yourselves ready in your divisions, by your families, as it is ordered in the writings of David, king of Israel, and of Solomon his son;

⁵And take your positions in the holy place, grouped in the families of your brothers, the children of the people, and for every division let there be a part of a family of the Levites.

⁶And put the Passover lamb to death, and make yourselves holy, and make it ready for your brothers, so that the orders given by the Lord through Moses may be done.

⁷And Josiah gave lambs and goats from the flock as Passover offerings for all the people who were present, to the number of thirty thousand, and three thousand oxen: these were from the king's private property.

⁸And his captains freely gave an offering to the people, the priests, and the Levites. Hilkiah and Zechariah and Jehiel, the rulers of the house of God, gave to the priests for the Passover offerings two thousand, six hundred small cattle and three hundred oxen.

⁹And Conaniah and Shemaiah and Nethanel, his brothers, and Hashabiah and Jeiel and Jozabad, the chiefs of the Levites, gave to the Levites for the Passover offerings five thousand small cattle and five hundred oxen.

¹⁰So everything was made ready and the priests took their places with the Levites in their divisions, as the king had said.

¹¹And they put the Passover lambs to death, the blood being drained out by the priests when it was given to them, and the Levites did the skinning.

¹²And they took away the burned offerings, so that they might give them to be offered to the Lord for the divisions of the families of the people, as it is recorded in the book of Moses. And they did the same with the oxen.

¹³And the Passover lamb was cooked over the fire, as it says in the law; and the holy offerings were cooked in pots and basins and vessels, and taken quickly to all the people.

¹⁴And after that, they made ready for themselves and for the priests; for the priests, the sons of Aaron, were offering the burned offerings and the fat till night; so the Levites made ready what was needed for themselves and for the priests, the sons of Aaron.

¹⁵And the sons of Asaph, the makers of melody, were in their places, as ordered by David and Asaph and Heman and Jeduthun, the king's seer; and the door-keepers were stationed at every door: there was no need for them to go away from their places, for their brothers the Levites made ready for them.

¹⁶So everything needed for the worship of the Lord was made ready that same day, for the keeping of the Passover and the offering of burned offerings on the altar of the Lord, as King Josiah had given orders.

¹⁷And all the children of Israel who were present kept the Passover and the feast of unleavened bread at that time for seven days.

¹⁸No Passover like it had been kept in Israel from the days of Samuel the prophet; and not one of the kings of Israel had ever kept a Passover like the one kept by Josiah and the priests and the Levites and all those of Judah and Israel who were present, and the people of Jerusalem.

¹⁹In the eighteenth year of the rule of Josiah this Passover was kept.

²⁰After all this, and after Josiah had put the house in order, Neco, king of Egypt, went up to make war at Carchemish by the river Euphrates; and Josiah went out against him.

²¹But he sent representatives to him, saying, What have I to do with you, O king of Judah? I have not come against you this day, but against those with whom I am at war; and God has given me orders to go forward quickly: keep out of God's way, for he is with me, or he will send destruction on you.

²²However, Josiah would not go back; but keeping to his purpose of fighting against him, and giving no attention to the words of Neco, which came from God, he went forward to the fight in the valley of Megiddo.

²³And the bowmen sent their arrows at King Josiah, and the king said to his servants, Take me away, for I am badly wounded.

²⁴So his servants took him out of the line of war-carriages, and put him in his second carriage and took him to Jerusalem, where he came to his end, and they put his body in the resting-place of his fathers. And in all Judah and Jerusalem there was great weeping for Josiah.

²⁵And Jeremiah made a song of grief for Josiah; and to this day Josiah is named by all the makers of melody, men and women, in their songs of grief; they made it a rule in Israel; and the songs are recorded among the songs of grief.

²⁶Now the rest of the acts of Josiah, and the good he did, in keeping with what is recorded in the law of the Lord,

²⁷And all his acts, first and last, are recorded in the book of the kings of Israel and Judah.

36Then the people of the land took Jehoahaz, the son of Josiah, and made him king in Jerusalem in place of his father.

²Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he became king; he was ruling in Jerusalem for three months.

³Then the king of Egypt took the kingdom from him in Jerusalem, and put on the land a tax of a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold.

⁴And the king of Egypt made Eliakim his brother king over Judah and Jerusalem, changing his name to Jehoiakim. And Neco took his brother Jehoahaz away to Egypt.

⁵Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he became king; he was ruling in Jerusalem for eleven years, and he did evil in the eyes of the Lord his God.

⁶Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came up against him, and took him away in chains to Babylon.

⁷And Nebuchadnezzar took away some of the vessels of the Lord's house, and put them in the house of his god in Babylon.

⁸Now the rest of the acts of Jehoiakim and the disgusting things he did, and all there is to be said against him, are recorded in the book of the kings of Israel and Judah; and Jehoiachin his son became king in his place.

⁹Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he became king; he was ruling in Jerusalem for three months and ten days, and he did evil in the eyes of the Lord.

¹⁰In the spring of the year King Nebuchadnezzar sent and took him away to Babylon, with the beautiful vessels of the house of the Lord, and made Zedekiah, his father's brother, king over Judah and Jerusalem.

¹¹Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king; he was ruling in Jerusalem for eleven years.

¹²He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, and did not make himself low before Jeremiah the prophet who gave him the word of the Lord.

¹³And he took up arms against King Nebuchadnezzar, though he had made him take an oath by God; but he made his neck stiff and his heart hard, turning away from the Lord, the God of Israel.

¹⁴And more than this, all the great men of Judah and the priests and the people made their sin great, turning to all the disgusting ways of the nations; and they made unclean the house of the Lord which he had made holy in Jerusalem.

¹⁵And the Lord, the God of their fathers, sent word to them by his servants, sending early and frequently, because he had pity on his people and on his living-place;

¹⁶But they put shame on the servants of God, making sport of his words and laughing at his prophets, till the wrath of God was moved against his people, till there was no help.

¹⁷So he sent against them the king of the Chaldaeans, who put their young men to death with the sword in the house of their holy place, and had no pity for any, young man or virgin, old man or white-haired: God gave them all into his hands.

¹⁸And all the vessels of the house of God, great and small, and the stored wealth of the Lord's house and the wealth of the king and his chiefs, he took away to Babylon.

¹⁹And the house of God was burned and the wall of Jerusalem broken down; all its great houses were burned with fire and all its beautiful vessels given up to destruction.

²⁰And all who had not come to death by the sword he took away prisoners to Babylon; and they became servants to him and to his sons till the kingdom of Persia came to power:

²¹So that the words of the Lord, which he said by the mouth of Jeremiah, might come true, till the land had had pleasure in her Sabbaths; for as long as she was waste the land kept the Sabbath, till seventy years were complete.

²²Now in the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, in order that the words which the Lord had said by the mouth of Jeremiah might come true, the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, was moved by the Lord, and he made a public statement and had it given out through all his kingdom and put in writing, saying,

²³Cyrus, king of Persia, has said, All the kingdoms of the earth have been given to me by the Lord, the God of heaven; and he has made me responsible for building a house for him in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever there is among you of all his people, may the Lord his God be with him and let him go up.

1The history of Nehemiah, the son of Hacaliah. Now it came about, in the month Chislev, in the twentieth year, when I was in Shushan, the king's town,

²That Hanani, one of my brothers, came with certain men from Judah; and in answer to my request for news of the Jews who had been prisoners and had got away, and of Jerusalem,

³They said to me, The small band of Jews now living there in the land are in great trouble and shame: the wall of Jerusalem has been broken down, and its doorways burned with fire.

⁴Then, after hearing these words, for some days I gave myself up to weeping and sorrow, seated on the earth; and taking no food I made prayer to the God of heaven,

⁵And said, O Lord, the God of heaven, the great God, greatly to be feared, keeping faith and mercy with those who have love for him and are true to his laws:

⁶Let your ear now take note and let your eyes be open, so that you may give ear to the prayer of your servant, which I make before you at this time, day and night, for the children of Israel, your servants, while I put before you the sins of the children of Israel, which we have done against you: truly, I and my father's people are sinners.

⁷We have done great wrong against you, and have not kept the orders, the rules, and the decisions, which you gave to your servant Moses.

⁸Keep in mind, O Lord, the order you gave your servant Moses, saying, If you do wrong I will send you wandering among the peoples:

⁹But if you come back to me and keep my orders and do them, even if those of you who have been forced out are living in the farthest parts of heaven, I will get them from there, and take them back to the place marked out by me for the resting-place of my name.

¹⁰Now these are your servants and your people, whom you have made yours by your great power and by your strong hand.

¹¹O Lord, let your ear take note of the prayer of your servant, and of the prayers of your servants, who take delight in worshipping your name: give help, O Lord, to your servant this day, and let him have mercy in the eyes of this man. (Now I was the king's wine-servant.)

2And it came about in the month Nisan, in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes the king, when wine was before him, that I took up the wine and gave it to the king. Now I had never before been sad when the king was present.

²And the king said to me, Why is your face sad, seeing that you are not ill? this is nothing but sorrow of heart. Then I was full of fear;

³And said to the king, May the king be living for ever: is it not natural for my face to be sad, when the town, the place where the bodies of my fathers are at rest, has been made waste and its doorways burned with fire?

⁴Then the king said to me, What is your desire? So I made prayer to the God of heaven.

⁵And I said to the king, If it is the king's pleasure, and if your servant has your approval, send me to Judah, to the town where the bodies of my fathers are at rest, so that I may take in hand the building of it.

⁶And the king said to me (the queen being seated by his side), How long will your journey take, and when will you come back? So the king was pleased to send me, and I gave him a fixed time.

⁷Further, I said to the king, If it is the king's pleasure, let letters be given to me for the rulers across the river, so that they may let me go through till I come to Judah;

⁸And a letter to Asaph, the keeper of the king's park, so that he may give me wood to make boards for the doors of the tower of the house, and for the wall of the town, and for the house which is to be mine. And the king gave me this, for the hand of my God was on me.

⁹Then I came to the rulers of the lands across the river and gave them the king's letters. Now the king had sent with me captains of the army and horsemen.

¹⁰And Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, hearing of it, were greatly troubled because a man had come to the help of the children of Israel.

¹¹So I came to Jerusalem and was there three days.

¹²And in the night I got up, taking with me a small band of men; I said nothing to any man of what God had put into my heart to do for Jerusalem: and I had no beast with me but the one on which I was seated.

¹³And I went out by night, through the doorway of the valley, and past the dragon's water-spring as far as the place where waste material was put, viewing the walls of Jerusalem which were broken down, and the doorways which had been burned with fire.

¹⁴Then I went on to the door of the fountain and to the king's pool: but there was no room for my beast to get through.

¹⁵Then in the night, I went up by the stream, viewing the wall; then turning back, I went in by the door in the valley, and so came back.

¹⁶And the chiefs had no knowledge of where I had been or what I was doing; and I had not then said anything to the Jews or to the priests or the great ones or the chiefs or the rest of those who were doing the work.

¹⁷Then I said to them, You see what a bad condition we are in; how Jerusalem is a waste, and its doorways burned with fire: come, let us get to work, building up the wall of Jerusalem, so that we may no longer be put to shame.

¹⁸Then I gave them an account of how the hand of my God was on me, helping me; and of the king's words which he had said to me. And they said, Let us get to work on the building. So they made their hands strong for the good work.

¹⁹But Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, and Geshem the Arabian, hearing of it, made sport of us, laughing at us and saying, What are you doing? will you go against the king?

²⁰Then answering them I said, The God of heaven, he will be our help; so we his servants will go on with our building: but you have no part or right or any name in Jerusalem.

3Then Eliashib, the chief priest, got up with his brothers the priests, and took in hand the building of the sheep doorway; they made it holy and put its doors in position; as far as the tower of Hammeah they made it holy, even to the tower of Hananel.

²And by his side the men of Jericho were building. And after them, Zaccur, the son of Imri.

³The sons of Hassenaah were the builders of the fish doorway; they put its boards in place and put up its doors, with their locks and rods.

⁴By their side Meremoth, the son of Uriah, the son of Hakkoz, was making good the walls. Then Meshullam, the son of Berechiah, the son of Meshezabel; and by him, Zadok, the son of Baana.

⁵Near them, the Tekoites were at work; but their chiefs did not put their necks to the work of their Lord.

⁶Joiada, the son of Paseah, and Meshullam, the son of Besodeiah, made good the old doorway; they put its boards in place and put up its doors, with their locks and rods.

⁷By their side were working Melatiah the Gibeonite and Jadon the Meronothite, the men of Gibeon and of Mizpah from the seat of the ruler across the river.

⁸Near them was working Uzziel, the son of Harhaiah, the gold-worker. And by him was Hananiah, one of the perfume-makers, building up Jerusalem as far as the wide wall.

⁹Near them was working Rephaiah, the son of Hur, the ruler of half Jerusalem.

¹⁰By his side was Jedaiah, the son of Harumaph, opposite his house. And by him was Hattush, the son of Hashabneiah.

¹¹Malchijah, the son of Harim, and Hasshub, the son of Pahath-moab, were working on another part, and the tower of the ovens.

¹²Near them was Shallum, the son of Hallohesh, the ruler of half Jerusalem, with his daughters.

¹³Hanun and the people of Zanoah were working on the doorway of the valley; they put it up and put up its doors, with their locks and rods, and a thousand cubits of wall as far as the doorway where the waste material was placed.

¹⁴And Malchijah, the son of Rechab, the ruler of the division of Beth-haccherem, made good the doorway of the waste, building it up and putting up its doors, with their locks and rods.

¹⁵And Shallun, the son of Col-hozeh, the ruler of the division of Mizpah, made good the doorway of the fountain, building it up and covering it and putting up its doors, with their locks and rods, with the wall of the pool of Shelah by the king's garden, as far as the steps which go down from the town of David.

¹⁶By his side was working Nehemiah, the son of Azbuk, ruler of half the division of Beth-zur, as far as the place opposite the last resting-places of David's family, and the pool which was made and the house of the men of war.

¹⁷Then came the Levites, Rehum, the son of Bani. By his side was working Hashabiah, ruler of half the division of Keilah, for his division.

¹⁸After him were working their brothers, Bavvai, the son of Henadad, ruler of half the division of Keilah.

¹⁹And by his side was working Ezer, the son of Jeshua, the ruler of Mizpah, making good another part opposite the way up to the store of arms at the turning of the wall.

²⁰After him Baruch, the son of Zabbai, was hard at work on another part, from the turning of the wall to the door of the house of Eliashib, the chief priest.

²¹After him Meremoth, the son of Uriah, the son of Hakkoz, was working on another part, from the door of the house of Eliashib as far as the end of his house.

²²After him were working the priests, the men of the lowland.

²³After them came Benjamin and Hasshub, opposite their house. After them Azariah, the son of Maaseiah, the son of Ananiah, made good the wall by the house where he himself was living.

²⁴After him Binnui, the son of Henadad, was working on another part, from the house of Azariah as far as the turning of the wall and the angle.

²⁵Palal, the son of Uzai, made good the wall opposite the angle and the tower which comes out from the higher part of the king's house, by the open space of the watch. After him was Pedaiah, the son of Parosh.

²⁶(Now the Nethinim were living in the Ophel, as far as the place facing the water doorway to the east, and the tower which comes out.)

²⁷After him the Tekoites were making good another part, opposite the great tower which comes out, and up to the wall of the Ophel.

²⁸Further on, past the horse doorway, the priests were at work, every one opposite his house.

²⁹After them Zadok, the son of Immer, was working opposite his house. And after him Shemaiah, the son of Shecaniah, the keeper of the east door.

³⁰After him Hananiah, the son of Shelemiah, and Hanun, the sixth son of Zalaph, were making good another part. After him Meshullam, the son of Berechiah, made good the wall opposite his room.

³¹After him Malchijah, one of the gold-workers to the Nethinim and the traders, made good the wall opposite the doorway of Hammiphkad and as far as the way up to the angle.

³²And between the way up to the angle and the sheep door, the gold-workers and the traders made good the wall.

4Now, Sanballat, hearing that we were building the wall, was very angry, and in his wrath made sport of the Jews.

²And in the hearing of his countrymen and the army of Samaria he said, What are these feeble Jews doing? will they make themselves strong? will they make offerings? will they get the work done in a day? will they make the stones which have been burned come again out of the dust?

³Now Tobiah the Ammonite was by him, and he said, Such is their building that if a fox goes up it, their stone wall will be broken down.

⁴Give ear, O our God, for we are looked down on: let their words of shame be turned back on themselves, and let them be given up to wasting in a land where they are prisoners:

⁵Let not their wrongdoing be covered or their sin washed away from before you: for they have made you angry before the builders.

⁶So we went on building the wall; and all the wall was joined together half-way up: for the people were working hard.

⁷But when it came to the ears of Sanballat and Tobiah and the Arabians and the Ammonites and the Ashdodites, that the building of the walls of Jerusalem was going forward and the broken places were being made good, they were full of wrath;

⁸And they made designs, all of them together, to come and make an attack on Jerusalem, causing trouble there.

⁹But we made our prayer to God, and had men on watch against them day and night because of them.

¹⁰And Judah said, The strength of the workmen is giving way, and there is much waste material; it is impossible for us to put up the wall.

¹¹And those who were against us said, Without their knowledge and without their seeing us, we will come among them and put them to death, causing the work to come to a stop.

¹²And it came about that when the Jews who were living near them came, they said to us ten times, From all directions they are coming against us.

¹³So in the lowest part of the space at the back of the walls, in the open places, I put the people by families, with their swords, their spears, and their bows.

¹⁴And after looking, I got up and said to the great ones and to the chiefs and to the rest of the people, Have no fear of them: keep in mind the Lord who is great and greatly to be feared, and take up arms for your brothers, your sons, and your daughters, your wives and your houses.

¹⁵And when it came to the ears of those who were against us, that we had knowledge of their designs and that God had made their purpose come to nothing, we all went back to the wall, everyone to his work

¹⁶And from that time, half of my servants were doing their part of the work, and half kept the spears and body-covers and the bows and the metal war-dresses; and the chiefs were at the back of the men of Judah.

¹⁷Those who were building the wall and those who were moving material did their part, everyone working with one hand, with his spear in the other;

¹⁸Every builder was working with his sword at his side. And by my side was a man for sounding the horn.

¹⁹And I said to the great ones and the chiefs and the rest of the people, The work is great and widely spaced and we are far away from one another on the wall:

²⁰Wherever you may be when the horn is sounded, come here to us; our God will be fighting for us.

²¹So we went on with the work: and half of them had spears in their hands from the dawn of the morning till the stars were seen.

²²And at the same time I said to the people, Let everyone with his servant come inside Jerusalem for the night, so that at night they may keep watch for us, and go on working by day.

²³So not one of us, I or my brothers or my servants or the watchmen who were with me, took off his clothing, everyone went armed to the water.

5Then there was a great outcry from the people and their wives against their countrymen the Jews.

²For there were some who said, We, our sons and our daughters, are a great number: let us get grain, so that we may have food for our needs.

³And there were some who said, We are giving our fields and our vine-gardens and our houses for debt: let us get grain because we are in need.

⁴And there were others who said, We have given up our fields and our vine-gardens to get money for the king's taxes.

⁵But our flesh is the same as the flesh of our countrymen, and our children as their children: and now we are giving our sons and daughters into the hands of others, to be their servants, and some of our daughters are servants even now: and we have no power to put a stop to it; for other men have our fields and our vine-gardens.

⁶And on hearing their outcry and what they said I was very angry.

⁷And after turning it over in my mind, I made a protest to the chiefs and the rulers, and said to them, Every one of you is taking interest from his countryman. And I got together a great meeting of protest.

⁸And I said to them, We have given whatever we were able to give, to make our brothers the Jews free, who were servants and prisoners of the nations: and would you now give up your brothers for a price, and are they to become our property? Then they said nothing, answering not a word.

⁹And I said, What you are doing is not good: is it not the more necessary for you to go in the fear of our God, because of the shame which the nations may put on us?

¹⁰Even I and my servants have been taking interest for the money and the grain we have let them have. So now, let us give up this thing.

¹¹Give back to them this very day their fields, their vine-gardens, their olive-gardens, and their houses, as well as a hundredth part of the money and the grain and the wine and the oil which you have taken from them.

¹²Then they said, We will give them back, and take nothing for them; we will do as you say. Then I sent for the priests and made them take an oath that they would keep this agreement.

¹³And shaking out the folds of my robe, I said, So may God send out from his house and his work every man who does not keep this agreement; even so let him be sent out and made as nothing. And all the meeting of the people said, So be it, and gave praise to the Lord. And the people did as they had said.

¹⁴Now from the time when I was made ruler of the people in the land of Judah, from the twentieth year till the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes the king, for twelve years, I and my servants have never taken the food which was the right of the ruler.

¹⁵But earlier rulers who were before me made the people responsible for their upkeep, and took from them bread and wine at the rate of forty shekels of silver; and even their servants were lords over the people: but I did not do so, because of the fear of God.

¹⁶And I kept on with the work of this wall, and we got no land for ourselves: and all my servants were helping with the work.

¹⁷And more than this, a hundred and fifty of the Jews and the rulers were guests at my table, in addition to those who came to us from the nations round about us.

¹⁸Now the food made ready for one day was one ox and six fat sheep, as well as fowls; and once in ten days a store of all sorts of wine: but all the same, I did not take the food to which the ruler had a right, because the people were crushed under a hard yoke.

¹⁹Keep in mind, O my God, for my good, all I have done for this people.

6Now when word was given to Sanballat and Tobiah and to Geshem the Arabian and to the rest of our haters, that I had done the building of the wall and that there were no more broken places in it (though even then I had not put up the doors in the doorways);

²Sanballat and Geshem sent to me saying, Come, let us have a meeting in one of the little towns in the lowland of Ono. But their purpose was to do me evil.

³And I sent men to them saying, I am doing a great work, so that it is not possible for me to come down: is the work to be stopped while I go away from it and come down to you?

⁴And four times they sent to me in this way, and I sent them the same answer.

⁵Then Sanballat sent his servant to me a fifth time with an open letter in his hand;

⁶And in it these words were recorded: It is said among the nations, and Geshem says so, that you and the Jews are hoping to make yourselves free from the king's authority; and that this is why you are building the wall: and they say that it is your purpose to be their king;

⁷And that you have prophets preaching about you in Jerusalem, and saying, There is a king in Judah: now an account of these things will be sent to the king. So come now, and let us have a discussion.

⁸Then I sent to him, saying, No such things as you say are being done, they are only a fiction you have made up yourself.

⁹For they were hoping to put fear in us, saying, Their hands will become feeble and give up the work so that it may not get done. But now, O God, make my hands strong.

¹⁰And I went to the house of Shemaiah, the son of Delaiah, the son of Mehetabel, who was shut up; and he said, Let us have a meeting in the house of God, inside the Temple, and let the doors be shut: for they will come to put you to death; truly, in the night they will come to put you to death.

¹¹And I said, Am I the sort of man to go in flight? what man, in my position, would go into the Temple to keep himself safe? I will not go in.

¹²Then it became clear to me that God had not sent him: he had given this word of a prophet against me himself: and Tobiah and Sanballat had given him money to do so.

¹³For this reason they had given him money, in order that I might be overcome by fear and do what he said and do wrong, and so they would have reason to say evil about me and put shame on me.

¹⁴Keep in mind, O my God, Tobiah and Sanballat and what they did, and Noadiah, the woman prophet, and the rest of the prophets whose purpose was to put fear into me.

¹⁵So the wall was complete on the twenty-fifth day of the month Elul, in fifty-two days.

¹⁶And when our haters had news of this, all the nations round about us were full of fear and were greatly shamed, for they saw that this work had been done by our God.

¹⁷And further, in those days the chiefs of Judah sent a number of letters to Tobiah, and his letters came to them.

¹⁸For in Judah there were a number of people who had made an agreement by oath with him, because he was the son-in-law of Shecaniah, the son of Arah; and his son Jehohanan had taken as his wife the daughter of Meshullam, the son of Berechiah.

¹⁹And they said much before me of the good he had done, and gave him accounts of my words. And Tobiah sent letters with the purpose of causing me fear.

7Now when the building of the wall was complete and I had put up the doors, and the door-keepers and the music-makers and the Levites had been given their places,

²I made my brother Hanani, and Hananiah, the ruler of the tower, responsible for the government of Jerusalem: for he was a man of good faith, fearing God more than most.

³And I said to them, Do not let the doors of Jerusalem be open till the sun is high; and while the watchmen are in their places, let the doors be shut and locked: and let the people of Jerusalem be put on watch, every one in his watch, opposite his house.

⁴Now the town was wide and great: but the people in it were only a small number, and the houses had not been put up.

⁵And my God put it into my heart to get together the rulers and the chiefs and the people so that they might be listed by families. And I came across a record of the names of those who came up at the first, and in it I saw these words:

⁶These are the people of the divisions of the kingdom, among those who had been made prisoners by Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, and taken away by him, who went back to Jerusalem and Judah, every one to his town;

⁷Who came with Zerubbabel, Jeshua, Nehemiah, Azariah, Raamiah, Nahamani, Mordecai, Bilshan, Mispereth, Bigvai, Nehum, Baanah. The number of the men of the people of Israel:

⁸The children of Parosh, two thousand, one hundred and seventy-two.

⁹The children of Shephatiah, three hundred and seventy-two.

¹⁰The children of Arah, six hundred and fifty-two.

¹¹The children of Pahath-moab, of the children of Jeshua and Joab, two thousand, eight hundred and eighteen.

¹²The children of Elam, a thousand, two hundred and fifty-four.

¹³The children of Zattu, eight hundred and forty-five.

¹⁴The children of Zaccai, seven hundred and sixty.

¹⁵The children of Binnui, six hundred and forty-eight.

¹⁶The children of Bebai, six hundred and twenty-eight.

¹⁷The children of Azgad, two thousand, three hundred and twenty-two.

¹⁸The children of Adonikam, six hundred and sixty-seven.

¹⁹The children of Bigvai, two thousand and sixty-seven.

²⁰The children of Adin, six hundred and fifty-five.

²¹The children of Ater, of Hezekiah, ninety-eight.

²²The children of Hashum, three hundred and twenty-eight.

²³The children of Bezai, three hundred and twenty-four.

²⁴The children of Hariph, a hundred and twelve.

²⁵The children of Gibeon, ninety-five.

²⁶The men of Beth-lehem and Netophah, a hundred and eighty-eight.

²⁷The men of Anathoth, a hundred and twenty-eight.

²⁸The men of Beth-azmaveth, forty-two.

²⁹The men of Kiriath-jearim, Chephirah, and Beeroth, seven hundred and forty-three.

³⁰The men of Ramah and Geba, six hundred and twenty-one.

³¹The men of Michmas, a hundred and twenty-two.

³²The men of Beth-el and Ai, a hundred and twenty-three.

³³The men of the other Nebo, fifty-two.

³⁴The children of the other Elam, a thousand, two hundred and fifty-four.

³⁵The children of Harim, three hundred and twenty.

³⁶The children of Jericho, three hundred and forty-five.

³⁷The children of Lod, Hadid, and Ono, seven hundred and twenty-one.

³⁸The children of Senaah, three thousand, nine hundred and thirty.

³⁹The priests: the children of Jedaiah, of the family of Jeshua, nine hundred and seventy-three.

⁴⁰The children of Immer, a thousand and fifty-two.

⁴¹The children of Pashhur, a thousand, two hundred and forty-seven.

⁴²The children of Harim, a thousand and seventeen.

⁴³The Levites: the children of Jeshua, of Kadmiel, of the children of Hodevah, seventy-four.

⁴⁴The music-makers: the children of Asaph, a hundred and forty-eight.

⁴⁵The door-keepers: the children of Shallum, the children of Ater, the children of Talmon, the children of Akkub, the children of Hatita, the children of Shobai, a hundred and thirty-eight.

⁴⁶The Nethinim: the children of Ziha, the children of Hasupha, the children of Tabbaoth,

⁴⁷The children of Keros, the children of Sia, the children of Padon,

⁴⁸The children of Lebana, the children of Hagaba, the children of Salmai,

⁴⁹The children of Hanan, the children of Giddel, the children of Gahar,

⁵⁰The children of Reaiah, the children of Rezin, the children of Nekoda,

⁵¹The children of Gazzam, the children of Uzza, the children of Paseah,

⁵²The children of Besai, the children of Meunim, the children of Nephushesim,

⁵³The children of Bakbuk, the children of Hakupha, the children of Harhur,

⁵⁴The children of Bazlith, the children of Mehida, the children of Harsha,

⁵⁵The children of Barkos, the children of Sisera, the children of Temah,

⁵⁶The children of Neziah, the children of Hatipha.

⁵⁷The children of Solomon's servants: the children of Sotai, the children of Sophereth, the children of Perida,

⁵⁸The children of Jaala, the children of Darkon, the children of Giddel,

⁵⁹The children of Shephatiah, the children of Hattil, the children of Pochereth-hazzebaim, the children of Amon.

⁶⁰All the Nethinim and the children of Solomon's servants were three hundred and ninety-two.

⁶¹All these were the people who went up from Tel-melah, Tel-harsha, Cherub, Addon, and Immer; but because they had no knowledge of their fathers' families or offspring, it was not certain if they were Israelites:

⁶²The children of Delaiah, the children of Tobiah, the children of Nekoda, six hundred and forty-two.

⁶³And of the priests: the children of Hobaiah, the children of Hakkoz, the children of Barzillai, who was married to one of the daughters of Barzillai the Gileadite, and took their name.

⁶⁴They made search for their record among the lists of families, but their names were nowhere to be seen, so they were looked on as unclean and no longer priests.

⁶⁵And the Tirshatha said that they were not to have the most holy things for their food, till a priest came to give decision by the Urim and Thummim.

⁶⁶The number of all the people together was forty-two thousand, three hundred and sixty;

⁶⁷As well as their men-servants and their women-servants, of whom there were seven thousand, three hundred and thirty-seven; and they had two hundred and forty-five men and women to make music.

⁶⁸They had seven hundred and thirty-six horses, two hundred and forty-five transport beasts;

⁶⁹Four hundred and thirty-five camels, six thousand, seven hundred and twenty asses.

⁷⁰And some of the heads of families gave money for the work. The Tirshatha gave into the store a thousand darics of gold, fifty basins, five hundred and thirty priests' robes.

⁷¹And some of the heads of families gave into the store for the work twenty thousand darics of gold, and two thousand, two hundred pounds of silver.

⁷²And that which the rest of the people gave was twenty thousand darics of gold, and two thousand pounds of silver, and sixty-seven priests' robes.

⁷³So the priests and the Levites and the door-keepers and the music-makers and some of the people and the Nethinim, and all Israel, were living in their towns.

8And when the seventh month came, the children of Israel were in their towns. And all the people came together like one man into the wide place in front of the water-doorway; and they made a request to Ezra the scribe that he would put before them the book of the law of Moses which the Lord had given to Israel.

²And Ezra the priest put the law before the meeting of the people, before the men and women and all those who were able to take it in, on the first day of the seventh month.

³He was reading it in the wide place in front of the water-doorway, from early morning till the middle of the day, in the hearing of all those men and women whose minds were able to take it in; and the ears of all the people were open to the book of the law.

⁴And Ezra the scribe took his place on a tower of wood which they had made for the purpose; and by his side were placed Mattithiah and Shema and Anaiah and Uriah and Hilkiah and Maaseiah on the right; and on the left, Pedaiah and Mishael and Malchijah and Hashum and Hashbaddanah, Zechariah and Meshullam.

⁵And Ezra took the book, opening it before the eyes of all the people (for he was higher than the people); and when it was open, all the people got to their feet:

⁶And Ezra gave praise to the Lord, the great God. And all the people in answer said, So be it, so be it; lifting up their hands; and with bent heads they gave worship to the Lord, going down on their faces to the earth.

⁷And Jeshua and Bani and Sherebiah and Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodiah, Maaseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan, Pelaiah, and the Levites made the law clear to the people: and the people kept in their places.

⁸And they gave out the words of the book the law of God, clearly, and gave the sense of it, so that their minds were able to take it in.

⁹And Nehemiah, who was the Tirshatha, and Ezra, the priest and scribe, and the Levites who were the teachers of the people, said to all the people, This day is holy to the Lord your God; let there be no sorrow or weeping; for all the people were weeping on hearing the words of the law.

¹⁰Then he said to them, Go away now, and take the fat for your food and the sweet for your drink, and send some to him for whom nothing is made ready: for this day is holy to our Lord: and let there be no grief in your hearts; for the joy of the Lord is your strong place.

¹¹So the Levites made all the people quiet, saying, Be quiet, for the day is holy; and do not give way to grief.

¹²And all the people went away to take food and drink, and to send food to others, and to be glad, because the words which were said to them had been made clear.

¹³And on the second day the heads of families of all the people and the priests and the Levites came together to Ezra the scribe, to give attention to the words of the law.

¹⁴And they saw that it was recorded in the law that the Lord had given orders by Moses, that the children of Israel were to have tents for their living-places in the feast of the seventh month:

¹⁵And that they were to give out an order, and make it public in all their towns and in Jerusalem, saying, Go out to the mountain and get olive branches and branches of field olives and of myrtle, and palm branches and branches of thick trees, to make tents, as it says in the book.

¹⁶And the people went out and got them and made themselves tents, every one on the roof of his house, and in the open spaces and in the open squares of the house of God, and in the wide place of the water-doorway, and the wide place of the doorway of Ephraim.

¹⁷All the people who had been prisoners and had come back, made tents and were living in them: for from the time of Jeshua, the son of Nun, till that day, the children of Israel had not done so. And there was very great joy.

¹⁸And day by day, from the first day till the last, he was reading from the book of the law of God. And they kept the feast for seven days: and on the eighth day there was a holy meeting, as it is ordered in the law.

9Now on the twenty-fourth day of this month the children of Israel came together, taking no food and putting haircloth and dust on their bodies.

²And the seed of Israel made themselves separate from all the men of other nations, publicly requesting forgiveness for their sins and the wrongdoing of their fathers.

³And for a fourth part of the day, upright in their places, they were reading from the book of the law of their God; and for a fourth part of the day they were requesting forgiveness and worshipping the Lord their God.

⁴Then Jeshua, and Bani, Kadmiel, Shebaniah, Bunni, Sherebiah, Bani, and Chenani took their places on the steps of the Levites, crying in a loud voice to the Lord their God.

⁵Then the Levites, Jeshua, and Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabneiah, Sherebiah, Hodiah, Shebaniah, and Pethahiah said, Get up and give praise to the Lord your God for ever and ever. Praise be to your great name which is lifted up high over all blessing and praise.

⁶You are the Lord, even you only; you have made heaven, the heaven of heavens with all their armies, the earth and all things in it, the seas and everything in them; and you keep them from destruction: and the armies of heaven are your worshippers.

⁷You are the Lord, the God, who took Abram and made him yours, guiding him from Ur of the Chaldees, and gave him the name of Abraham;

⁸You saw that his heart was true to you, and made an agreement with him to give the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Jebusite and the Girgashite, even to give it to his seed, and you have done what you said; for righteousness is yours:

⁹And you saw the trouble of our fathers in Egypt, and their cry came to your ears by the Red Sea;

¹⁰And you did signs and wonders on Pharaoh and all his servants and all the people of his land; for you saw how cruel they were to them. So you got yourself a name as it is today.

¹¹By you the sea was parted before them, so that they went through the sea on dry land; and those who went after them went down into the deep, like a stone into great waters.

¹²And you went before them by day in a pillar of cloud, and in a pillar of fire by night, to give them light on the way they were to go.

¹³And you came down on Mount Sinai, and your voice came to them from heaven, giving them right decisions and true laws, good rules and orders:

¹⁴And you gave them word of your holy Sabbath, and gave them orders and rules and a law, by the hand of Moses your servant:

¹⁵And you gave them bread from heaven when they were in need, and made water come out of the rock for their drink, and gave them orders to go in and take for their heritage the land which your hand had been lifted up to give them.

¹⁶But they and our fathers, in their pride, made their necks stiff, and gave no attention to your orders,

¹⁷And would not do them, and gave no thought to the wonders you had done among them; but made their necks stiff, and turning away from you, made a captain over themselves to take them back to their prison in Egypt: but you are a God of forgiveness, full of grace and pity, slow to wrath and great in mercy, and you did not give them up.

¹⁸Even when they had made for themselves an ox of metal, and said, This is your God who took you up out of Egypt, and had done so much to make you angry;

¹⁹Even then, in your great mercy, you did not give them up in the waste land: the pillar of cloud still went before them by day, guiding them on their way, and the pillar of fire by night, to give them light, and make clear the way they were to go.

²⁰And you gave your good spirit to be their teacher, and did not keep back your manna from their mouths, and gave them water when they had need of it.

²¹Truly, for forty years you were their support in the waste land, and they were in need of nothing; their clothing did not get old or their feet become tired.

²²And you gave them kingdoms and peoples, making distribution to them in every part of the land: so they took for their heritage the land of Sihon, even the land of the king of Heshbon, and the land of Og, king of Bashan.

²³And you made their children as great in number as the stars of heaven, and took them into the land, of which you had said to their fathers that they were to go in and take it for themselves.

²⁴So the children went in and took the land, and you overcame before them the people of the land, the Canaanites, and gave them up into their hands, with their kings and the people of the land, so that they might do with them whatever it was their pleasure to do.

²⁵And they took walled towns and a fat land, and became the owners of houses full of all good things, water-holes cut in the rock, vine-gardens and olive-gardens and a wealth of fruit-trees: so they had food enough and became fat, and had joy in the good you gave them.

²⁶But they were hard-hearted, and went against your authority, turning their backs on your law, and putting to death your prophets, who gave witness against them with the purpose of turning them back again to you, and they did much to make you angry.

²⁷And so you gave them up into the hands of their haters who were cruel to them: and in the time of their trouble, when they made their prayer to you, you gave ear to them from heaven; and in your great mercy gave them saviours, who made them free from the hands of their haters.

²⁸But when they had rest, they did evil again before you: so you gave them into the hands of their haters, who had rule over them: but when they came back and made their prayer to you, you gave ear to them from heaven; again and again, in your mercy, you gave them salvation;

²⁹And gave witness against them so that you might make them come back again to your law: but their hearts were lifted up, and they gave no attention to your orders and went against your decisions (which, if a man keeps them, will be life to him), and turning their backs on you, made their necks stiff and did not give ear.

³⁰Year after year you put up with them, and gave witness against them by your spirit through your prophets: still they did not give ear: and so you gave them up into the hands of the peoples of the lands.

³¹Even then, in your great mercy, you did not put an end to them completely, or give them up; for you are a God of grace and mercy.

³²And now, our God, the great, the strong, the God who is to be feared, who keeps faith and mercy, let not all this trouble seem small to you, which has come on us, and on our kings and our rulers and on our priests and our prophets and our fathers and on all your people from the time of the kings of Assyria till this day.

³³But still, you have been in the right in everything which has come on us; you have been true to us, but we have done evil:

³⁴And our kings, our rulers, our priests, and our fathers have not kept your law or given attention to your orders and your witness, with which you gave witness against them.

³⁵For they have not been your servants in their kingdom, and in all the good things you gave them, and in the great and fat land you gave them, and they have not been turned away from their evil-doing.

³⁶Now, today, we are servants, and as for the land which you gave to our fathers, so that the produce of it and the good might be theirs, see, we are servants in it:

³⁷And it gives much increase to the kings whom you have put over us because of our sins: and they have power over our bodies and over our cattle at their pleasure, and we are in great trouble.

³⁸And because of all this we are making an agreement in good faith, and putting it in writing; and our rulers, our Levites, and our priests are putting their names to it.

10Now those who put down their names were Nehemiah the Tirshatha, the son of Hacaliah, and Zedekiah,

²Seraiah, Azariah, Jeremiah,

³Pashhur, Amariah, Malchijah,

⁴Hattush, Shebaniah, Malluch,

⁵Harim, Meremoth, Obadiah,

⁶Daniel, Ginnethon, Baruch,

⁷Meshullam, Abijah, Mijamin,

⁸Maaziah, Bilgai, Shemaiah; these were the priests.

⁹And the Levites: by name, Jeshua, the son of Azaniah, Binnui, of the sons of Henadad, Kadmiel,

¹⁰And their brothers, Shebaniah, Hodiah, Kelita, Pelaiah, Hanan,

¹¹Mica, Rehob, Hashabiah,

¹²Zaccur, Sherebiah, Shebaniah,

¹³Hodiah, Bani, Beninu.

¹⁴The chiefs of the people: Parosh, Pahath-moab, Elam, Zattu, Bani,

¹⁵Bunni, Azgad, Bebai,

¹⁶Adonijah, Bigvai, Adin,

¹⁷Ater, Hezekiah, Azzur,

¹⁸Hodiah, Hashum, Bezai,

¹⁹Hariph, Anathoth, Nobai,

²⁰Magpiash, Meshullam, Hezir,

²¹Meshezabel, Zadok, Jaddua,

²²Pelatiah, Hanan, Anaiah,

²³Hoshea, Hananiah, Hasshub,

²⁴Hallohesh, Pilha, Shobek,

²⁵Rehum, Hashabnah, Maaseiah,

²⁶And Ahiah, Hanan, Anan,

²⁷Malluch, Harim, Baanah.

²⁸And the rest of the people, the priests, the Levites, the door-keepers, the music-makers, the Nethinim, and all those who had made themselves separate from the peoples of the lands, to keep the law of God, their wives, their sons, and their daughters, everyone who had knowledge and wisdom;

²⁹They were united with their brothers, their rulers, and put themselves under a curse and an oath, to keep their steps in the way of God's law, which was given by Moses, the servant of God, and to keep and do all the orders of the Lord, our Lord, and his decisions and his rules;

³⁰And that we would not give our daughters to the peoples of the lands, or take their daughters for our sons;

³¹And if the peoples of the lands come to do trade in goods or food on the Sabbath day, that we would do no trade with them on the Sabbath or on a holy day: and that in the seventh year we would take no payment from any debtor.

³²And we made rules for ourselves, taxing ourselves a third of a shekel every year for the upkeep of the house of our God;

³³For the holy bread, and for the regular meal offering and the regular burned offering on the Sabbaths and at the new moon and the fixed feasts, and for the sin-offerings to take away the sin of Israel, and for all the work of the house of our God.

³⁴And we, the priests and the Levites and the people, made selection, by the decision of the Lord, of those who were to take the wood offering into the house of God, by families at the regular times, year by year, to be burned on the altar of the Lord our God, as it is recorded in the law;

³⁵And to take the first-fruits of our land, and the first-fruits of every sort of tree, year by year, into the house of the Lord;

³⁶As well as the first of our sons and of our cattle, as it is recorded in the law, and the first lambs of our herds and of our flocks, which are to be taken to the house of our God, to the priests who are servants in the house of our God:

³⁷And that we would take the first of our rough meal, and our lifted offerings, and the fruit of every sort of tree, and wine and oil, to the priests, to the rooms of the house of our God; and the tenth of the produce of our land to the Levites; for they, the Levites, take a tenth in all the towns of our ploughed land.

³⁸And the priest, the son of Aaron, is to be with the Levites, when the Levites take the tenths: and the Levites are to take a tenth of the tenths into the house of our God, to the rooms, into the store-house;

³⁹For the children of Israel and the children of Levi are to take the lifted offering of the grain and wine and oil into the rooms where the vessels of the holy place are, together with the priests and the door-keepers and the makers of music: and we will not give up caring for the house of our God.

11And the rulers of the people were living in Jerusalem: the rest of the people made selection, by the decision of chance, of one out of every ten to be living in Jerusalem, the holy town; the other nine to go to the other towns.

²And the people gave a blessing to all the men who were freely offering to take up their places in Jerusalem.

³Now these are the chiefs of the divisions of the country who were living in Jerusalem: but in the towns of Judah everyone was living on his heritage in the towns, that is, Israel, the priests, the Levites, the Nethinim, and the children of Solomon's servants.

⁴And in Jerusalem there were living certain of the children of Judah and of Benjamin. Of the children of Judah: Athaiah, the son of Uzziah, the son of Zechariah, the son of Amariah, the son of Shephatiah, the son of Mahalalel, of the children of Perez;

⁵And Maaseiah, the son of Baruch, the son of Col-hozeh, the son of Hazaiah, the son of Adaiah, the son of Joiarib, the son of Zechariah, the son of the Shilonite.

⁶All the sons of Perez living in Jerusalem were four hundred and sixty-eight men of good position.

⁷And these are the sons of Benjamin: Sallu, the son of Meshullam, the son of Joed, the son of Pedaiah, the son of Kolaiah, the son of Maaseiah, the son of Ithiel, the son of Jeshaiah.

⁸And after him Gabbai, Sallai, nine hundred and twenty-eight.

⁹And Joel, the son of Zichri, was their overseer; and Judah, the son of Hassenuah, was second over the town.

¹⁰Of the priests: Jedaiah, the son of Joiarib, Jachin,

¹¹Seraiah, the son of Hilkiah, the son of Meshullam, the son of Zadok, the son of Meraioth, the son of Ahitub, the ruler of the house of God,

¹²And their brothers who did the work of the house, eight hundred and twenty-two; and Adaiah, the son of Jeroham, the son of Pelaliah, the son of Amzi, the son of Zechariah, the son of Pashhur, the son of Malchijah,

¹³And his brothers, heads of families, two hundred and forty-two; and Amashsai, the son of Azarel, the son of Ahzai, the son of Meshillemoth, the son of Immer,

¹⁴And their brothers, men of war, a hundred and twenty-eight; and their overseer was Zabdiel, the son of Haggedolim.

¹⁵And of the Levites: Shemaiah, the son of Hasshub, the son of Azrikam, the son of Hashabiah, the son of Bunni,

¹⁶And Shabbethai and Jozabad, of the chiefs of the Levites, who were responsible for the outside business of the house of God;

¹⁷And Mattaniah, the son of Mica, the son of Zabdi, the son of Asaph, who had to give the first note of the song of praise in prayer, and Bakbukiah, the second among his brothers, and Abda, the son of Shammua, the son of Galal, the son of Jeduthun.

¹⁸All the Levites in the holy town were two hundred and eighty-four.

¹⁹In addition the door-keepers, Akkub, Talmon, and their brothers who kept watch at the doors, were a hundred and seventy-two.

²⁰And the rest of Israel, of the priests, the Levites, were in all the towns of Judah, every one in his heritage.

²¹But the Nethinim were living in the Ophel; and Ziha and Gishpa were over the Nethinim.

²²And the overseer of the Levites at Jerusalem was Uzzi, the son of Bani, the son of Hashabiah, the son of Mattaniah, the son of Mica, of the sons of Asaph, the music-makers, who was over the business of the house of God.

²³For there was an order from the king about them and a regular amount for the music-makers, for their needs day by day.

²⁴And Pethahiah, the son of Meshezabel, of the sons of Zerah, the son of Judah, was the king's servant in everything to do with the people.

²⁵And for the daughter-towns with their fields, some of the men of Judah were living in Kiriath-arba and its daughter-towns, and in Dibon and its daughter-towns, and in Jekabzeel and its daughter-towns,

²⁶And in Jeshua, and in Moladah, and Beth-pelet,

²⁷And in Hazar-shual, and in Beer-sheba and its daughter-towns,

²⁸And in Ziklag, and in Meconah and its daughter-towns,

²⁹And in En-rimmon, and in Zorah, and in Jarmuth,

³⁰Zanoah, Adullam and their daughter-towns, Lachish and its fields, Azekah and its daughter-towns. So they were living from Beer-sheba to the valley of Hinnom.

³¹And the children of Benjamin were living from Geba, at Michmash and Aija, and at Beth-el and its daughter-towns,

³²At Anathoth, Nob, Ananiah,

³³Hazor, Ramah, Gittaim,

³⁴Hadid, Zeboim, Neballat,

³⁵Lod and Ono, the valley of expert workers.

³⁶And of the Levites, certain divisions in Judah were joined to Benjamin.

12Now these are the priests and the Levites who went up with Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, and Jeshua: Seraiah, Jeremiah, Ezra,

²Amariah, Malluch, Hattush,

³Shecaniah, Rehum, Meremoth,

⁴Iddo, Ginnethoi, Abijah,

⁵Mijamin, Maadiah, Bilgah,

⁶Shemaiah, and Joiarib, Jedaiah,

⁷Sallu, Amok, Hilkiah, Jedaiah. These were the chiefs of the priests and of their brothers in the days of Jeshua.

⁸And the Levites: Jeshua, Binnui, Kadmiel, Sherebiah, Judah, and Mattaniah, who was over the music-makers, he and his brothers.

⁹And Bakbukiah and Unno, their brothers, were opposite them in their watches.

¹⁰And Jeshua was the father of Joiakim, and Joiakim was the father of Eliashib, and Eliashib was the father of Joiada,

¹¹And Joiada was the father of Jonathan, and Jonathan was the father of Jaddua.

¹²And in the days of Joiakim there were priests, heads of families: of Seraiah, Meraiah; of Jeremiah, Hananiah;

¹³Of Ezra, Meshullam; of Amariah, Jehohanan;

¹⁴Of Malluchi, Jonathan; of Shebaniah, Joseph;

¹⁵Of Harim, Adna; of Meraioth, Helkai;

¹⁶Of Iddo, Zechariah; of Ginnethon, Meshullam;

¹⁷Of Abijah, Zichri; of Miniamin, of Moadiah, Piltai;

¹⁸Of Bilgah, Shammua; of Shemaiah, Jehonathan;

¹⁹And of Joiarib, Mattenai; of Jedaiah, Uzzi;

²⁰Of Sallai, Kallai; of Amok, Eber;

²¹Of Hilkiah, Hashabiah; of Jedaiah, Nethanel.

²²The Levites in the days of Eliashib, Joiada, and Johanan, and Jaddua, were listed as heads of families; and the priests, when Darius the Persian was king.

²³The sons of Levi, heads of families, were recorded in the book of the histories, even till the days of Johanan, the son of Eliashib.

²⁴And the chiefs of the Levites: Hashabiah, Sherebiah, and Jeshua, the son of Kadmiel, with their brothers opposite them, to give blessing and praise as ordered by David, the man of God, watch against watch.

²⁵Mattaniah, and Bakbukiah, Obadiah, Meshullam, Talmon, Akkub, were door-keepers keeping the watch at the store-houses of the doors.

²⁶These were in the days of Joiakim, the son of Jeshua, the son of Jozadak, and in the days of Nehemiah the ruler and of Ezra the priest, the scribe.

²⁷And when the time came for the wall of Jerusalem to be made holy, they sent for the Levites out of all their places to come to Jerusalem, to keep the feast with joy, and with praise and melody, with brass and corded instruments of music.

²⁸And the sons of the music-makers came together from the lowland round about Jerusalem and from the daughter-towns of the Netophathites,

²⁹And from Beth-gilgal and from the fields of Geba and Azmaveth: for the music-makers had made daughter-towns for themselves round about Jerusalem.

³⁰And the priests and the Levites made themselves clean; and they made the people clean, and the doorways and the wall.

³¹Then I made the rulers of Judah come up on the wall, and I put in position two great bands of them who gave praise, walking in ordered lines; one went to the right on the wall, in the direction of the doorway where the waste was put;

³²And after them went Hoshaiah and half of the rulers of Judah,

³³And Azariah, Ezra, and Meshullam,

³⁴Judah and Benjamin and Shemaiah and Jeremiah,

³⁵And certain of the priests' sons with wind instruments; Zechariah, the son of Jonathan, the son of Shemaiah, the son of Mattaniah, the son of Micaiah, the son of Zaccur, the son of Asaph,

³⁶And his brothers, Shemaiah, and Azarel, Milalai, Gilalai, Maai, Nethanel and Judah, Hanani, with the music-instruments of David, the man of God; and Ezra the scribe was at their head;

³⁷And by the doorway of the fountain and straight in front of them, they went up by the steps of the town of David, at the slope up of the wall, over the house of David, as far as the water-doorway to the east.

³⁸And the other band of those who gave praise went to the left, and I went after them with half the people, on the wall, over the tower of the ovens, as far as the wide wall;

³⁹And over the doorway of Ephraim and by the old door and the fish door and the tower of Hananel and the tower of Hammeah, as far as the sheep door: and at the doorway of the watchmen they came to a stop.

⁴⁰So the two bands of those who gave praise took up their positions in the house of God, and I and half of the chiefs with me:

⁴¹And the priests; Eliakim, Maaseiah, Miniamin, Micaiah, Elioenai, Zechariah, and Hananiah, with wind instruments;

⁴²And Maaseiah and Shemaiah and Eleazar and Uzzi and Jehohanan and Malchijah and Elam and Ezer. And the makers of melody made their voices loud, with Jezrahiah their overseer.

⁴³And on that day they made great offerings and were glad; for God had made them glad with great joy; and the women and the children were glad with them: so that the joy of Jerusalem came to the ears of those who were far off.

⁴⁴And on that day certain men were put over the rooms where the things which had been given were stored, for the lifted offerings and the first-fruits and the tenths, and to take into them the amounts, from the fields of every town, fixed by the law for the priests and the Levites: for Judah was glad on account of the priests and the Levites who were in their places.

⁴⁵And they kept the watch of their God, and were responsible for making things clean, and so did the music-makers and the door-keepers, as it was ordered by David and Solomon his son.

⁴⁶For in the days of David and Asaph in the past, there was a master of the music, and songs of blessing and praise to God.

⁴⁷And all Israel in the days of Zerubbabel and in the days of Nehemiah gave what was needed by the music-makers and the door-keepers day by day: and they made the offerings holy for the Levites; and the Levites did the same for the sons of Aaron.

13On that day there was a reading from the book of Moses in the hearing of the people; and they saw that it said in the book that no Ammonite or Moabite might ever come into the meeting of God;

²Because they did not give the children of Israel bread and water when they came to them, but got Balaam to put a curse on them: though the curse was turned into a blessing by our God.

³So after hearing the law, they took out of Israel all the mixed people.

⁴Now before this, Eliashib the priest, who had been placed over the rooms of the house of our God, being a friend of Tobiah,

⁵Had made ready for him a great room, where at one time they kept the meal offerings, the perfume, and the vessels and the tenths of the grain and wine and oil which were given by order to the Levites and the music-makers and the door-keepers, and the lifted offerings for the priests.

⁶But all this time I was not at Jerusalem: for in the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes, king of Babylon, I went to the king; and after some days, I got the king to let me go,

⁷And I came to Jerusalem; and it was clear to me what evil Eliashib had done for Tobiah, in making ready for him a room in the buildings of the house of God.

⁸And it was evil in my eyes: so I had all Tobiah's things put out of the room.

⁹Then I gave orders, and they made the rooms clean: and I put back in them the vessels of the house of God, with the meal offerings and the perfume.

¹⁰And I saw that the Levites had not been given what was needed for their support; so that the Levites and the music-makers, who did the work, had gone away, everyone to his field.

¹¹Then I made protests to the chiefs, and said, Why has the house of God been given up? And I got them together and put them in their places.

¹²Then all Judah came with the tenth part of the grain and wine and oil and put it into the store-houses.

¹³And I made controllers over the store-houses, Shelemiah the priest and Zadok the scribe, and of the Levites, Pedaiah: and with them was Hanan, the son of Zaccur the son of Mattaniah: they were taken to be true men and their business was the distribution of these things to their brothers.

¹⁴Keep me in mind, O my God, in connection with this, and do not let the good which I have done for the house of my God and its worship go from your memory completely.

¹⁵In those days, I saw in Judah some who were crushing grapes on the Sabbath, and getting in grain and putting it on asses; as well as wine and grapes and figs and all sorts of goods which they took into Jerusalem on the Sabbath day: and I gave witness against them on the day when they were marketing food.

¹⁶And there were men of Tyre there, who came with fish and all sorts of goods, trading with the children of Judah and in Jerusalem on the Sabbath.

¹⁷Then I made protests to the chiefs of Judah, and said to them, What is this evil which you are doing, not keeping the Sabbath day holy?

¹⁸Did not your fathers do the same, and did not our God send all this evil on us and on this town? but you are causing more wrath to come on Israel by not keeping the Sabbath holy.

¹⁹And so, when the streets of Jerusalem were getting dark before the Sabbath, I gave orders for the doors to be shut and not to be open again till after the Sabbath: and I put some of my servants by the door so that nothing might be taken in on the Sabbath day.

²⁰So the traders in all sorts of goods took their night's rest outside Jerusalem once or twice.

²¹Then I gave witness against them and said, Why are you waiting all night by the wall? if you do so again I will have you taken prisoners. From that time they did not come again on the Sabbath.

²²And I gave the Levites orders to make themselves clean and come and keep the doors and make the Sabbath holy. Keep this in mind to my credit, O my God, and have mercy on me, for great is your mercy.

²³And in those days I saw the Jews who were married to women of Ashdod and Ammon and Moab:

²⁴And their children were talking half in the language of Ashdod; they had no knowledge of the Jews' language, but made use of the language of the two peoples.

²⁵And I took up the cause against them, cursing them and giving blows to some of them and pulling out their hair; and I made them take an oath by God, saying, You are not to give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons or for yourselves.

²⁶Was it not in these things that Solomon, king of Israel, did wrong? among a number of nations there was no king like him, and he was dear to his God, and God made him king over all Israel: but even he was made to do evil by strange women.

²⁷Are we then without protest to let you do all this great evil, sinning against our God by taking strange women for your wives?

²⁸And one of the sons of Joiada, the son of Eliashib, the chief priest, was son-in-law to Sanballat the Horonite: so I sent him away from me.

²⁹Keep them in mind, O my God, because they have put shame on the priests' name and on the agreement of the priests and the Levites.

³⁰So I made them clean from all strange people, and had regular watches fixed for the priests and for the Levites, everyone in his work;

³¹And for the wood offering, at fixed times, and for the first fruits. Keep me in mind, O my God, for good.

1There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job. He was without sin and upright, fearing God and keeping himself far from evil.

²And he had seven sons and three daughters.

³And of cattle he had seven thousand sheep and goats, and three thousand camels, and a thousand oxen, and five hundred she-asses, and a very great number of servants. And the man was greater than any of the sons of the east.

⁴His sons regularly went to one another's houses, and every one on his day gave a feast: and at these times they sent for their three sisters to take part in their feasts with them.

⁵And at the end of their days of feasting, Job sent and made them clean, getting up early in the morning and offering burned offerings for them all. For, Job said, It may be that my sons have done wrong and said evil of God in their hearts. And Job did this whenever the feasts came round.

⁶And there was a day when the sons of the gods came together before the Lord, and the Satan came with them.

⁷And the Lord said to the Satan, Where do you come from? And the Satan said in answer, From wandering this way and that on the earth, and walking about on it.

⁸And the Lord said to the Satan, Have you taken note of my servant Job, for there is no one like him on the earth, a man without sin and upright, fearing God and keeping himself far from evil?

⁹And the Satan said in answer to the Lord, Is it for nothing that Job is a god-fearing man?

¹⁰Have you yourself not put a wall round him and his house and all he has on every side, blessing the work of his hands, and increasing his cattle in the land?

¹¹But now, put out your hand against all he has, and he will be cursing you to your face.

¹²And the Lord said to the Satan, See, I give all he has into your hands, only do not put a finger on the man himself. And the Satan went out from before the Lord.

¹³And there was a day when his sons and daughters were feasting in the house of their oldest brother,

¹⁴And a man came to Job, and said, The oxen were ploughing, and the asses were taking their food by their side:

¹⁵And the men of Sheba came against them and took them away, putting the young men to the sword, and I was the only one who got away safe to give you the news.

¹⁶And this one was still talking when another came, and said, The fire of God came down from heaven, burning up the sheep and the goats and the young men completely, and I was the only one who got away safe to give you the news.

¹⁷And this one was still talking when another came, and said, The Chaldaeans made themselves into three bands, and came down on the camels and took them away, putting the young men to the sword, and I was the only one who got away safe to give you the news.

¹⁸And this one was still talking when another came, and said, Your sons and your daughters were feasting together in their oldest brother's house,

¹⁹When a great wind came rushing from the waste land against the four sides of the house, and it came down on the young men, and they are dead; and I was the only one who got away safe to give you the news.

²⁰Then Job got up, and after parting his clothing and cutting off his hair, he went down on his face to the earth, and gave worship, and said,

²¹With nothing I came out of my mother's body, and with nothing I will go back there; the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; let the Lord's name be praised.

²²In all this Job did no sin, and did not say that God's acts were foolish.

2And there was a day when the sons of the gods came together before the Lord, and the Satan came with them.

²And the Lord said to the Satan, Where do you come from? And the Satan said in answer, From wandering this way and that on the earth, and walking about on it.

³And the Lord said to the Satan, Have you taken note of my servant Job, for there is no one like him on the earth, a man without sin and upright, fearing God and keeping himself far from evil? and he still keeps his righteousness, though you have been moving me to send destruction on him without cause.

⁴And the Satan said in answer to the Lord, Skin for skin, all a man has he will give for his life.

⁵But now, if you only put your hand on his bone and his flesh, he will certainly be cursing you to your face.

⁶And the Lord said to the Satan, See, he is in your hands, only do not take his life.

⁷And the Satan went out from before the Lord, and sent on Job an evil disease covering his skin from his feet to the top of his head.

⁸And he took a broken bit of a pot, and, seated in the dust, was rubbing himself with the sharp edge of it.

⁹And his wife said to him, Are you still keeping your righteousness? Say a curse against God, and put an end to yourself.

¹⁰And he said to her, You are talking like one of the foolish women. If we take the good God sends us, are we not to take the evil when it comes? In all this Job kept his lips from sin.

¹¹And Job's three friends had word of all this evil which had come on him. And they came every one from his place, Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. So they came together to a meeting-place, in order that they might go and make clear to Job their grief for him, and give him comfort.

¹²And lifting up their eyes when they were still far off, it did not seem that the man they saw was Job because of the change in him. And they gave way to bitter weeping, with signs of grief, and put dust on their heads.

¹³And they took their seats on the earth by his side for seven days and seven nights: but no one said a word to him, for they saw that his pain was very great.

3Then, opening his mouth, and cursing the day of his birth,

²Job made answer and said,

³Let destruction take the day of my birth, and the night on which it was said, A man child has come into the world.

⁴That day--let it be dark; let not God take note of it from on high, and let not the light be shining on it;

⁵Let the dark and the black night take it for themselves; let it be covered with a cloud; let the dark shades of day send fear on it.

⁶That night--let the thick dark take it; let it not have joy among the days of the year; let it not come into the number of the months.

⁷As for that night, let it have no fruit; let no voice of joy be sounded in it;

⁸Let it be cursed by those who put a curse on the day; who are ready to make Leviathan awake.

⁹Let its morning stars be dark; let it be looking for light, but may it not have any; let it not see the eyes of the dawn.

¹⁰Because it did not keep the doors of my mother's body shut, so that trouble might be veiled from my eyes.

¹¹Why did death not take me when I came out of my mother's body, why did I not, when I came out, give up my last breath?

¹²Why did the knees take me, or why the breasts that they might give me milk?

¹³For then I might have gone to my rest in quiet, and in sleep have been in peace,

¹⁴With kings and the wise ones of the earth, who put up great houses for themselves;

¹⁵Or with rulers who had gold, and whose houses were full of silver;

¹⁶Or as a child dead at birth I might never have come into existence; like young children who have not seen the light.

¹⁷There the passions of the evil are over, and those whose strength has come to an end have rest.

¹⁸There the prisoners are at peace together; the voice of the overseer comes not again to their ears.

¹⁹The small and the great are there, and the servant is free from his master.

²⁰Why does he give light to him who is in trouble, and life to the bitter in soul;

²¹To those whose desire is for death, but it comes not; who are searching for it more than for secret wealth;

²²Who are glad with great joy, and full of delight when they come to their last resting-place;

²³To a man whose way is veiled, and who is shut in by God?

²⁴In place of my food I have grief, and cries of sorrow come from me like water.

²⁵For I have a fear and it comes on me, and my heart is greatly troubled.

²⁶I have no peace, no quiet, and no rest; nothing but pain comes on me.

4And Eliphaz the Temanite made answer and said,

²If one says a word, will it be a weariness to you? but who is able to keep from saying what is in his mind?

³Truly, you have been a helper to others, and you have made feeble hands strong;

⁴He who was near to falling has been lifted up by your words, and you have given strength to bent knees.

⁵But now it has come on you and it is a weariness to you; you are touched by it and your mind is troubled.

⁶Is not your fear of God your support, and your upright way of life your hope?

⁷Have you ever seen destruction come to an upright man? or when were the god-fearing ever cut off?

⁸What I have seen is that those by whom trouble has been ploughed, and evil planted, get the same for themselves.

⁹By the breath of God destruction takes them, and by the wind of his wrath they are cut off.

¹⁰Though the noise of the lion and the sounding of his voice, may be loud, the teeth of the young lions are broken.

¹¹The old lion comes to his end for need of food, and the young of the she-lion go wandering in all directions.

¹²A word was given to me secretly, and the low sound of it came to my ears.

¹³In troubled thoughts from visions of the night, when deep sleep comes on men,

¹⁴Fear came on me and shaking, and my bones were full of trouble;

¹⁵And a breath was moving over my face; the hair of my flesh became stiff:

¹⁶Something was present before me, but I was not able to see it clearly; there was a form before my eyes: a quiet voice came to my ears, saying:

¹⁷May a man be upright before God? or a man be clean before his Maker?

¹⁸Truly, he puts no faith in his servants, and he sees error in his angels;

¹⁹How much more those living in houses of earth, whose bases are in the dust! They are crushed more quickly than an insect;

²⁰Between morning and evening they are completely broken; they come to an end for ever, and no one takes note.

²¹If their tent-cord is pulled up, do they not come to an end, and without wisdom?

5Give now a cry for help; is there anyone who will give you an answer? and to which of the holy ones will you make your prayer?

²For wrath is the cause of death to the foolish, and he who has no wisdom comes to his end through passion.

³I have seen the foolish taking root, but suddenly the curse came on his house.

⁴Now his children have no safe place, and they are crushed before the judges, for no one takes up their cause.

⁵Their produce is taken by him who has no food, and their grain goes to the poor, and he who is in need of water gets it from their spring.

⁶For evil does not come out of the dust, or trouble out of the earth;

⁷But trouble is man's fate from birth, as the flames go up from the fire.

⁸But as for me, I would make my prayer to God, and I would put my cause before him:

⁹Who does great things outside our knowledge, wonders without number:

¹⁰Who gives rain on the earth, and sends water on the fields:

¹¹Lifting up those who are low, and putting the sad in a safe place;

¹²Who makes the designs of the wise go wrong, so that they are unable to give effect to their purposes.

¹³He takes the wise in their secret designs, and the purposes of the twisted are cut off suddenly.

¹⁴In the daytime it becomes dark for them, and in the sunlight they go feeling about as if it was night.

¹⁵But he keeps safe from their sword those who have no father, and the poor from the power of the strong.

¹⁶So the poor man has hope, and the mouth of the evil-doer is stopped.

¹⁷Truly, that man is happy who has training from the hand of God: so do not let your heart be shut to the teaching of the Ruler of all.

¹⁸For after his punishment he gives comfort, and after wounding, his hands make you well.

¹⁹He will keep you safe from six troubles, and in seven no evil will come near you.

²⁰When there is need of food he will keep you from death, and in war from the power of the sword.

²¹He will keep you safe from the evil tongue; and you will have no fear of wasting when it comes.

²²You will make sport of destruction and need, and will have no fear of the beasts of the earth.

²³For you will be in agreement with the stones of the earth, and the beasts of the field will be at peace with you.

²⁴And you will be certain that your tent is at peace, and after looking over your property you will see that nothing is gone.

²⁵You will be certain that your seed will be great, and your offspring like the plants of the earth.

²⁶You will come to your last resting-place in full strength, as the grain is taken up to the crushing-floor in its time.

²⁷See, we have made search with care, and it is so; it has come to our ears; see that you take note of it for yourself.

6And Job made answer and said,

²If only my passion might be measured, and put into the scales against my trouble!

³For then its weight would be more than the sand of the seas: because of this my words have been uncontrolled.

⁴For the arrows of the Ruler of all are present with me, and their poison goes deep into my spirit: his army of fears is put in order against me.

⁵Does the ass of the fields give out his voice when he has grass? or does the ox make sounds over his food?

⁶Will a man take food which has no taste without salt? or is there any taste in the soft substance of purslain?

⁷My soul has no desire for such things, they are as disease in my food.

⁸If only I might have an answer to my prayer, and God would give me my desire!

⁹If only he would be pleased to put an end to me; and would let loose his hand, so that I might be cut off!

¹⁰So I would still have comfort, and I would have joy in the pains of death, for I have not been false to the words of the Holy One.

¹¹Have I strength to go on waiting, or have I any end to be looking forward to?

¹²Is my strength the strength of stones, or is my flesh brass?

¹³I have no help in myself, and wisdom is completely gone from me.

¹⁴He whose heart is shut against his friend has given up the fear of the Ruler of all.

¹⁵My friends have been false like a stream, like streams in the valleys which come to an end:

¹⁶Which are dark because of the ice, and the snow falling into them;

¹⁷Under the burning sun they are cut off, and come to nothing because of the heat.

¹⁸The camel-trains go out of their way; they go up into the waste and come to destruction.

¹⁹The camel-trains of Tema were searching with care, the bands of Sheba were waiting for them:

²⁰They were put to shame because of their hope; they came and their hope was gone.

²¹So have you now become to me; you see my sad condition and are in fear.

²²Did I say, Give me something? or, Make a payment for me out of your wealth?

²³Or, Get me out of the power of my hater? or, Give money so that I may be free from the power of the cruel ones?

²⁴Give me teaching and I will be quiet; and make me see my error.

²⁵How pleasing are upright words! but what force is there in your arguments?

²⁶My words may seem wrong to you, but the words of him who has no hope are for the wind.

²⁷Truly, you are such as would give up the child of a dead man to his creditors, and would make a profit out of your friend.

²⁸Now then, let your eyes be turned to me, for truly I will not say what is false to your face.

²⁹Let your minds be changed, and do not have an evil opinion of me; yes, be changed, for my righteousness is still in me.

³⁰Is there evil in my tongue? is not the cause of my trouble clear to me?

7Has not man his ordered time of trouble on the earth? and are not his days like the days of a servant working for payment?

²As a servant desiring the shades of evening, and a workman looking for his payment:

³So I have for my heritage months of pain to no purpose, and nights of weariness are given to me.

⁴When I go to my bed, I say, When will it be time to get up? but the night is long, and I am turning from side to side till morning light.

⁵My flesh is covered with worms and dust; my skin gets hard and then is cracked again.

⁶My days go quicker than the cloth-worker's thread, and come to an end without hope.

⁷O, keep in mind that my life is wind: my eye will never again see good.

⁸The eye of him who sees me will see me no longer: your eyes will be looking for me, but I will be gone.

⁹A cloud comes to an end and is gone; so he who goes down into the underworld comes not up again.

¹⁰He will not come back to his house, and his place will have no more knowledge of him.

¹¹So I will not keep my mouth shut; I will let the words come from it in the pain of my spirit, my soul will make a bitter outcry.

¹²Am I a sea, or a sea-beast, that you put a watch over me?

¹³When I say, In my bed I will have comfort, there I will get rest from my disease;

¹⁴Then you send dreams to me, and visions of fear;

¹⁵So that a hard death seems better to my soul than my pains.

¹⁶I have no desire for life, I would not be living for ever! Keep away from me, for my days are as a breath.

¹⁷What is man, that you have made him great, and that your attention is fixed on him,

¹⁸And that your hand is on him every morning, and that you are testing him every minute?

¹⁹How long will it be before your eyes are turned away from me, so that I may have a minute's breathing-space?

²⁰If I have done wrong, what have I done to you, O keeper of men? why have you made me a mark for your blows, so that I am a weariness to myself?

²¹And why do you not take away my sin, and let my wrongdoing be ended? for now I go down to the dust, and you will be searching for me with care, but I will be gone.

8Then Bildad the Shuhite made answer and said,

²How long will you say these things, and how long will the words of your mouth be like a strong wind?

³Does God give wrong decisions? or is the Ruler of all not upright in his judging?

⁴If your children have done evil against him, then their punishment is from his hand.

⁵If you will make search for God with care, and put your request before the Ruler of all;

⁶If you are clean and upright; then he will certainly be moved to take up your cause, and will make clear your righteousness by building up your house again.

⁷And though your start was small, your end will be very great.

⁸Put the question now to the past generations, and give attention to what has been searched out by their fathers:

⁹(For we are but of yesterday, and have no knowledge, because our days on earth are gone like a shade:)

¹⁰Will they not give you teaching, and say words of wisdom to you?

¹¹Will the river-plant come up in its pride without wet earth? will the grass get tall without water?

¹²When it is still green, without being cut down, it becomes dry and dead before any other plant.

¹³So is the end of all who do not keep God in mind; and the hope of the evil-doer comes to nothing:

¹⁴Whose support is cut off, and whose hope is no stronger than a spider's thread.

¹⁵He is looking to his family for support, but it is not there; he puts his hope in it, but it comes to nothing.

¹⁶He is full of strength before the sun, and his branches go out over his garden.

¹⁷His roots are twisted round the stones, forcing their way in between them.

¹⁸If he is taken away from his place, then it will say, I have not seen you.

¹⁹Such is the joy of his way, and out of the dust another comes up to take his place.

²⁰Truly, God will not give up him who is without sin, and will not take evil-doers by the hand.

²¹The time will come when your mouth will be full of laughing, and cries of joy will come from your lips.

²²Your haters will be clothed with shame, and the tent of the sinner will not be seen again.

9And Job made answer and said,

²Truly, I see that it is so: and how is it possible for a man to get his right before God?

³If a man was desiring to go to law with him, he would not be able to give him an answer to one out of a thousand questions.

⁴He is wise in heart and great in strength: who ever made his face hard against him, and any good came of it?

⁵It is he who takes away the mountains without their knowledge, overturning them in his wrath:

⁶Who is moving the earth out of its place, so that its pillars are shaking:

⁷Who gives orders to the sun, and it does not give its light; and who keeps the stars from shining.

⁸By whose hand the heavens were stretched out, and who is walking on the waves of the sea:

⁹Who made the Bear and Orion, and the Pleiades, and the store-houses of the south:

¹⁰Who does great things not to be searched out; yes, wonders without number.

¹¹See, he goes past me and I see him not: he goes on before, but I have no knowledge of him.

¹²If he puts out his hand to take, by whom may it be turned back? who may say to him, What are you doing?

¹³God's wrath may not be turned back; the helpers of Rahab were bent down under him.

¹⁴How much less may I give an answer to him, using the right words in argument with him?

¹⁵Even if my cause was good, I would not be able to give an answer; I would make request for grace from him who was against me.

¹⁶If I had sent for him to be present, and he had come, I would have no faith that he would give ear to my voice.

¹⁷For I would be crushed by his storm, my wounds would be increased without cause.

¹⁸He would not let me take my breath, but I would be full of bitter grief.

¹⁹If it is a question of strength, he says, Here I am! and if it is a question of a cause at law, he says, Who will give me a fixed day?

²⁰Though I was in the right, he would say that I was in the wrong; I have done no evil; but he says that I am a sinner.

²¹I have done no wrong; I give no thought to what becomes of me; I have no desire for life.

²²It is all the same to me; so I say, He puts an end to the sinner and to him who has done no wrong together.

²³If death comes suddenly through disease, he makes sport of the fate of those who have done no wrong.

²⁴The land is given into the power of the evil-doer; the faces of its judges are covered; if not by him, then who has done it?

²⁵My days go quicker than a post-runner: they go in flight, they see no good.

²⁶They go rushing on like reed-boats, like an eagle dropping suddenly on its food.

²⁷If I say, I will put my grief out of mind, I will let my face be sad no longer and I will be bright;

²⁸I go in fear of all my pains; I am certain that I will not be free from sin in your eyes.

²⁹You will not let me be clear of sin! why then do I take trouble for nothing?

³⁰If I am washed with snow water, and make my hands clean with soap;

³¹Then you will have me pushed into the dust, so that I will seem disgusting to my very clothing.

³²For he is not a man as I am, that I might give him an answer, that we might come together before a judge.

³³There is no one to give a decision between us, who might have control over us.

³⁴Let him take away his rod from me and not send his fear on me:

³⁵Then I would say what is in my mind without fear of him; for there is no cause of fear in myself.

10My soul is tired of life; I will let my sad thoughts go free in words; my soul will make a bitter outcry.

²I will say to God, Do not put me down as a sinner; make clear to me what you have against me.

³What profit is it to you to be cruel, to give up the work of your hands, looking kindly on the design of evil-doers?

⁴Have you eyes of flesh, or do you see as man sees?

⁵Are your days as the days of man, or your years like his,

⁶That you take note of my sin, searching after my wrongdoing,

⁷Though you see that I am not an evil-doer; and there is no one who is able to take a man out of your hands?

⁸Your hands made me, and I was formed by you, but then, changing your purpose, you gave me up to destruction.

⁹O keep in mind that you made me out of earth; and will you send me back again to dust?

¹⁰Was I not drained out like milk, becoming hard like cheese?

¹¹By you I was clothed with skin and flesh, and joined together with bones and muscles.

¹²You have been kind to me, and your grace has been with me, and your care has kept my spirit safe.

¹³But you kept these things in the secret of your heart; I am certain this was in your thoughts:

¹⁴That, if I did wrong, you would take note of it, and would not make me clear from sin:

¹⁵That, if I was an evil-doer, the curse would come on me; and if I was upright, my head would not be lifted up, being full of shame and overcome with trouble.

¹⁶And that if there was cause for pride, you would go after me like a lion; and again put out your wonders against me:

¹⁷That you would send new witnesses against me, increasing your wrath against me, and letting loose new armies on me.

¹⁸Why then did you make me come out of my mother's body? It would have been better for me to have taken my last breath, and for no eye to have seen me,

¹⁹And for me to have been as if I had not been; to have been taken from my mother's body straight to my last resting-place.

²⁰Are not the days of my life small in number? Let your eyes be turned away from me, so that I may have a little pleasure,

²¹Before I go to the place from which I will not come back, to the land where all is dark and black,

²²A land of thick dark, without order, where the very light is dark.

11Then Zophar the Naamathite made answer and said,

²Are all these words to go unanswered? and is a man seen to be right because he is full of talk?

³Are your words of pride to make men keep quiet? and are you to make sport, with no one to put you to shame?

⁴You may say, My way is clean, and I am free from sin in your eyes.

⁵But if only God would take up the word, opening his lips in argument with you;

⁶And would make clear to you the secrets of wisdom, and the wonders of his purpose!

⁷Are you able to take God's measure, to make discovery of the limits of the Ruler of all?

⁸They are higher than heaven; what is there for you to do? deeper than the underworld, and outside your knowledge;

⁹Longer in measure than the earth, and wider than the sea.

¹⁰If he goes on his way, shutting a man up and putting him to death, who may make him go back from his purpose?

¹¹For in his eyes men are as nothing; he sees evil and takes note of it.

¹²And so a hollow-minded man will get wisdom, when a young ass of the field gets teaching.

¹³But if you put your heart right, stretching out your hands to him;

¹⁴If you put far away the evil of your hands, and let no wrongdoing have a place in your tent;

¹⁵Then truly your face will be lifted up, with no mark of sin, and you will be fixed in your place without fear:

¹⁶For your sorrow will go from your memory, like waters flowing away:

¹⁷And your life will be brighter than day; though it is dark, it will become like the morning.

¹⁸And you will be safe because there is hope; after looking round, you will take your rest in quiet;

¹⁹Sleeping with no fear of danger; and men will be desiring to have grace in your eyes;

²⁰But the eyes of the evil-doers will be wasting away; their way of flight is gone, and their only hope is the taking of their last breath.

12And Job made answer and said,

²No doubt you have knowledge, and wisdom will come to an end with you.

³But I have a mind as well as you; I am equal to you: yes, who has not knowledge of such things as these?

⁴It seems that I am to be as one who is a cause of laughing to his neighbour, one who makes his prayer to God and is answered! the upright man who has done no wrong is to be made sport of!

⁵In the thought of him who is in comfort there is no respect for one who is in trouble; such is the fate of those whose feet are slipping.

⁶There is wealth in the tents of those who make destruction, and those by whom God is moved to wrath are safe; even those whose god is their strength.

⁷But put now a question to the beasts, and get teaching from them; or to the birds of the heaven, and they will make it clear to you;

⁸Or to the things which go flat on the earth, and they will give you wisdom; and the fishes of the sea will give you news of it.

⁹Who does not see by all these that the hand of the Lord has done this?

¹⁰In whose hand is the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all flesh of man.

¹¹Are not words tested by the ear, even as food is tasted by the mouth?

¹²Old men have wisdom, and a long life gives knowledge.

¹³With him there is wisdom and strength; power and knowledge are his.

¹⁴Truly, there is no building up of what is pulled down by him; when a man is shut up by him, no one may let him loose.

¹⁵Truly, he keeps back the waters and they are dry; he sends them out and the earth is overturned.

¹⁶With him are strength and wise designs; he who is guided into error, together with his guide, are in his hands;

¹⁷He takes away the wisdom of the wise guides, and makes judges foolish;

¹⁸He undoes the chains of kings, and puts his band on them;

¹⁹He makes priests prisoners, overturning those in safe positions;

²⁰He makes the words of responsible persons without effect, and takes away the good sense of the old;

²¹He puts shame on chiefs, and takes away the power of the strong;

²²Uncovering deep things out of the dark, and making the deep shade bright;

²³Increasing nations, and sending destruction on them; making wide the lands of peoples, and then giving them up.

²⁴He takes away the wisdom of the rulers of the earth, and sends them wandering in a waste where there is no way.

²⁵They go feeling about in the dark without light, wandering without help like those overcome with wine.

13Truly, my eye has seen all this, word of it has come to my ear, and I have knowledge of it.

²The same things are in my mind as in yours; I am equal to you.

³But I would have talk with the Ruler of all, and my desire is to have an argument with God.

⁴But you put a false face on things; all your attempts to put things right are of no value.

⁵If only you would keep quiet, it would be a sign of wisdom!

⁶Give ear to the argument of my mouth, and take note of the words of my lips.

⁷Will you say in God's name what is not right, and put false words into his mouth?

⁸Will you have respect for God's person in this cause, and put yourselves forward as his supporters?

⁹Will it be good for you to be searched out by him, or have you the thought that he may be guided into error like a man?

¹⁰He will certainly put you right, if you have respect for persons in secret.

¹¹Will not his glory put you in fear, so that your hearts will be overcome before him?

¹²Your wise sayings are only dust, and your strong places are only earth.

¹³Keep quiet, and let me say what is in my mind, whatever may come to me.

¹⁴I will take my flesh in my teeth, and put my life in my hand.

¹⁵Truly, he will put an end to me; I have no hope; but I will not give way in argument before him;

¹⁶And that will be my salvation, for an evil-doer would not come before him,

¹⁷Give ear with care to my words, and keep what I say in your minds.

¹⁸See now, I have put my cause in order, and I am certain that I will be seen to be right.

¹⁹Is any one able to take up the argument against me? If so, I would keep quiet and give up my breath.

²⁰Only two things do not do to me, then I will come before your face:

²¹Take your hand far away from me; and let me not be overcome by fear of you.

²²Then at the sound of your voice I will give answer; or let me put forward my cause for you to give me an answer.

²³What is the number of my evil-doings and my sins? give me knowledge of them.

²⁴Why is your face veiled from me, as if I was numbered among your haters?

²⁵Will you be hard on a leaf in flight before the wind? will you make a dry stem go more quickly on its way?

²⁶For you put bitter things on record against me, and send punishment on me for the sins of my early years;

²⁷And you put chains on my feet, watching all my ways, and making a limit for my steps;

²⁸Though a man comes to nothing like a bit of dead wood, or like a robe which has become food for the worm.

14As for man, the son of woman, his days are short and full of trouble.

²He comes out like a flower, and is cut down: he goes in flight like a shade, and is never seen again.

³Is it on such a one as this that your eyes are fixed, with the purpose of judging him?

⁴If only a clean thing might come out of an unclean! But it is not possible.

⁵If his days are ordered, and you have knowledge of the number of his months, having given him a fixed limit past which he may not go;

⁶Let your eyes be turned away from him, and take your hand from him, so that he may have pleasure at the end of his day, like a servant working for payment.

⁷For there is hope of a tree; if it is cut down, it will come to life again, and its branches will not come to an end.

⁸Though its root may be old in the earth, and its cut-off end may be dead in the dust;

⁹Still, at the smell of water, it will make buds, and put out branches like a young plant.

¹⁰But man comes to his death and is gone: he gives up his spirit, and where is he?

¹¹The waters go from a pool, and a river becomes waste and dry;

¹²So man goes down to his last resting-place and comes not again: till the heavens come to an end, they will not be awake or come out of their sleep.

¹³If only you would keep me safe in the underworld, putting me in a secret place till your wrath is past, giving me a fixed time when I might come to your memory again!

¹⁴If death takes a man, will he come to life again? All the days of my trouble I would be waiting, till the time came for me to be free.

¹⁵At the sound of your voice I would give an answer, and you would have a desire for the work of your hands.

¹⁶For now my steps are numbered by you, and my sin is not overlooked.

¹⁷My wrongdoing is corded up in a bag, and my sin is shut up safe.

¹⁸But truly a mountain falling comes to dust, and a rock is moved from its place;

¹⁹The stones are crushed small by the force of the waters; the dust of the earth is washed away by their overflowing: and so you put an end to the hope of man.

²⁰You overcome him for ever, and he is gone; his face is changed in death, and you send him away.

²¹His sons come to honour, and he has no knowledge of it; they are made low, but he is not conscious of it.

²²Only his flesh still has pain, and his soul is sad.

15And Eliphaz the Temanite made answer and said,

²Will a wise man make answer with knowledge of no value, or will he give birth to the east wind?

³Will he make arguments with words in which is no profit, and with sayings which have no value?

⁴Truly, you make the fear of God without effect, so that the time of quiet worship before God is made less by your outcry.

⁵For your mouth is guided by your sin, and you have taken the tongue of the false for yourself.

⁶It is by your mouth, even yours, that you are judged to be in the wrong, and not by me; and your lips give witness against you.

⁷Were you the first man to come into the world? or did you come into being before the hills?

⁸Were you present at the secret meeting of God? and have you taken all wisdom for yourself?

⁹What knowledge have you which we have not? is there anything in your mind which is not in ours?

¹⁰With us are men who are grey-haired and full of years, much older than your father.

¹¹Are the comforts of God not enough for you, and the gentle word which was said to you?

¹²Why is your heart uncontrolled, and why are your eyes lifted up;

¹³So that you are turning your spirit against God, and letting such words go out of your mouth?

¹⁴What is man, that he may be clean? and how may the son of woman be upright?

¹⁵Truly, he puts no faith in his holy ones, and the heavens are not clean in his eyes;

¹⁶How much less one who is disgusting and unclean, a man who takes in evil like water!

¹⁷Take note and give ear to my words; and I will say what I have seen:

¹⁸(The things which wise men have got from their fathers, and have not kept secret from us;

¹⁹For only to them was the land given, and no strange people were among them:)

²⁰The evil man is in pain all his days, and the number of the years stored up for the cruel is small.

²¹A sound of fear is in his ears; in time of peace destruction will come on him:

²²He has no hope of coming safe out of the dark, and his fate will be the sword;

²³He is wandering about in search of bread, saying, Where is it? and he is certain that the day of trouble is ready for him:

²⁴He is greatly in fear of the dark day, trouble and pain overcome him:

²⁵Because his hand is stretched out against God, and his heart is lifted up against the Ruler of all,

²⁶Running against him like a man of war, covered by his thick breastplate; even like a king ready for the fight,

²⁷Because his face is covered with fat, and his body has become thick;

²⁸And he has made his resting-place in the towns which have been pulled down, in houses where no man had a right to be, whose fate was to become masses of broken walls.

²⁹He does not get wealth for himself, and is unable to keep what he has got; the heads of his grain are not bent down to the earth.

³⁰He does not come out of the dark; his branches are burned by the flame, and the wind takes away his bud.

³¹Let him not put his hope in what is false, falling into error: for he will get deceit as his reward.

³²His branch is cut off before its time, and his leaf is no longer green.

³³He is like a vine whose grapes do not come to full growth, or an olive-tree dropping its flowers.

³⁴For the band of the evil-doers gives no fruit, and the tents of those who give wrong decisions for reward are burned with fire.

³⁵Evil has made them with child, and they give birth to trouble; and the fruit of their body is shame for themselves.

16And Job made answer and said,

²Such things have frequently come to my ears: you are comforters who only give trouble.

³May words which are like the wind be stopped? or what is troubling you to make answer to them?

⁴It would not be hard for me to say such things if your souls were in my soul's place; joining words together against you, and shaking my head at you:

⁵I might give you strength with my mouth, and not keep back the comfort of my lips.

⁶If I say what is in my mind, my pain becomes no less: and if I keep quiet, how much of it goes from me?

⁷But now he has overcome me with weariness and fear, and I am in the grip of all my trouble.

⁸It has come up as a witness against me, and the wasting of my flesh makes answer to my face.

⁹I am broken by his wrath, and his hate has gone after me; he has made his teeth sharp against me: my haters are looking on me with cruel eyes;

¹⁰Their mouths are open wide against me; the blows of his bitter words are falling on my face; all of them come together in a mass against me.

¹¹God gives me over to the power of sinners, sending me violently into the hands of evil-doers.

¹²I was in comfort, but I have been broken up by his hands; he has taken me by the neck, shaking me to bits; he has put me up as a mark for his arrows.

¹³His bowmen come round about me; their arrows go through my body without mercy; my life is drained out on the earth.

¹⁴I am broken with wound after wound; he comes rushing on me like a man of war.

¹⁵I have made haircloth the clothing of my skin, and my horn is rolled in the dust.

¹⁶My face is red with weeping, and my eyes are becoming dark;

¹⁷Though my hands have done no violent acts, and my prayer is clean.

¹⁸O earth, let not my blood be covered, and let my cry have no resting-place!

¹⁹Even now my witness is in heaven, and the supporter of my cause is on high.

²⁰My friends make sport of me; to God my eyes are weeping,

²¹So that he may give decision for a man in his cause with God, and between a son of man and his neighbour.

²²For in a short time I will take the journey from which I will not come back.

17My spirit is broken, my days are ended, the last resting-place is ready for me.

²Truly, those who make sport of me are round about me, and my eyes become dark because of their bitter laughing.

³Be pleased, now, to be responsible for me to yourself; for there is no other who will put his hand in mine.

⁴You have kept their hearts from wisdom: for this cause you will not give them honour.

⁵As for him who is false to his friend for a reward, light will be cut off from the eyes of his children.

⁶He has made me a word of shame to the peoples; I have become a mark for their sport.

⁷My eyes have become dark because of my pain, and all my body is wasted to a shade.

⁸The upright are surprised at this, and he who has done no wrong is troubled because of the evil-doers.

⁹Still the upright keeps on his way, and he who has clean hands gets new strength.

¹⁰But come back, now, all of you, come; and I will not see a wise man among you.

¹¹My days are past, my purposes are broken off, even the desires of my heart.

¹²They are changing night into day; they say, The light is near the dark.

¹³If I am waiting for the underworld as my house, if I have made my bed in the dark;

¹⁴If I say to the earth, You are my father; and to the worm, My mother and my sister;

¹⁵Where then is my hope? and who will see my desire?

¹⁶Will they go down with me into the underworld? Will we go down together into the dust?

18Then Bildad the Shuhite made answer and said,

²How long will it be before you have done talking? Get wisdom, and then we will say what is in our minds.

³Why do we seem as beasts in your eyes, and as completely without knowledge?

⁴But come back, now, come: you who are wounding yourself in your passion, will the earth be given up because of you, or a rock be moved out of its place?

⁵For the light of the sinner is put out, and the flame of his fire is not shining.

⁶The light is dark in his tent, and the light shining over him is put out.

⁷The steps of his strength become short, and by his design destruction overtakes him.

⁸His feet take him into the net, and he goes walking into the cords.

⁹His foot is taken in the net; he comes into its grip.

¹⁰The twisted cord is put secretly in the earth to take him, and the cord is placed in his way.

¹¹He is overcome by fears on every side, they go after him at every step.

¹²His strength is made feeble for need of food, and destruction is waiting for his falling footstep.

¹³His skin is wasted by disease, and his body is food for the worst of diseases.

¹⁴He is pulled out of his tent where he was safe, and he is taken away to the king of fears.

¹⁵In his tent will be seen that which is not his, burning stone is dropped on his house.

¹⁶Under the earth his roots are dry, and over it his branch is cut off.

¹⁷His memory is gone from the earth, and in the open country there is no knowledge of his name.

¹⁸He is sent away from the light into the dark; he is forced out of the world.

¹⁹He has no offspring or family among his people, and in his living-place there is no one of his name.

²⁰At his fate those of the west are shocked, and those of the east are overcome with fear.

²¹Truly, these are the houses of the sinner, and this is the place of him who has no knowledge of God.

19And Job made answer and said,

²How long will you make my life bitter, crushing me with words?

³Ten times now you have made sport of me; it gives you no sense of shame to do me wrong.

⁴And, truly, if I have been in error, the effect of my error is only on myself.

⁵If you make yourselves great against me, using my punishment as an argument against me,

⁶Be certain that it is God who has done me wrong, and has taken me in his net.

⁷Truly, I make an outcry against the violent man, but there is no answer: I give a cry for help, but no one takes up my cause.

⁸My way is walled up by him so that I may not go by: he has made my roads dark.

⁹He has put off my glory from me, and taken the crown from my head.

¹⁰I am broken down by him on every side, and I am gone; my hope is uprooted like a tree.

¹¹His wrath is burning against me, and I am to him as one of his haters.

¹²His armies come on together, they make their road high against me, and put up their tents round mine.

¹³He has taken my brothers far away from me; they have seen my fate and have become strange to me.

¹⁴My relations and my near friends have given me up, and those living in my house have put me out of their minds.

¹⁵I am strange to my women-servants, and seem to them as one from another country.

¹⁶At my cry my servant gives me no answer, and I have to make a prayer to him.

¹⁷My breath is strange to my wife, and I am disgusting to the offspring of my mother's body.

¹⁸Even young children have no respect for me; when I get up their backs are turned on me.

¹⁹All the men of my circle keep away from me; and those dear to me are turned against me.

²⁰My bones are joined to my skin, and I have got away with my flesh in my teeth.

²¹Have pity on me, have pity on me, O my friends! for the hand of God is on me.

²²Why are you cruel to me, like God, for ever saying evil against me?

²³If only my words might be recorded! if they might be put in writing in a book!

²⁴And with an iron pen and lead be cut into the rock for ever!

²⁵But I am certain that he who will take up my cause is living, and that in time to come he will take his place on the dust;

²⁶And ... without my flesh I will see God;

²⁷Whom I will see on my side, and not as one strange to me. My heart is broken with desire.

²⁸If you say, How cruel we will be to him! because the root of sin is clearly in him:

²⁹Be in fear of the sword, for the sword is the punishment for such things, so that you may be certain that there is a judge.

20Then Zophar the Naamathite made answer and said,

²For this cause my thoughts are troubling me and driving me on.

³I have to give ear to arguments which put me to shame, and your answers to me are wind without wisdom.

⁴Have you knowledge of this from early times, when man was placed on the earth,

⁵That the pride of the sinner is short, and the joy of the evil-doer but for a minute?

⁶Though he is lifted up to the heavens, and his head goes up to the clouds;

⁷Like the waste from his body he comes to an end for ever: those who have seen him say, Where is he?

⁸He is gone like a dream, and is not seen again; he goes in flight like a vision of the night.

⁹The eye which saw him sees him no longer; and his place has no more knowledge of him.

¹⁰His children are hoping that the poor will be kind to them, and his hands give back his wealth.

¹¹His bones are full of young strength, but it will go down with him into the dust.

¹²Though evil-doing is sweet in his mouth, and he keeps it secretly under his tongue;

¹³Though he takes care of it, and does not let it go, but keeps it still in his mouth;

¹⁴His food becomes bitter in his stomach; the poison of snakes is inside him.

¹⁵He takes down wealth as food, and sends it up again; it is forced out of his stomach by God.

¹⁶He takes the poison of snakes into his mouth, the tongue of the snake is the cause of his death.

¹⁷Let him not see the rivers of oil, the streams of honey and milk.

¹⁸He is forced to give back the fruit of his work, and may not take it for food; he has no joy in the profit of his trading.

¹⁹Because he has been cruel to the poor, turning away from them in their trouble; because he has taken a house by force which he did not put up;

²⁰There is no peace for him in his wealth, and no salvation for him in those things in which he took delight.

²¹He had never enough for his desire; for this cause his well-being will quickly come to an end.

²²Even when his wealth is great, he is full of care, for the hand of everyone who is in trouble is turned against him.

²³God gives him his desire, and sends the heat of his wrath on him, making it come down on him like rain.

²⁴He may go in flight from the iron spear, but the arrow from the bow of brass will go through him;

²⁵He is pulling it out, and it comes out of his back; and its shining point comes out of his side; he is overcome by fears.

²⁶All his wealth is stored up for the dark: a fire not made by man sends destruction on him, and on everything in his tent.

²⁷The heavens make clear his sin, and the earth gives witness against him.

²⁸The produce of his house is taken away into another country, like things given into the hands of others in the day of wrath.

²⁹This is the reward of the evil man, and the heritage given to him by God.

21Then Job made answer and said,

²Give attention with care to my words; and let this be your comfort.

³Let me say what is in my mind, and after that, go on making sport of me.

⁴As for me, is my outcry against man? is it then to be wondered at if my spirit is troubled?

⁵Take note of me and be full of wonder, put your hand on your mouth.

⁶At the very thought of it my flesh is shaking with fear.

⁷Why is life given to the evil-doers? why do they become old and strong in power?

⁸Their children are ever with them, and their offspring before their eyes.

⁹Their houses are free from fear, and the rod of God does not come on them.

¹⁰Their ox is ready at all times to give seed; their cow gives birth, without dropping her young.

¹¹They send out their young ones like a flock, and their children have pleasure in the dance,

¹²They make songs to the instruments of music, and are glad at the sound of the pipe.

¹³Their days come to an end without trouble, and suddenly they go down to the underworld.

¹⁴Though they said to God, Go away from us, for we have no desire for the knowledge of your ways.

¹⁵What is the Ruler of all, that we may give him worship? and what profit is it to us to make prayer to him?

¹⁶Truly, is not their well-being in their power? (The purpose of the evil-doers is far from me.)

¹⁷How frequently is the light of the evil-doers put out, or does trouble come on them? how frequently does his wrath take them with cords?

¹⁸How frequently are they as dry stems before the wind, or as grass taken away by the storm-wind?

¹⁹You say, God keeps punishment stored up for his children. Let him send it on the man himself, so that he may have the punishment of it!

²⁰Let his eyes see his trouble, and let him be full of the wrath of the Ruler of all!

²¹For what interest has he in his house after him, when the number of his months is ended?

²²Is anyone able to give teaching to God? for he is the judge of those who are on high.

²³One comes to his end in complete well-being, full of peace and quiet:

²⁴His buckets are full of milk, and there is no loss of strength in his bones.

²⁵And another comes to his end with a bitter soul, without ever tasting good.

²⁶Together they go down to the dust, and are covered by the worm.

²⁷See, I am conscious of your thoughts, and of your violent purposes against me;

²⁸For you say, Where is the house of the ruler, and where is the tent of the evil-doer?

²⁹Have you not put the question to the travellers, and do you not take note of their experience?

³⁰How the evil man goes free in the day of trouble, and has salvation in the day of wrath?

³¹Who will make his way clear to his face? and if he has done a thing, who gives him punishment for it?

³²He is taken to his last resting-place, and keeps watch over it.

³³The earth of the valley covering his bones is sweet to him, and all men come after him, as there were unnumbered before him.

³⁴Why then do you give me comfort with words in which there is no profit, when you see that there is nothing in your answers but deceit?

22Then Eliphaz the Temanite made answer and said,

²Is it possible for a man to be of profit to God? No, for a man's wisdom is only of profit to himself.

³Is it of any interest to the Ruler of all that you are upright? or is it of use to him that your ways are without sin?

⁴Is it because you give him honour that he is sending punishment on you and is judging you?

⁵Is not your evil-doing great? and there is no end to your sins.

⁶For you have taken your brother's goods when he was not in your debt, and have taken away the clothing of those who have need of it.

⁷You do not give water to the tired traveller, and from him who has no food you keep back bread.

⁸For it was the man with power who had the land, and the man with an honoured name who was living in it.

⁹You have sent widows away without hearing their cause, and you have taken away the support of the child who has no father.

¹⁰For this cause nets are round your feet, and you are overcome with sudden fear.

¹¹Your light is made dark so that you are unable to see, and you are covered by a mass of waters.

¹²Is not God as high as heaven? and see the stars, how high they are!

¹³And you say, What knowledge has God? is he able to give decisions through the deep dark?

¹⁴Thick clouds are covering him, so that he is unable to see; and he is walking on the arch of heaven.

¹⁵Will you keep the old way by which evil men went?

¹⁶Who were violently taken away before their time, who were overcome by the rush of waters:

¹⁷Who said to God, Go away from us; and, What is the Ruler of all able to do to us?

¹⁸Though he made their houses full of good things: but the purpose of the evil-doers is far from me!

¹⁹The upright saw it and were glad: and those who had done no wrong made sport of them,

²⁰Saying, Truly, their substance is cut off, and their wealth is food for the fire.

²¹Put yourself now in a right relation with him and be at peace: so will you do well in your undertakings.

²²Be pleased to take teaching from his mouth, and let his words be stored up in your heart.

²³If you come back to the Ruler of all, making yourself low before him; if you put evil far away from your tents;

²⁴And put your gold in the dust, even your gold of Ophir among the rocks of the valleys;

²⁵Then the Ruler of all will be your gold, and his teaching will be your silver;

²⁶For then you will have delight in the Ruler of all, and your face will be lifted up to God.

²⁷You will make your prayer to him, and be answered; and you will give effect to your oaths.

²⁸Your purposes will come about, and light will be shining on your ways.

²⁹For God makes low those whose hearts are lifted up, but he is a saviour to the poor in spirit.

³⁰He makes safe the man who is free from sin, and if your hands are clean, salvation will be yours.

23And Job made answer and said,

²Even today my outcry is bitter; his hand is hard on my sorrow.

³If only I had knowledge of where he might be seen, so that I might come even to his seat!

⁴I would put my cause in order before him, and my mouth would be full of arguments.

⁵I would see what his answers would be, and have knowledge of what he would say to me.

⁶Would he make use of his great power to overcome me? No, but he would give attention to me.

⁷There an upright man might put his cause before him; and I would be free for ever from my judge.

⁸See, I go forward, but he is not there; and back, but I do not see him;

⁹I am looking for him on the left hand, but there is no sign of him; and turning to the right, I am not able to see him.

¹⁰For he has knowledge of the way I take; after I have been tested I will come out like gold.

¹¹My feet have gone in his steps; I have kept in his way, without turning to one side or to the other.

¹²I have never gone against the orders of his lips; the words of his mouth have been stored up in my heart.

¹³But his purpose is fixed and there is no changing it; and he gives effect to the desire of his soul.

¹⁴For what has been ordered for me by him will be gone through to the end: and his mind is full of such designs.

¹⁵For this cause I am in fear before him, my thoughts of him overcome me.

¹⁶For God has made my heart feeble, and my mind is troubled before the Ruler of all.

¹⁷For I am overcome by the dark, and by the black night which is covering my face.

24Why are times not stored up by the Ruler of all, and why do those who have knowledge of him not see his days?

²The landmarks are changed by evil men, they violently take away flocks, together with their keepers.

³They send away the ass of him who has no father, they take the widow's ox for debt.

⁴The crushed are turned out of the way; all the poor of the earth go into a secret place together.

⁵Like asses in the waste land they go out to their work, looking for food with care; from the waste land they get bread for their children.

⁶They get mixed grain from the field, and they take away the late fruit from the vines of those who have wealth.

⁷They take their rest at night without clothing, and have no cover in the cold.

⁸They are wet with the rain of the mountains, and get into the cracks of the rock for cover.

⁹The child without a father is forced from its mother's breast, and they take the young children of the poor for debt.

¹⁰Others go about without clothing, and though they have no food, they get in the grain from the fields.

¹¹Between the lines of olive-trees they make oil; though they have no drink, they are crushing out the grapes.

¹²From the town come sounds of pain from those who are near death, and the soul of the wounded is crying out for help; but God does not take note of their prayer.

¹³Then there are those who are haters of the light, who have no knowledge of its ways, and do not go in them.

¹⁴He who is purposing death gets up before day, so that he may put to death the poor and those in need.

¹⁵And the man whose desire is for the wife of another is waiting for the evening, saying, No eye will see me; and he puts a cover on his face. And in the night the thief goes about;

¹⁶In the dark he makes holes in the walls of houses: in the daytime they are shutting themselves up, they have no knowledge of the light.

¹⁷For the middle of the night is as morning to them, they are not troubled by the fear of the dark.

¹⁸They go quickly on the face of the waters; their heritage is cursed in the earth; the steps of the crusher of grapes are not turned to their vine-garden.

¹⁹Snow waters become dry with the heat: so do sinners go down into the underworld.

²⁰The public place of his town has no more knowledge of him, and his name has gone from the memory of men: he is rooted up like a dead tree.

²¹He is not kind to the widow, and he has no pity for her child.

²²But God by his power gives long life to the strong; he gets up again, though he has no hope of life.

²³He takes away his fear of danger and gives him support; and his eyes are on his ways.

²⁴For a short time they are lifted up; then they are gone; they are made low, they are pulled off like fruit, and like the heads of grain they are cut off.

²⁵And if it is not so, now, who will make it clear that my words are false, and that what I say is of no value?

25Then Bildad the Shuhite made answer and said,

²Rule and power are his; he makes peace in his high places.

³Is it possible for his armies to be numbered? and on whom is not his light shining?

⁴How then is it possible for man to be upright before God? or how may he be clean who is a son of woman?

⁵See, even the moon is not bright, and the stars are not clean in his eyes:

⁶How much less man who is an insect, and the son of man who is a worm!

26Then Job made answer and said,

²How have you given help to him who has no power! how have you been the salvation of the arm which has no strength!

³How have you given teaching to him who has no wisdom, and fully made clear true knowledge!

⁴To whom have your words been said? and whose spirit came out from you?

⁵The shades in the underworld are shaking; the waters and those living in them.

⁶The underworld is uncovered before him, and Destruction has no veil.

⁷By his hand the north is stretched out in space, and the earth is hanging on nothing.

⁸By him the waters are shut up in his thick clouds, and the cloud does not give way under them.

⁹By him the face of his high seat is veiled, and his cloud stretched out over it.

¹⁰By him a circle is marked out on the face of the waters, to the limits of the light and the dark.

¹¹The pillars of heaven are shaking, and are overcome by his sharp words.

¹²By his power the sea was made quiet; and by his wisdom Rahab was wounded.

¹³By his wind the heavens become bright: by his hand the quickly moving snake was cut through.

¹⁴See, these are only the outskirts of his ways; and how small is that which comes to our ears about him! But the thunder of his acts of power is outside all knowledge.

27And Job again took up the word and said,

²By the life of God, who has taken away my right; and of the Ruler of all, who has made my soul bitter;

³(For all my breath is still in me, and the spirit of God is my life;)

⁴Truly, there is no deceit in my lips, and my tongue does not say what is false.

⁵Let it be far from me! I will certainly not say that you are right! I will come to death before I give up my righteousness.

⁶I will keep it safe, and will not let it go: my heart has nothing to say against any part of my life.

⁷Let my hater be like the evil man, and let him who comes against me be as the sinner.

⁸For what is the hope of the sinner when he is cut off, when God takes back his soul?

⁹Will his cry come to the ears of God when he is in trouble?

¹⁰Will he take delight in the Ruler of all, and make his prayer to God at all times?

¹¹I will give you teaching about the hand of God; I will not keep secret from you what is in the mind of the Ruler of all.

¹²Truly, you have all seen it yourselves; why then have you become completely foolish?

¹³This is the punishment of the evil-doer from God, and the heritage given to the cruel by the Ruler of all.

¹⁴If his children are increased, it is for the sword; and his offspring have not enough bread.

¹⁵When those of his house who are still living come to their end by disease, they are not put into the earth, and their widows are not weeping for them.

¹⁶Though he may get silver together like dust, and make ready great stores of clothing;

¹⁷He may get them ready, but the upright will put them on, and he who is free from sin will take the silver for a heritage.

¹⁸His house has no more strength than a spider's thread, or a watchman's tent.

¹⁹He goes to rest full of wealth, but does so for the last time: on opening his eyes, he sees it there no longer.

²⁰Fears overtake him like rushing waters; in the night the storm-wind takes him away.

²¹The east wind takes him up and he is gone; he is forced violently out of his place.

²²God sends his arrows against him without mercy; he goes in flight before his hand.

²³Men make signs of joy because of him, driving him from his place with sounds of hissing.

28Truly there is a mine for silver, and a place where gold is washed out.

²Iron is taken out of the earth, and stone is changed into brass by the fire.

³Man puts an end to the dark, searching out to the farthest limit the stones of the deep places of the dark.

⁴He makes a deep mine far away from those living in the light of day; when they go about on the earth, they have no knowledge of those who are under them, who are hanging far from men, twisting from side to side on a cord.

⁵As for the earth, bread comes out of it; but under its face it is turned up as if by fire.

⁶Its stones are the place of sapphires, and it has dust of gold.

⁷No bird has knowledge of it, and the hawk's eye has never seen it.

⁸The great beasts have not gone over it, and the cruel lion has not taken that way.

⁹Man puts out his hand on the hard rock, overturning mountains by the roots.

¹⁰He makes deep ways, cut through the rock, and his eye sees everything of value.

¹¹He keeps back the streams from flowing, and makes the secret things come out into the light.

¹²But where may wisdom be seen? and where is the resting-place of knowledge?

¹³Man has not seen the way to it, and it is not in the land of the living.

¹⁴The deep waters say, It is not in me: and the sea says, It is not with me.

¹⁵Gold may not be given for it, or a weight of silver in payment for it.

¹⁶It may not be valued with the gold of Ophir, with the onyx of great price, or the sapphire.

¹⁷Gold and glass are not equal to it in price, and it may not be exchanged for jewels of the best gold.

¹⁸There is no need to say anything about coral or crystal; and the value of wisdom is greater than that of pearls.

¹⁹The topaz of Ethiopia is not equal to it, and it may not be valued with the best gold.

²⁰From where then does wisdom come, and where is the resting-place of knowledge?

²¹For it is kept secret from the eyes of all living, unseen by the birds of the air.

²²Destruction and Death say, We have only had word of it with our ears.

²³God has knowledge of the way to it, and of its resting-place;

²⁴For his eyes go to the ends of the earth, and he sees everything under heaven.

²⁵When he made a weight for the wind, measuring out the waters;

²⁶When he made a law for the rain, and a way for the thunder-flames;

²⁷Then he saw it, and put it on record; he gave it its fixed form, searching it out completely.

²⁸And he said to man, Truly the fear of the Lord is wisdom, and to keep from evil is the way to knowledge.

29And Job again took up the word and said,

²If only I might again be as I was in the months which are past, in the days when God was watching over me!

³When his light was shining over my head, and when I went through the dark by his light.

⁴As I was in my flowering years, when my tent was covered by the hand of God;

⁵While the Ruler of all was still with me, and my children were round me;

⁶When my steps were washed with milk, and rivers of oil were flowing out of the rock for me.

⁷When I went out of my door to go up to the town, and took my seat in the public place,

⁸The young men saw me, and went away, and the old men got up from their seats;

⁹The rulers kept quiet, and put their hands on their mouths;

¹⁰The chiefs kept back their words, and their tongues were joined to the roofs of their mouths.

¹¹For when it came to their ears, men said that I was truly happy; and when their eyes saw, they gave witness to me;

¹²For I was a saviour to the poor when he was crying for help, to the child with no father, and to him who had no supporter.

¹³The blessing of him who was near to destruction came on me, and I put a song of joy into the widow's heart.

¹⁴I put on righteousness as my clothing, and was full of it; right decisions were to me a robe and a head-dress.

¹⁵I was eyes to the blind, and feet to him who had no power of walking.

¹⁶I was a father to the poor, searching out the cause of him who was strange to me.

¹⁷By me the great teeth of the evil-doer were broken, and I made him give up what he had violently taken away.

¹⁸Then I said, I will come to my end with my children round me, my days will be as the sand in number;

¹⁹My root will be open to the waters, and the night mist will be on my branches,

²⁰My glory will be ever new, and my bow will be readily bent in my hand.

²¹Men gave ear to me, waiting and keeping quiet for my suggestions.

²²After I had said what was in my mind, they were quiet and let my words go deep into their hearts;

²³They were waiting for me as for the rain, opening their mouths wide as for the spring rains.

²⁴I was laughing at them when they had no hope, and the light of my face was never clouded by their fear.

²⁵I took my place as a chief, guiding them on their way, and I was as a king among his army. ...

30But now those who are younger than I make sport of me; those whose fathers I would not have put with the dogs of my flocks.

²Of what use is the strength of their hands to me? all force is gone from them.

³They are wasted for need of food, biting the dry earth; their only hope of life is in the waste land.

⁴They are pulling off the salt leaves from the brushwood, and making a meal of roots.

⁵They are sent out from among their townsmen, men are crying after them as thieves

⁶They have to get a resting-place in the hollows of the valleys, in holes of the earth and rocks.

⁷They make noises like asses among the brushwood; they get together under the thorns.

⁸They are sons of shame, and of men without a name, who have been forced out of the land.

⁹And now I have become their song, and I am a word of shame to them.

¹⁰I am disgusting to them; they keep away from me, and put marks of shame on me.

¹¹For he has made loose the cord of my bow, and put me to shame; he has sent down my flag to the earth before me.

¹²The lines of his men of war put themselves in order, and make high their ways of destruction against me:

¹³They have made waste my roads, with a view to my destruction; his bowmen come round about me;

¹⁴As through a wide broken place in the wall they come on, I am overturned by the shock of their attack.

¹⁵Fears have come on me; my hope is gone like the wind, and my well-being like a cloud.

¹⁶But now my soul is turned to water in me, days of trouble overtake me:

¹⁷The flesh is gone from my bones, and they give me no rest; there is no end to my pains.

¹⁸With great force he takes a grip of my clothing, pulling me by the neck of my coat.

¹⁹Truly God has made me low, even to the earth, and I have become like dust.

²⁰You give no answer to my cry, and take no note of my prayer.

²¹You have become cruel to me; the strength of your hand is hard on me.

²²Lifting me up, you make me go on the wings of the wind; I am broken up by the storm.

²³For I am certain that you will send me back to death, and to the meeting-place ordered for all living.

²⁴Has not my hand been stretched out in help to the poor? have I not been a saviour to him in his trouble?

²⁵Have I not been weeping for the crushed? and was not my soul sad for him who was in need?

²⁶For I was looking for good, and evil came; I was waiting for light, and it became dark.

²⁷My feelings are strongly moved, and give me no rest; days of trouble have overtaken me.

²⁸I go about in dark clothing, uncomforted; I get up in the public place, crying out for help.

²⁹I have become a brother to the jackals, and go about in the company of ostriches.

³⁰My skin is black and dropping off me; and my bones are burning with the heat of my disease.

³¹And my music has been turned to sorrow, and the sound of my pipe into the noise of weeping.

31I made an agreement with my eyes; how then might my eyes be looking on a virgin?

²For what is God's reward from on high, or the heritage given by the Ruler of all from heaven?

³Is it not trouble for the sinner, and destruction for the evil-doers?

⁴Does he not see my ways, and are not my steps all numbered?

⁵If I have gone in false ways, or my foot has been quick in working deceit;

⁶(Let me be measured in upright scales, and let God see my righteousness:)

⁷If my steps have been turned out of the way, or if my heart went after my eyes, or if the property of another is in my hands;

⁸Let me put seed in the earth for another to have the fruit of it, and let my produce be uprooted.

⁹If my heart went after another man's wife, or if I was waiting secretly at my neighbour's door;

¹⁰Then let my wife give pleasure to another man and let others make use of her body.

¹¹For that would be a crime; it would be an act for which punishment would be measured out by the judges:

¹²It would be a fire burning even to destruction, and taking away all my produce.

¹³If I did wrong in the cause of my man-servant, or my woman-servant, when they went to law with me;

¹⁴What then will I do when God comes as my judge? and what answer may I give to his questions?

¹⁵Did not God make him as well as me? did he not give us life in our mothers' bodies?

¹⁶If I kept back the desire of the poor; if the widow's eye was looking for help to no purpose;

¹⁷If I kept my food for myself, and did not give some of it to the child with no father;

¹⁸(For I was cared for by God as by a father from my earliest days; he was my guide from the body of my mother;)

¹⁹If I saw one near to death for need of clothing, and that the poor had nothing covering him;

²⁰If his back did not give me a blessing, and the wool of my sheep did not make him warm;

²¹If my hand had been lifted up against him who had done no wrong, when I saw that I was supported by the judges;

²²May my arm be pulled from my body, and be broken from its base.

²³For the fear of God kept me back, and because of his power I might not do such things.

²⁴If I made gold my hope, or if I ever said to the best gold, I have put my faith in you;

²⁵If I was glad because my wealth was great, and because my hand had got together a great store;

²⁶If, when I saw the sun shining, and the moon moving on its bright way,

²⁷A secret feeling of worship came into my heart, and my hand gave kisses from my mouth;

²⁸That would have been another sin to be rewarded with punishment by the judges; for I would have been false to God on high.

²⁹If I was glad at the trouble of my hater, and gave cries of joy when evil overtook him;

³⁰(For I did not let my mouth give way to sin, in putting a curse on his life;)

³¹If the men of my tent did not say, Who has not had full measure of his meat?

³²The traveller did not take his night's rest in the street, and my doors were open to anyone on a journey;

³³If I kept my evil doings covered, and my sin in the secret of my breast,

³⁴For fear of the great body of people, or for fear that families might make sport of me, so that I kept quiet, and did not go out of my door;

³⁵If only God would give ear to me, and the Ruler of all would give me an answer! or if what he has against me had been put in writing!

³⁶Truly I would take up the book in my hands; it would be to me as a crown;

³⁷I would make clear the number of my steps, I would put it before him like a prince! The words of Job are ended.

³⁸If my land has made an outcry against me, or the ploughed earth has been in sorrow;

³⁹If I have taken its produce without payment, causing the death of its owners;

⁴⁰Then in place of grain let thorns come up, and in place of barley evil-smelling plants.

32So these three men gave no more answers to Job, because he seemed to himself to be right.

²And Elihu, the son of Barachel the Buzite, of the family of Ram, was angry, burning with wrath against Job, because he seemed to himself more right than God;

³And he was angry with his three friends, because they had been unable to give him an answer, and had not made Job's sin clear.

⁴Now Elihu had kept quiet while Job was talking, because they were older than he;

⁵And when Elihu saw that there was no answer in the mouth of the three men, he was very angry.

⁶And Elihu, the son of Barachel the Buzite, made answer and said, I am young, and you are very old, so I was in fear, and kept myself from putting my knowledge before you.

⁷I said to myself, It is right for the old to say what is in their minds, and for those who are far on in years to give out wisdom.

⁸But truly it is the spirit in man, even the breath of the Ruler of all, which gives them knowledge.

⁹It is not the old who are wise, and those who are full of years have not the knowledge of what is right.

¹⁰So I say, Give ear to me, and I will put forward my knowledge.

¹¹I was waiting for your words, I was giving ear to your wise sayings; while you were searching out what to say,

¹²I was taking note; and truly not one of you was able to make clear Job's error, or to give an answer to his words.

¹³Take care that you do not say, Wisdom is here; God may overcome him, but not man.

¹⁴I will not put forward words like these, or make use of your sayings in answer to him.

¹⁵Fear has overcome them, they have no more answers to give; they have come to an end of words.

¹⁶And am I to go on waiting while they have nothing to say? while they keep quiet and give no more answers?

¹⁷I will give my answer; I will put forward my knowledge:

¹⁸For I am full of words, I am unable to keep in my breath any longer:

¹⁹My stomach is like wine which is unable to get out; like skins full of new wine, it is almost burst.

²⁰Let me say what is in my mind, so that I may get comfort; let me give answer with open mouth.

²¹Let me not give respect to any man, or give names of honour to any living.

²²For I am not able to give names of honour to any man; and if I did, my Maker would quickly take me away.

33And now, O Job, give ear to my words, and take note of all I say.

²See, now my mouth is open, my tongue gives out words.

³My heart is overflowing with knowledge, my lips say what is true.

⁴The spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Ruler of all gives me life.

⁵If you are able, give me an answer; put your cause in order, and come forward.

⁶See, I am the same as you are in the eyes of God; I was cut off from the same bit of wet earth.

⁷Fear of me will not overcome you, and my hand will not be hard on you.

⁸But you said in my hearing, and your voice came to my ears:

⁹I am clean, without sin; I am washed, and there is no evil in me:

¹⁰See, he is looking for something against me; in his eyes I am as one of his haters;

¹¹He puts chains on my feet; he is watching all my ways.

¹²Truly, in saying this you are wrong; for God is greater than man.

¹³Why do you put forward your cause against him, saying, He gives no answer to any of my words?

¹⁴For God gives his word in one way, even in two, and man is not conscious of it:

¹⁵In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep comes on men, while they take their rest on their beds;

¹⁶Then he makes his secrets clear to men, so that they are full of fear at what they see;

¹⁷In order that man may be turned from his evil works, and that pride may be taken away from him;

¹⁸To keep back his soul from the underworld, and his life from destruction.

¹⁹Pain is sent on him as a punishment, while he is on his bed; there is no end to the trouble in his bones;

²⁰He has no desire for food, and his soul is turned away from delicate meat;

²¹His flesh is so wasted away, that it may not be seen, and his bones. ...

²²And his soul comes near to the underworld, and his life to the angels of death.

²³If now there may be an angel sent to him, one of the thousands which there are to be between him and God, and to make clear to man what is right for him;

²⁴And if he has mercy on him, and says, Let him not go down to the underworld, I have given the price for his life:

²⁵Then his flesh becomes young again, and he comes back to the days of his early strength;

²⁶He makes his prayer to God, and he has mercy on him; he sees God's face with cries of joy; he gives news of his righteousness to men;

²⁷He makes a song, saying, I did wrong, turning from the straight way, but he did not give me the reward of my sin.

²⁸He kept my soul from the underworld, and my life sees the light in full measure.

²⁹Truly, God does all these things to man, twice and three times,

³⁰Keeping back his soul from the underworld, so that he may see the light of life.

³¹Take note O Job, give ear to me; keep quiet, while I say what is in my mind.

³²If you have anything to say, give me an answer; for it is my desire that you may be judged free from sin.

³³If not, give attention to me, and keep quiet, and I will give you wisdom.

34And Elihu made answer and said,

²Give ear, you wise, to my words; and you who have knowledge, give attention to me;

³For words are tested by the ear, as food is tasted by the mouth.

⁴Let us make the decision for ourselves as to what is right; let us have the knowledge among ourselves of what is good.

⁵For Job has said, I am upright, and it is God who has taken away my right;

⁶Though I am right, still I am in pain; my wound may not be made well, though I have done no wrong.

⁷What man is like Job, a man who freely makes sport of God,

⁸And goes in the company of evil-doers, walking in the way of sinners?

⁹For he has said, It is no profit to a man to take delight in God.

¹⁰Now then, you wise, take note; you men of knowledge, give ear to me. Let it be far from God to do evil, and from the Ruler of all to do wrong.

¹¹For he gives to every man the reward of his work, and sees that he gets the fruit of his ways.

¹²Truly, God does not do evil, and the Ruler of all is not a false judge.

¹³Who put the earth into his care, or made him responsible for the world?

¹⁴If he made his spirit come back to him, taking his breath into himself again,

¹⁵All flesh would come to an end together, and man would go back to the dust.

¹⁶If you are wise, take note of this; give ear to the voice of my words.

¹⁷How may a hater of right be a ruler? and will you say that the upright Ruler of all is evil?

¹⁸He who says to a king, You are an evil-doer; and to rulers, You are sinners;

¹⁹Who has no respect for rulers, and who gives no more attention to those who have wealth than to the poor, for they are all the work of his hands.

²⁰Suddenly they come to an end, even in the middle of the night: the blow comes on the men of wealth, and they are gone, and the strong are taken away without the hand of man.

²¹For his eyes are on the ways of a man, and he sees all his steps.

²²There is no dark place, and no thick cloud, in which the workers of evil may take cover.

²³For he does not give man a fixed time to come before him to be judged.

²⁴He sends the strong to destruction without searching out their cause, and puts others in their place.

²⁵For he has knowledge of their works, overturning them in the night, so that they are crushed.

²⁶The evil-doers are broken by his wrath, he puts his hand on them with force before the eyes of all onlookers.

²⁷Because they did not go after him, and took no note of his ways,

²⁸So that the cry of the poor might come up to him, and the prayer of those in need come to his ears.

²⁹...

³⁰...

³¹...

³²...

³³...

³⁴Men of knowledge, and all wise men, hearing me, will say,

³⁵Job's words do not come from knowledge; they are not the fruit of wisdom.

³⁶May Job be tested to the end, because his answers have been like those of evil men.

³⁷For in addition to his sin, he is uncontrolled in heart; before our eyes he makes sport of God, increasing his words against him.

35And Elihu made answer and said,

²Does it seem to you to be right, and righteousness before God, to say,

³What profit is it to me, and how am I better off than if I had done wrong?

⁴I will make answer to you and to your friends:

⁵Let your eyes be turned to the heavens, and lifted up to see the skies; they are higher than you.

⁶If you have done wrong, is he any the worse for it? and if your sins are great in number, what is it to him?

⁷If you are upright, what do you give to him? or what does he take from your hand?

⁸Your evil-doing may have an effect on a man like yourself, or your righteousness on a son of man.

⁹Because the hand of the cruel is hard on them, men are making sounds of grief; they are crying out for help because of the arm of the strong.

¹⁰But no one has said, Where is God my Maker, who gives songs in the night;

¹¹Who gives us more knowledge than the beasts of the earth, and makes us wiser than the birds of the heaven?

¹²There they are crying out because of the pride of the evil-doers, but he gives them no answer.

¹³But God will not give ear to what is false, or the Ruler of all take note of it;

¹⁴How much less when you say that you do not see him; that the cause is before him, and you are waiting for him.

¹⁵And now ... ;

¹⁶And Job's mouth is open wide to give out what is of no profit, increasing words without knowledge.

36And Elihu went on to say,

²Give me a little more time, and I will make it clear to you; for I have still something to say for God.

³I will get my knowledge from far, and I will give righteousness to my Maker.

⁴For truly my words are not false; one who has all knowledge is talking with you.

⁵Truly, God gives up the hard-hearted, and will not give life to the sinner.

⁶His eyes are ever on the upright, and he gives to the crushed their right;

⁷Lifting them up to the seat of kings, and making them safe for ever.

⁸And if they have been prisoned in chains, and taken in cords of trouble,

⁹Then he makes clear to them what they have done, even their evil works in which they have taken pride.

¹⁰Their ear is open to his teaching, and he gives them orders so that their hearts may be turned from evil.

¹¹If they give ear to his voice, and do his word, then he gives them long life, and years full of pleasure.

¹²But if not, they come to their end, and give up their breath without knowledge.

¹³Those who have no fear of God keep wrath stored up in their hearts; they give no cry for help when they are made prisoners.

¹⁴They come to their end while they are still young, their life is short like that of those who are used for sex purposes in the worship of their gods.

¹⁵He makes the wrong done to the poor the way of their salvation, opening their ears by their trouble.

¹⁶...

¹⁷...

¹⁸...

¹⁹...

²⁰...

²¹Take care not to be turned to sin, for you have taken evil for your part in place of sorrow.

²²Truly God is lifted up in strength; who is a ruler like him?

²³Who ever gave orders to him, or said to him, You have done wrong?

²⁴See that you give praise to his work, about which men make songs.

²⁵All people are looking on it; man sees it from far.

²⁶Truly, God is great, greater than all our knowledge; the number of his years may not be searched out.

²⁷For he takes up the drops from the sea; he sends them through his mist as rain,

²⁸Flowing down from the sky, and dropping on the peoples.

²⁹And who has knowledge of how the clouds are stretched out, or of the thunders of his tent?

³⁰See, he is stretching out his mist, covering the tops of the mountains with it.

³¹For by these he gives food to the peoples, and bread in full measure.

³²He takes the light in his hands, sending it against the mark.

³³The thunder makes clear his passion, and the storm gives news of his wrath.

37At this my heart is shaking; it is moved out of its place.

²Give ear to the rolling noise of his voice; to the hollow sound which goes out of his mouth.

³He sends it out through all the heaven, and his thunder-flame to the ends of the earth.

⁴After it a voice is sounding, thundering out the word of his power; he does not keep back his thunder-flames; from his mouth his voice is sounding.

⁵He does wonders, more than may be searched out; great things of which we have no knowledge;

⁶For he says to the snow, Make the earth wet; and to the rain-storm, Come down.

⁷He puts an end to the work of every man, so that all may see his work.

⁸Then the beasts go into their holes, and take their rest.

⁹Out of its place comes the storm-wind, and the cold out of its store-houses.

¹⁰By the breath of God ice is made, and the wide waters are shut in.

¹¹The thick cloud is weighted with thunder-flame, and the cloud sends out its light;

¹²And it goes this way and that, round about, turning itself by his guiding, to do whatever he gives orders to be done, on the face of his world of men,

¹³For a rod, or for a curse, or for mercy, causing it to come on the mark.

¹⁴Give ear to this, O Job, and keep quiet in your place; and take note of the wonders worked by God.

¹⁵Have you knowledge of God's ordering of his works, how he makes the light of his cloud to be seen?

¹⁶Have you knowledge of the balancings of the clouds, the wonders of him who has all wisdom?

¹⁷You, whose clothing is warm, when the earth is quiet because of the south wind,

¹⁸Will you, with him, make the skies smooth, and strong as a polished looking-glass?

¹⁹Make clear to me what we are to say to him; we are unable to put our cause before him, because of the dark.

²⁰How may he have knowledge of my desire for talk with him? or did any man ever say, May destruction come on me?

²¹And now the light is not seen, for it is dark because of the clouds; but a wind comes, clearing them away.

²²A bright light comes out of the north; God's glory is greatly to be feared.

²³There is no searching out of the Ruler of all: his strength and his judging are great; he is full of righteousness, doing no wrong.

²⁴For this cause men go in fear of him; he has no respect for any who are wise in heart.

38And the Lord made answer to Job out of the storm-wind, and said,

²Who is this who makes the purpose of God dark by words without knowledge?

³Get your strength together like a man of war; I will put questions to you, and you will give me the answers.

⁴Where were you when I put the earth on its base? Say, if you have knowledge.

⁵By whom were its measures fixed? Say, if you have wisdom; or by whom was the line stretched out over it?

⁶On what were its pillars based, or who put down its angle-stone,

⁷When the morning stars made songs together, and all the sons of the gods gave cries of joy?

⁸Or where were you when the sea came to birth, pushing out from its secret place;

⁹When I made the cloud its robe, and put thick clouds as bands round it,

¹⁰Ordering a fixed limit for it, with locks and doors;

¹¹And said, So far you may come, and no farther; and here the pride of your waves will be stopped?

¹²Have you, from your earliest days, given orders to the morning, or made the dawn conscious of its place;

¹³So that it might take a grip of the skirts of the earth, shaking all the evil-doers out of it?

¹⁴It is changed like wet earth under a stamp, and is coloured like a robe;

¹⁵And from the evil-doers their light is kept back, and the arm of pride is broken.

¹⁶Have you come into the springs of the sea, walking in the secret places of the deep?

¹⁷Have the doors of death been open to you, or have the door-keepers of the dark ever seen you?

¹⁸Have you taken note of the wide limits of the earth? Say, if you have knowledge of it all.

¹⁹Which is the way to the resting-place of the light, and where is the store-house of the dark;

²⁰So that you might take it to its limit, guiding it to its house?

²¹No doubt you have knowledge of it, for then you had come to birth, and the number of your days is great.

²²Have you come into the secret place of snow, or have you seen the store-houses of the ice-drops,

²³Which I have kept for the time of trouble, for the day of war and fighting?

²⁴Which is the way to the place where the wind is measured out, and the east wind sent out over the earth?

²⁵By whom has the way been cut for the flowing of the rain, and the flaming of the thunder;

²⁶Causing rain to come on a land where no man is living, on the waste land which has no people;

²⁷To give water to the land where there is waste and destruction, and to make the dry land green with young grass?

²⁸Has the rain a father? or who gave birth to the drops of night mist?

²⁹Out of whose body came the ice? and who gave birth to the cold mist of heaven?

³⁰The waters are joined together, hard as a stone, and the face of the deep is covered.

³¹Are the bands of the Pleiades fixed by you, or are the cords of Orion made loose?

³²Do you make Mazzaroth come out in its right time, or are the Bear and its children guided by you?

³³Have you knowledge of the laws of the heavens? did you give them rule over the earth?

³⁴Is your voice sent up to the cloud, so that you may be covered by the weight of waters?

³⁵Do you send out the thunder-flames, so that they may go, and say to you, Here we are?

³⁶Who has put wisdom in the high clouds, or given knowledge to the lights of the north?

³⁷By whose wisdom are the clouds numbered, or the water-skins of the heavens turned to the earth,

³⁸When the earth becomes hard as metal, and is joined together in masses?

³⁹Do you go after food for the she-lion, or get meat so that the young lions may have enough,

⁴⁰When they are stretched out in their holes, and are waiting in the brushwood?

⁴¹Who gives in the evening the meat he is searching for, when his young ones are crying to God; when the young lions with loud noise go wandering after their food?

39Have you knowledge of the rock-goats? or do you see the roes giving birth to their young?

²Is the number of their months fixed by you? or is the time when they give birth ordered by you?

³They are bent down, they give birth to their young, they let loose the fruit of their body.

⁴Their young ones are strong, living in the open country; they go out and do not come back again.

⁵Who has let the ass of the fields go free? or made loose the bands of the loud-voiced beast?

⁶To whom I have given the waste land for a heritage, and the salt land as a living-place.

⁷He makes sport of the noise of the town; the voice of the driver does not come to his ears;

⁸He goes looking for his grass-lands in the mountains, searching out every green thing.

⁹Will the ox of the mountains be your servant? or is his night's resting-place by your food-store?

¹⁰Will he be pulling your plough with cords, turning up the valleys after you?

¹¹Will you put your faith in him, because his strength is great? will you give the fruit of your work into his care?

¹²Will you be looking for him to come back, and get in your seed to the crushing-floor?

¹³Is the wing of the ostrich feeble, or is it because she has no feathers,

¹⁴That she puts her eggs on the earth, warming them in the dust,

¹⁵Without a thought that they may be crushed by the foot, and broken by the beasts of the field?

¹⁶She is cruel to her young ones, as if they were not hers; her work is to no purpose; she has no fear.

¹⁷For God has taken wisdom from her mind, and given her no measure of knowledge.

¹⁸When she is shaking her wings on high, she makes sport of the horse and of him who is seated on him.

¹⁹Do you give strength to the horse? is it by your hand that his neck is clothed with power?

²⁰Is it through you that he is shaking like a locust, in the pride of his loud-sounding breath?

²¹He is stamping with joy in the valley; he makes sport of fear.

²²In his strength he goes out against the arms of war, turning not away from the sword.

²³The bow is sounding against him; he sees the shining point of spear and arrow.

²⁴Shaking with passion, he is biting the earth; he is not able to keep quiet at the sound of the horn;

²⁵When it comes to his ears he says, Aha! He is smelling the fight from far off, and hearing the thunder of the captains, and the war-cries.

²⁶Is it through your knowledge that the hawk takes his flight, stretching out his wings to the south?

²⁷Or is it by your orders that the eagle goes up, and makes his resting-place on high?

²⁸On the rock is his house, and on the mountain-top his strong place.

²⁹From there he is watching for food; his eye sees it far off.

³⁰His young have blood for their drink, and where the dead bodies are, there is he to be seen.

40...

²Will he who is protesting give teaching to the Ruler of all? Let him who has arguments to put forward against God give an answer.

³And Job said in answer to the Lord,

⁴Truly, I am of no value; what answer may I give to you? I will put my hand on my mouth.

⁵I have said once, and even twice, what was in my mind, but I will not do so again.

⁶Then the Lord made answer to Job out of the storm-wind, and said,

⁷Get your strength together like a man of war: I will put questions to you, and you will give me the answers.

⁸Will you even make my right of no value? will you say that I am wrong in order to make clear that you are right?

⁹Have you an arm like God? have you a voice of thunder like his?

¹⁰Put on the ornaments of your pride; be clothed with glory and power:

¹¹Let your wrath be overflowing; let your eyes see all the sons of pride, and make them low.

¹²Send destruction on all who are lifted up, pulling down the sinners from their places.

¹³Let them be covered together in the dust; let their faces be dark in the secret place of the underworld.

¹⁴Then I will give praise to you, saying that your right hand is able to give you salvation.

¹⁵See now the Great Beast, whom I made, even as I made you; he takes grass for food, like the ox.

¹⁶His strength is in his body, and his force in the muscles of his stomach.

¹⁷His tail is curving like a cedar; the muscles of his legs are joined together.

¹⁸His bones are pipes of brass, his legs are like rods of iron.

¹⁹He is the chief of the ways of God, made by him for his pleasure.

²⁰He takes the produce of the mountains, where all the beasts of the field are at play.

²¹He takes his rest under the trees of the river, and in the pool, under the shade of the water-plants.

²²He is covered by the branches of the trees; the grasses of the stream are round him.

²³Truly, if the river is overflowing, it gives him no cause for fear; he has no sense of danger, even if Jordan is rushing against his mouth.

²⁴Will anyone take him when he is on the watch, or put metal teeth through his nose?

41Is it possible for Leviathan to be pulled out with a fish-hook, or for a hook to be put through the bone of his mouth?

²Will you put a cord into his nose, or take him away with a cord round his tongue?

³Will he make prayers to you, or say soft words to you?

⁴Will he make an agreement with you, so that you may take him as a servant for ever?

⁵Will you make sport with him, as with a bird? or put him in chains for your young women?

⁶Will the fishermen make profit out of him? will they have him cut up for the traders?

⁷Will you put sharp-pointed irons into his skin, or fish-spears into his head?

⁸Only put your hand on him, and see what a fight you will have; you will not do it again!

⁹Truly, the hope of his attacker is false; he is overcome even on seeing him!

¹⁰He is so cruel that no one is ready to go against him. Who then is able to keep his place before me?

¹¹Who ever went against me, and got the better of me? There is no one under heaven!

¹²I will not keep quiet about the parts of his body, or about his power, and the strength of his frame.

¹³Who has ever taken off his outer skin? who may come inside his inner coat of iron?

¹⁴Who has made open the doors of his face? Fear is round about his teeth.

¹⁵His back is made of lines of plates, joined tight together, one against the other, like a stamp.

¹⁶One is so near to the other that no air may come between them.

¹⁷They take a grip of one another; they are joined together, so that they may not be parted.

¹⁸His sneezings give out flames, and his eyes are like the eyes of the dawn.

¹⁹Out of his mouth go burning lights, and flames of fire are jumping up.

²⁰Smoke comes out of his nose, like a pot boiling on the fire.

²¹His breath puts fire to coals, and a flame goes out of his mouth.

²²Strength is in his neck, and fear goes dancing before him.

²³The plates of his flesh are joined together, fixed, and not to be moved.

²⁴His heart is as strong as a stone, hard as the lower crushing-stone.

²⁵When he gets ready for the fight, the strong are overcome with fear.

²⁶The sword may come near him but is not able to go through him; the spear, or the arrow, or the sharp-pointed iron.

²⁷Iron is to him as dry grass, and brass as soft wood.

²⁸The arrow is not able to put him to flight: stones are no more to him than dry stems.

²⁹A thick stick is no better than a leaf of grass, and he makes sport of the onrush of the spear.

³⁰Under him are sharp edges of broken pots: as if he was pulling a grain-crushing instrument over the wet earth.

³¹The deep is boiling like a pot of spices, and the sea like a perfume-vessel.

³²After him his way is shining, so that the deep seems white.

³³On earth there is not another like him, who is made without fear.

³⁴Everything which is high goes in fear of him; he is king over all the sons of pride.

42And Job said in answer to the Lord,

²I see that you are able to do every thing, and to give effect to all your designs.

³Who is this who makes dark the purpose of God by words without knowledge? For I have been talking without knowledge about wonders not to be searched out.

⁴Give ear to me, and I will say what is in my mind; I will put questions to you, and you will give me the answers.

⁵Word of you had come to my ears, but now my eye has seen you.

⁶For this cause I give witness that what I said is false, and in sorrow I take my seat in the dust.

⁷And it came about, after he had said these words to Job, that the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite, I am very angry with you and your two friends, because you have not said what is right about me, as my servant Job has.

⁸And now, take seven oxen and seven sheep, and go to my servant Job, and give a burned offering for yourselves, and my servant Job will make prayer for you, that I may not send punishment on you; because you have not said what is right about me, as my servant Job has.

⁹And Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite, went and did as the Lord had said. And the Lord gave ear to Job.

¹⁰And the Lord made up to Job for all his losses, after he had made prayer for his friends: and all Job had before was increased by the Lord twice as much.

¹¹And all his brothers and sisters, and his friends of earlier days, came and took food with him in his house; and made clear their grief for him, and gave him comfort for all the evil which the Lord had sent on him; and they all gave him a bit of money and a gold ring.

¹²And the Lord's blessing was greater on the end of Job's life than on its start: and so he came to have fourteen thousand sheep and goats, and six thousand camels, and two thousand oxen, and a thousand she-asses.

¹³And he had seven sons and three daughters.

¹⁴And he gave the first the name of Jemimah, the second Keziah, and the third Keren-happuch;

¹⁵And there were no women so beautiful as the daughters of Job in all the earth: and their father gave them a heritage among their brothers.

¹⁶And after this Job had a hundred and forty years of life, and saw his sons, and his sons' sons, even four generations.

¹⁷And Job came to his end, old and full of days.

PSALM 1

¹Happy is the man who does not go in the company of sinners, or take his place in the way of evil-doers, or in the seat of those who do not give honour to the Lord.

²But whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and whose mind is on his law day and night.

³He will be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, which gives its fruit at the right time, whose leaves will ever be green; and he will do well in all his undertakings.

⁴The evil-doers are not so; but are like the dust from the grain, which the wind takes away.

⁵For this cause there will be no mercy for sinners when they are judged, and the evil-doers will have no place among the upright,

⁶Because the Lord sees the way of the upright, but the end of the sinner is destruction.

PSALM 2

¹Why are the nations so violently moved, and why are the thoughts of the people so foolish?

²The kings of the earth have taken their place, and the rulers are fixed in their purpose, against the Lord, and against the king of his selection, saying,

³Let their chains be broken, and their cords taken from off us.

⁴Then he whose seat is in the heavens will be laughing: the Lord will make sport of them.

⁵Then will his angry words come to their ears, and by his wrath they will be troubled:

⁶But I have put my king on my holy hill of Zion.

⁷I will make clear the Lord's decision: he has said to me, You are my son, this day have I given you being.

⁸Make your request to me, and I will give you the nations for your heritage, and the farthest limits of the earth will be under your hand.

⁹They will be ruled by you with a rod of iron; they will be broken like a potter's vessel.

¹⁰So now be wise, you kings: take his teaching, you judges of the earth.

¹¹Give worship to the Lord with fear, kissing his feet and giving him honour,

¹²For fear that he may be angry, causing destruction to come on you, because he is quickly moved to wrath. Happy are all those who put their faith in him.

PSALM 3

¹Lord, how greatly are they increased who make attacks on me! in great numbers they come against me.

²Unnumbered are those who say of my soul, There is no help for him in God. (Selah.)

³But your strength, O Lord, is round me, you are my glory and the lifter up of my head.

⁴I send up a cry to the Lord with my voice, and he gives me an answer from his holy hill. (Selah.)

⁵I took my rest in sleep, and then again I was awake; for the Lord was my support.

⁶I will have no fear, though ten thousand have come round me, putting themselves against me.

⁷Come to me, Lord; keep me safe, O my God; for you have given all my haters blows on their face-bones; the teeth of the evil-doers have been broken by you.

⁸Salvation comes from the Lord; your blessing is on your people. (Selah.)

PSALM 4

¹Give answer to my cry, O God of my righteousness; make me free from my troubles; have mercy on me, and give ear to my prayer.

²O you sons of men, how long will you go on turning my glory into shame? how long will you give your love to foolish things, going after what is false? (Selah.)

³See how the Lord has made great his mercy for me; the Lord will give ear to my cry.

⁴Let there be fear in your hearts, and do no sin; have bitter feelings on your bed, but make no sound. (Selah.)

⁵Give the offerings of righteousness, and put your faith in the Lord.

⁶There are numbers who say, Who will do us any good? the light of his face has gone from us.

⁷Lord, you have put joy in my heart, more than they have when their grain and their wine are increased.

⁸I will take my rest on my bed in peace, because you only, Lord, keep me safe.

PSALM 5

¹Give ear to my words, O Lord; give thought to my heart-searchings.

²Let the voice of my cry come to you, my King and my God; for to you will I make my prayer.

³My voice will come to you in the morning, O Lord; in the morning will I send my prayer to you, and keep watch.

⁴For you are not a God who takes pleasure in wrongdoing; there is no evil with you.

⁵The sons of pride have no place before you; you are a hater of all workers of evil.

⁶You will send destruction on those whose words are false; the cruel man and the man of deceit are hated by the Lord.

⁷But as for me, I will come into your house, in the full measure of your mercy; and in your fear I will give worship, turning my eyes to your holy Temple.

⁸Be my guide, O Lord, in the ways of your righteousness, because of those who are against me; make your way straight before my face.

⁹For no faith may be put in their words; their inner part is nothing but evil; their throat is like an open place for the dead; smooth are the words of their tongues.

¹⁰Send them to destruction, O Lord; let their evil designs be the cause of their fall; let them be forced out by all their sins; because they have gone against your authority.

¹¹But let all those who put their faith in you be glad with cries of joy at all times, and let all the lovers of your name be glad in you.

¹²For you, Lord, will send a blessing on the upright man; your grace will be round him, and you will be his strength.

PSALM 6

¹O Lord, do not be bitter with me in your wrath; do not send punishment on me in the heat of your passion.

²Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am wasted away: make me well, for even my bones are troubled.

³My soul is in bitter trouble; and you, O Lord, how long?

⁴Come back, O Lord, make my soul free; O give me salvation because of your mercy.

⁵For in death there is no memory of you; in the underworld who will give you praise?

⁶The voice of my sorrow is a weariness to me; all the night I make my bed wet with weeping; it is watered by the drops flowing from my eyes.

⁷My eyes are wasting away with trouble; they are becoming old because of all those who are against me.

⁸Go from me, all you workers of evil; for the Lord has given ear to the voice of my weeping.

⁹The Lord has given ear to my request; the Lord has let my prayer come before him.

¹⁰Let all those who are against me be shamed and deeply troubled; let them be turned back and suddenly put to shame.

PSALM 7

¹O Lord my God, I put my faith in you; take me out of the hands of him who is cruel to me, and make me free;

²So that he may not come rushing on my soul like a lion, wounding it, while there is no one to be my saviour.

³O Lord my God, if I have done this; if my hands have done any wrong;

⁴If I have given back evil to him who did evil to me, or have taken anything from him who was against me without cause;

⁵Let my hater go after my soul and take it; let my life be crushed to the earth, and my honour into the dust. (Selah.)

⁶Come up, Lord, in your wrath; be lifted up against my haters; be awake, my God, give orders for the judging.

⁷The meeting of the nations will be round you; take your seat, then, over them, on high.

⁸The Lord will be judge of the peoples; give a decision for me, O Lord, because of my righteousness, and let my virtue have its reward.

⁹O let the evil of the evil-doer come to an end, but give strength to the upright: for men's minds and hearts are tested by the God of righteousness.

¹⁰God, who is the saviour of the upright in heart, is my breastplate.

¹¹God is the judge of the upright, and is angry with the evil-doers every day.

¹²If a man is not turned from his evil, he will make his sword sharp; his bow is bent and ready.

¹³He has made ready for him the instruments of death; he makes his arrows flames of fire.

¹⁴That man is a worker of evil; the seed of wrongdoing has given birth to deceit.

¹⁵He has made a hole deep in the earth, and is falling into the hole which he has made

¹⁶His wrongdoing will come back to him, and his violent behaviour will come down on his head.

¹⁷I will give praise to the Lord for his righteousness; I will make a song to the name of the Lord Most High.

PSALM 8

¹O Lord, our Lord, whose glory is higher than the heavens, how noble is your name in all the earth!

²You have made clear your strength even out of the mouths of babies at the breast, because of those who are against you; so that you may put to shame the cruel and violent man.

³When I see your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have put in their places;

⁴What is man, that you keep him in mind? the son of man, that you take him into account?

⁵For you have made him only a little lower than the gods, crowning him with glory and honour.

⁶You have made him ruler over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet;

⁷All sheep and oxen, and all the beasts of the field;

⁸The birds of the air and the fish of the sea, and whatever goes through the deep waters of the seas.

⁹O Lord, our Lord, how noble is your name in all the earth!

PSALM 9

¹I will give you praise, O Lord, with all my heart; I will make clear all the wonder of your works.

²I will be glad and have delight in you: I will make a song of praise to your name, O Most High.

³When my haters are turned back, they will be broken and overcome before you.

⁴For you gave approval to my right and my cause; you were seated in your high place judging in righteousness.

⁵You have said sharp words to the nations, you have sent destruction on the sinners, you have put an end to their name for ever and ever.

⁶You have given their towns to destruction; the memory of them has gone; they have become waste for ever.

⁷But the Lord is King for ever: he has made ready his high seat for judging.

⁸And he will be the judge of the world in righteousness, giving true decisions for the peoples.

⁹The Lord will be a high tower for those who are crushed down, a high tower in times of trouble;

¹⁰And those who have knowledge of your name will put their faith in you; because you, Lord, have ever given your help to those who were waiting for you.

¹¹Make songs of praise to the Lord, whose house is in Zion: make his doings clear to the people.

¹²When he makes search for blood, he has them in his memory: he is not without thought for the cry of the poor.

¹³Have mercy on me, O Lord, and see how I am troubled by my haters; let me be lifted up from the doors of death;

¹⁴So that I may make clear all your praise in the house of the daughter of Zion: I will be glad because of your salvation.

¹⁵The nations have gone down into the hole which they made: in their secret net is their foot taken.

¹⁶The Lord has given knowledge of himself through his judging: the evil-doer is taken in the net which his hands had made. (Higgaion. Selah.)

¹⁷The sinners and all the nations who have no memory of God will be turned into the underworld.

¹⁸For the poor will not be without help; the hopes of those in need will not be crushed for ever.

¹⁹Up! O Lord; let not man overcome you: let the nations be judged before you.

²⁰Put them in fear, O Lord, so that the nations may see that they are only men. (Selah.)

PSALM 10

¹Why do you keep far away, O Lord? why are you not to be seen in times of trouble?

²The evil-doer in his pride is cruel to the poor; let him be taken by the tricks of his invention.

³For the evil-doer is lifted up because of the purpose of his heart, and he whose mind is fixed on wealth is turned away from the Lord, saying evil against him.

⁴The evil-doer in his pride says, God will not make a search. All his thoughts are, There is no God.

⁵His ways are ever fixed; your decisions are higher than he may see: as for his haters, they are as nothing to him.

⁶He has said in his heart, I will not be moved: through all generations I will never be in trouble.

⁷His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and false words: under his tongue are evil purposes and dark thoughts.

⁸He is waiting in the dark places of the towns: in the secret places he puts to death those who have done no wrong: his eyes are secretly turned against the poor.

⁹He keeps himself in a secret place like a lion in his hole, waiting to put his hands on the poor man, and pulling him into his net.

¹⁰The upright are crushed and made low, and the feeble are overcome by his strong ones.

¹¹He says in his heart, God has no memory of me: his face is turned away; he will never see it.

¹²Up! O Lord; let your hand be lifted: give thought to the poor.

¹³Why has the evil-doer a low opinion of God, saying in his heart, You will not make search for it?

¹⁴You have seen it; for your eyes are on sorrow and grief, to take it into your hand: the poor man puts his faith in you; you have been the helper of the child who has no father.

¹⁵Let the arm of the sinner and the evil-doer be broken; go on searching for his sin till there is no more.

¹⁶The Lord is King for ever and ever; the nations are gone from his land.

¹⁷Lord, you have given ear to the prayer of the poor: you will make strong their hearts, you will give them a hearing:

¹⁸To give decision for the child without a father and for the broken-hearted, so that the man of the earth may no longer be feared.

PSALM 11

¹In the Lord put I my faith; how will you say to my soul, Go in flight like a bird to the mountain?

²See, the bows of the evil-doers are bent, they make ready their arrows on the cord, so that they may send them secretly against the upright in heart.

³If the bases are broken down, what is the upright man to do?

⁴The Lord is in his holy Temple, the Lord's seat is in heaven; his eyes are watching and testing the children of men.

⁵The Lord puts the upright and the sinner to the test, but he has hate in his soul for the lover of violent acts.

⁶On the evil-doer he will send down fire and flames, and a burning wind; with these will their cup be full.

⁷For the Lord is upright; he is a lover of righteousness: the upright will see his face.

PSALM 12

¹Send help, Lord, for mercy has come to an end; there is no more faith among the children of men.

²Everyone says false words to his neighbour: their tongues are smooth in their talk, and their hearts are full of deceit.

³The smooth lips and the tongue of pride will be cut off by the Lord.

⁴They have said, With our tongues will we overcome; our lips are ours: who is lord over us?

⁵Because of the crushing of the poor and the weeping of those in need, now will I come to his help, says the Lord; I will give him the salvation which he is desiring.

⁶The words of the Lord are true words: like silver tested by fire and burned clean seven times.

⁷You will keep them, O Lord, you will keep them safe from this generation for ever.

⁸The sinners are walking on every side, and evil is honoured among the children of men.

PSALM 13

¹Will you for ever put me out of your memory, O Lord? will your face for ever be turned away from me?

²How long is my soul to be in doubt, with sorrow in my heart all the day? how long will he who is against me be given power over me?

³Let my voice come before you, and give me an answer, O Lord my God; let your light be shining on me, so that the sleep of death may not overtake me;

⁴And he who is against me may not say, I have overcome him; and those who are troubling me may not be glad when I am moved.

⁵But I have had faith in your mercy; my heart will be glad in your salvation.

⁶I will make a song to the Lord, because he has given me my reward.

PSALM 14

¹The foolish man has said in his heart, God will not do anything. They are unclean, they have done evil works; there is not one who does good.

²The Lord was looking down from heaven on the children of men, to see if there were any who had wisdom, searching after God.

³They have all gone out of the way together; they are unclean, there is not one who does good, no, not one.

⁴Have all the workers of evil no knowledge? they take my people for food as they would take bread; they make no prayer to the Lord.

⁵Then were they in great fear: for God is in the generation of the upright.

⁶You have put to shame the thoughts of the poor, but the Lord is his support.

⁷May the salvation of Israel come out of Zion! when the fate of his people is changed by the Lord, Jacob will have joy and Israel will be glad.

PSALM 15

¹Lord, who may have a resting-place in your tent, a living-place on your holy hill?

²He who goes on his way uprightly, doing righteousness, and saying what is true in his heart;

³Whose tongue is not false, who does no evil to his friend, and does not take away the good name of his neighbour;

⁴Who gives honour to those who have the fear of the Lord, turning away from him who has not the Lord's approval. He who takes an oath against himself, and makes no change.

⁵He who does not put out his money at interest, or for payment give false decisions against men who have done no wrong. He who does these things will never be moved.

PSALM 16

¹Keep me safe, O God: for in you I have put my faith.

²O my soul, you have said to the Lord, You are my Lord: I have no good but you.

³As for the saints who are in the earth, they are the noble in whom is all my delight.

⁴Their sorrows will be increased who go after another god: I will not take drink offerings from their hands, or take their names on my lips.

⁵The Lord is my heritage and the wine of my cup; you are the supporter of my right.

⁶Fair are the places marked out for me; I have a noble heritage.

⁷I will give praise to the Lord who has been my guide; knowledge comes to me from my thoughts in the night.

⁸I have put the Lord before me at all times; because he is at my right hand, I will not be moved.

⁹Because of this my heart is glad, and my glory is full of joy: while my flesh takes its rest in hope.

¹⁰For you will not let my soul be prisoned in the underworld; you will not let your loved one see the place of death.

¹¹You will make clear to me the way of life; where you are joy is complete; in your right hand there are pleasures for ever and ever.

PSALM 17

¹Let my cause come to your ears, O Lord, give attention to my cry; give ear to my prayer which goes not out from false lips.

²Be my judge; for your eyes see what is right.

³You have put my heart to the test, searching me in the night; you have put me to the test and seen no evil purpose in me; I will keep my mouth from sin.

⁴As for the works of men, by the word of your lips I have kept myself from the ways of the violent.

⁵I have kept my feet in your ways, my steps have not been turned away.

⁶My cry has gone up to you, for you will give me an answer, O God: let your ear be turned to me, and give attention to my words.

⁷Make clear the wonder of your mercy, O saviour of those who put their faith in your right hand, from those who come out against them.

⁸Keep me as the light of your eyes, covering me with the shade of your wings,

⁹From the evil-doers who are violent to me, and from those who are round me, desiring my death.

¹⁰They are shut up in their fat: with their mouths they say words of pride.

¹¹They have made a circle round our steps: their eyes are fixed on us, forcing us down to the earth;

¹²Like a lion desiring its food, and like a young lion waiting in secret places.

¹³Up! Lord, come out against him, make him low, with your sword be my saviour from the evil-doer.

¹⁴With your hand, O Lord, from men, even men of the world, whose heritage is in this life, and whom you make full with your secret wealth: they are full of children; after their death their offspring take the rest of their goods.

¹⁵As for me, I will see your face in righteousness: when I am awake it will be joy enough for me to see your form.

PSALM 18

¹I will give you my love, O Lord, my strength.

²The Lord is my Rock, my walled town, and my saviour; my God, my Rock, in him will I put my faith; my breastplate, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower.

³I will send up my cry to the Lord, who is to be praised; so will I be made safe from those who are against me.

⁴The cords of death were round me, and the seas of evil put me in fear.

⁵The cords of hell were round me: the nets of death came on me.

⁶In my trouble my voice went up to the Lord, and my cry to my God: my voice came to his hearing in his holy Temple, and my prayer came before him, even into his ears.

⁷Then trouble and shock came on the earth; and the bases of the mountains were moved and shaking, because he was angry.

⁸There went up a smoke from his nose, and a fire of destruction from his mouth: flames were lighted by it.

⁹The heavens were bent, so that he might come down; and it was dark under his feet.

¹⁰And he went in flight through the air, seated on a storm-cloud: going quickly on the wings of the wind.

¹¹He made the dark his secret place; his tent round him was the dark waters and thick clouds of the skies.

¹²Before his shining light his dark clouds went past, raining ice and fire.

¹³The Lord made thunder in the heavens, and the voice of the Highest was sounding out: a rain of ice and fire.

¹⁴He sent out his arrows, driving them in all directions; by his flames of fire they were troubled.

¹⁵Then the deep beds of the waters were seen, and the bases of the world were uncovered, because of your words of wrath, O Lord, because of the breath from your mouth.

¹⁶He sent from on high, he took me, pulling me out of great waters.

¹⁷He made me free from my strong hater, and from those who were against me, because they were stronger than I.

¹⁸They came on me in the day of my trouble; but the Lord was my support.

¹⁹He took me out into a wide place; he was my saviour because he had delight in me.

²⁰The Lord gives me the reward of my righteousness, because my hands are clean before him.

²¹For I have kept the ways of the Lord; I have not been turned away in sin from my God.

²²For all his decisions were before me, and I did not put away his laws from me.

²³And I was upright before him, and I kept myself from sin.

²⁴Because of this the Lord has given me the reward of my righteousness, because my hands are clean in his eyes.

²⁵On him who has mercy you will have mercy; to the upright you will be upright;

²⁶He who is holy will see that you are holy; but to the man whose way is not straight you will be a hard judge.

²⁷For you are the saviour of those who are in trouble; but eyes full of pride will be made low.

²⁸You, O Lord, will be my light; by you, my God, the dark will be made bright for me.

²⁹By your help I have made a way through the wall which was shutting me in; by the help of my God I have gone over a wall.

³⁰As for God, his way is completely good; the word of the Lord is tested; he is a breastplate for all those who put their faith in him.

³¹For who is God but the Lord? or who is a Rock but our God?

³²God puts a strong band about me, guiding me in a straight way.

³³He makes my feet like roes' feet, and puts me on high places.

³⁴He makes my hands expert in war, so that a bow of brass is bent by my arms.

³⁵You have given me the breastplate of your salvation: your right hand has been my support, and your mercy has made me great.

³⁶You have made my steps wide under me, so that my feet are kept from slipping.

³⁷I go after my haters and overtake them; not turning back till they are all overcome.

³⁸I will give them wounds, so that they are not able to get up: they are stretched under my feet.

³⁹For I have been armed by you with strength for the fight: you have made low under me those who come out against me.

⁴⁰By you their backs are turned in flight, so that my haters are cut off.

⁴¹They were crying out, but there was no one to come to their help: even to the Lord, but he gave them no answer.

⁴²Then they were crushed as small as dust before the wind; they were drained out like the waste of the streets.

⁴³You have made me free from the fightings of the people; you have made me the head of the nations: a people of whom I had no knowledge will be my servants.

⁴⁴From the time when my name comes to their ears they will be ruled by me: men of other countries will, with false hearts, put themselves under my authority.

⁴⁵They will be wasting away, they will come out of their secret places shaking with fear.

⁴⁶The Lord is living; praise be to my Rock, and let the God of my salvation be honoured.

⁴⁷It is God who sends punishment on my haters, and puts peoples under my rule.

⁴⁸He makes me free from my haters; I am lifted up over those who come up against me: you have made me free from the violent man.

⁴⁹Because of this I will give you praise, O Lord, among the nations, and will make a song of praise to your name.

⁵⁰Great salvation does he give to his king; he has mercy on the king of his selection, David, and on his seed for ever.

PSALM 19

¹The heavens are sounding the glory of God; the arch of the sky makes clear the work of his hands.

²Day after day it sends out its word, and night after night it gives knowledge.

³There are no words or language; their voice makes no sound.

⁴Their line has gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them has he put a tent for the sun,

⁵Who is like a newly married man coming from his bride-tent, and is glad like a strong runner starting on his way.

⁶His going out is from the end of the heaven, and his circle to the ends of it; there is nothing which is not open to his heat.

⁷The law of the Lord is good, giving new life to the soul: the witness of the Lord is certain, giving wisdom to the foolish.

⁸The orders of the Lord are right, making glad the heart: the rule of the Lord is holy, giving light to the eyes.

⁹The fear of the Lord is clean, and has no end; the decisions of the Lord are true and full of righteousness.

¹⁰More to be desired are they than gold, even than much shining gold; sweeter than the dropping honey.

¹¹By them is your servant made conscious of danger, and in keeping them there is great reward.

¹²Who has full knowledge of his errors? make me clean from secret evil.

¹³Keep your servant back from sins of pride; let them not have rule over me: then will I be upright and free from great sin.

¹⁴Let the words of my mouth and the thoughts of my heart be pleasing in your eyes, O Lord, my strength and my salvation.

PSALM 20

¹May the Lord give ear to you in the day of trouble; may you be placed on high by the name of the God of Jacob;

²May he send you help from the holy place, and give you strength from Zion;

³May he keep all your offerings in mind, and be pleased with the fat of your burned offerings; (Selah.)

⁴May he give you your heart's desire, and put all your purposes into effect.

⁵We will be glad in your salvation, and in the name of our God we will put up our flags: may the Lord give you all your requests.

⁶Now am I certain that the Lord gives salvation to his king; he will give him an answer from his holy heaven with the strength of salvation in his right hand.

⁷Some put their faith in carriages and some in horses; but we will be strong in the name of the Lord our God.

⁸They are bent down and made low; but we have been lifted up.

⁹Come to our help, Lord: let the king give ear to our cry.

PSALM 21

¹The king will be glad in your strength, O Lord; how great will be his delight in your salvation!

²You have given him his heart's desire, and have not kept back the request of his lips. (Selah.)

³For you go before him with the blessings of good things: you put a crown of fair gold on his head.

⁴He made request to you for life, and you gave it to him, long life for ever and ever.

⁵His glory is great in your salvation: honour and authority have you put on him.

⁶For you have made him a blessing for ever: you have given him joy in the light of your face.

⁷For the king has faith in the Lord, and through the mercy of the Most High he will not be moved.

⁸Your hand will make a search for all your haters; your right hand will be hard on all those who are against you.

⁹You will make them like a flaming oven before you; the Lord in his wrath will put an end to them, and they will be burned up in the fire.

¹⁰Their fruit will be cut off from the earth, and their seed from among the children of men.

¹¹For their thoughts were bitter against you: they had an evil design in their minds, which they were not able to put into effect.

¹²Their backs will be turned when you make ready the cords of your bow against their faces.

¹³Be lifted up, O Lord, in your strength; so will we make songs in praise of your power.

PSALM 22

¹My God, my God, why are you turned away from me? why are you so far from helping me, and from the words of my crying?

²O my God, I make my cry in the day, and you give no answer; and in the night, and have no rest.

³But you are holy, O you who are seated among the praises of Israel.

⁴Our fathers had faith in you: they had faith and you were their saviour.

⁵They sent up their cry to you and were made free: they put their faith in you and were not put to shame.

⁶But I am a worm and not a man; cursed by men, and looked down on by the people.

⁷I am laughed at by all those who see me: pushing out their lips and shaking their heads they say,

⁸He put his faith in the Lord; let the Lord be his saviour now: let the Lord be his saviour, because he had delight in him.

⁹But it was you who took care of me from the day of my birth: you gave me faith even from my mother's breasts.

¹⁰I was in your hands even before my birth; you are my God from the time when I was in my mother's body.

¹¹Be not far from me, for trouble is near; there is no one to give help.

¹²A great herd of oxen is round me: I am shut in by the strong oxen of Bashan.

¹³I saw their mouths wide open, like lions crying after food.

¹⁴I am flowing away like water, and all my bones are out of place: my heart is like wax, it has become soft in my body.

¹⁵My throat is dry like a broken vessel; my tongue is fixed to the roof of my mouth, and the dust of death is on my lips.

¹⁶Dogs have come round me: I am shut in by the band of evil-doers; they made wounds in my hands and feet.

¹⁷I am able to see all my bones; their looks are fixed on me:

¹⁸They make a division of my robes among them, by the decision of chance they take my clothing.

¹⁹Do not be far from me, O Lord: O my strength, come quickly to my help.

²⁰Make my soul safe from the sword, my life from the power of the dog.

²¹Be my saviour from the lion's mouth; let me go free from the horns of the cruel oxen.

²²I will give the knowledge of your name to my brothers: I will give you praise among the people.

²³You who have fear of the Lord, give him praise; all you seed of Jacob, give him glory; go in fear of him, all you seed of Israel.

²⁴For he has not been unmoved by the pain of him who is troubled; or kept his face covered from him; but he has given an answer to his cry.

²⁵My praise will be of you in the great meeting: I will make my offerings before his worshippers.

²⁶The poor will have a feast of good things: those who make search for the Lord will give him praise: your heart will have life for ever.

²⁷All the ends of the earth will keep it in mind and be turned to the Lord: all the families of the nations will give him worship.

²⁸For the kingdom is the Lord's; he is the ruler among the nations.

²⁹All the fat ones of the earth will give him worship; all those who go down to the dust will make themselves low before him, even he who has not enough for the life of his soul.

³⁰A seed will be his servant; the doings of the Lord will be made clear to the generation which comes after.

³¹They will come and make his righteousness clear to a people of the future because he has done this.

PSALM 23

¹The Lord takes care of me as his sheep; I will not be without any good thing.

²He makes a resting-place for me in the green fields: he is my guide by the quiet waters.

³He gives new life to my soul: he is my guide in the ways of righteousness because of his name.

⁴Yes, though I go through the valley of deep shade, I will have no fear of evil; for you are with me, your rod and your support are my comfort.

⁵You make ready a table for me in front of my haters: you put oil on my head; my cup is overflowing.

⁶Truly, blessing and mercy will be with me all the days of my life; and I will have a place in the house of the Lord all my days.

PSALM 24

¹The earth is the Lord's, with all its wealth; the world and all the people living in it.

²For by him it was based on the seas, and made strong on the deep rivers.

³Who may go up into the hill of the Lord? and who may come into his holy place?

⁴He who has clean hands and a true heart; whose desire has not gone out to foolish things, who has not taken a false oath.

⁵He will have blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation.

⁶This is the generation of those whose hearts are turned to you, even to your face, O God of Jacob. (Selah.)

⁷Let your heads be lifted up, O doors; be lifted up, O you eternal doors: that the King of glory may come in.

⁸Who is the King of glory? The Lord of strength and power, the Lord strong in war.

⁹Let your heads be lifted up, O doors; let them be lifted up, O you eternal doors: that the King of glory may come in.

¹⁰Who is the King of glory? The Lord of armies, he is the King of glory. (Selah.)

PSALM 25

¹To you, O Lord, my soul is lifted up.

²O my God, I have put my faith in you, let me not be shamed; let not my haters be glorying over me.

³Let no servant of yours be put to shame; may those be shamed who are false without cause.

⁴Make your steps clear to me, O Lord; give me knowledge of your ways.

⁵Be my guide and teacher in the true way; for you are the God of my salvation; I am waiting for your word all the day.

⁶O Lord, keep in mind your pity and your mercies; for they have been from the earliest times.

⁷Do not keep in mind my sins when I was young, or my wrongdoing: let your memory of me be full of mercy, O Lord, because of your righteousness.

⁸Good and upright is the Lord: so he will be the teacher of sinners in the way.

⁹He will be an upright guide to the poor in spirit: he will make his way clear to them.

¹⁰All the ways of the Lord are mercy and good faith for those who keep his agreement and his witness.

¹¹Because of your name, O Lord, let me have forgiveness for my sin, which is very great.

¹²If a man has the fear of the Lord, the Lord will be his teacher in the way of his pleasure.

¹³His soul will be full of good things, and his seed will have the earth for its heritage.

¹⁴The secret of the Lord is with those in whose hearts is the fear of him; he will make his agreement clear to them.

¹⁵My eyes are turned to the Lord at all times; for he will take my feet out of the net.

¹⁶Be turned to me, and have mercy on me; for I am troubled and have no helper.

¹⁷The troubles of my heart are increased: O take me out of my sorrows.

¹⁸Give thought to my grief and my pain; and take away all my sins.

¹⁹See how those who are against me are increased, for bitter is their hate of me.

²⁰O keep my soul, and take me out of danger: let me not be shamed, for I have put my faith in you.

²¹For my clean and upright ways keep me safe, because my hope is in you.

²²Give Israel salvation, O God, out of all his troubles.

PSALM 26

¹O Lord, be my judge, for my behaviour has been upright: I have put my faith in the Lord, I am not in danger of slipping.

²Put me in the scales, O Lord, so that I may be tested; let the fire make clean my thoughts and my heart.

³For your mercy is before my eyes; and I have gone in the way of your good faith.

⁴I have not taken my seat with foolish persons, and I do not go with false men.

⁵I have been a hater of the band of wrongdoers, and I will not be seated among sinners.

⁶I will make my hands clean from sin; so will I go round your altar, O Lord;

⁷That I may give out the voice of praise, and make public all the wonders which you have done.

⁸Lord, your house has been dear to me, and the resting-place of your glory.

⁹Let not my soul be numbered among sinners, or my life among men of blood;

¹⁰In whose hands are evil designs, and whose right hands take money for judging falsely.

¹¹But as for me, I will go on in my upright ways: be my saviour, and have mercy on me.

¹²I have a safe resting-place for my feet; I will give praise to the Lord in the meetings of the people.

PSALM 27

¹The Lord is my light and my salvation; who is then a cause of fear to me? the Lord is the strength of my life; who is a danger to me?

²When evil-doers, even my haters, came on me to put an end to me, they were broken and put to shame.

³Even if an army came against me with its tents, my heart would have no fear: if war was made on me, my faith would not be moved.

⁴One prayer have I made to the Lord, and this is my heart's desire; that I may have a place in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, looking on his glory, and getting wisdom in his Temple.

⁵For in the time of trouble he will keep me safe in his tent: in the secret place of his tent he will keep me from men's eyes; high on a rock he will put me.

⁶And now my head will be lifted up higher than my haters who are round me: because of this I will make offerings of joy in his tent; I will make a song, truly I will make a song of praise to the Lord.

⁷O Lord, let the voice of my cry come to your ears: have mercy on me, and give me an answer.

⁸When you said, Make search for my face, my heart said to you, For your face will I make my search.

⁹Let not your face be covered from me; do not put away your servant in wrath; you have been my help: do not give me up or take your support from me, O God of my salvation.

¹⁰When my father and my mother are turned away from me, then the Lord will be my support.

¹¹Make your way clear to me, O Lord, guiding me by the right way, because of my haters.

¹²Do not give me into their hands, because false witnesses have come out against me, and men breathing destruction.

¹³I had almost given up my hope of seeing the blessing of the Lord in the land of the living.

¹⁴Let your hope be in the Lord: take heart and be strong; yes, let your hope be in the Lord.

PSALM 28

¹My cry goes up to you, O Lord, my Rock; do not keep back your answer from me, so that I may not become like those who go down into the underworld.

²Give ear to the voice of my prayer, when I am crying to you, when my hands are lifted up to your holy place.

³Do not take me away with the sinners and the workers of evil, who say words of peace to their neighbours, but evil is in their hearts.

⁴Give them the right reward of their acts, and of their evil doings: give them punishment for the works of their hands, let them have their full reward.

⁵Because they have no respect for the works of the Lord, or for the things which his hands have made, they will be broken down and not lifted up by him.

⁶May the Lord be praised, because he has given ear to the voice of my prayer.

⁷The Lord is my strength and my breastplate, my heart had faith in him and I am helped; for this cause my heart is full of rapture, and I will give him praise in my song.

⁸The Lord is their strength, and a strong place of salvation for his king.

⁹Be a saviour to your people, and send a blessing on your heritage: be their guide, and let them be lifted up for ever.

PSALM 29

¹Give to the Lord, you sons of the gods, give to the Lord glory and strength.

²Give to the Lord the full glory of his name; give him worship in holy robes.

³The voice of the Lord is on the waters: the God of glory is thundering, the Lord is on the great waters.

⁴The voice of the Lord is full of power; the voice of the Lord has a noble sound.

⁵By the voice of the Lord are the cedar-trees broken, even the cedars of Lebanon are broken by the Lord.

⁶He makes them go jumping about like a young ox; Lebanon and Sirion like a young mountain ox.

⁷At the voice of the Lord flames of fire are seen.

⁸At the voice of the Lord there is a shaking in the waste land, even a shaking in the waste land of Kadesh.

⁹At the voice of the Lord the roes give birth, the leaves are taken from the trees: in his Temple everything says, Glory.

¹⁰The Lord had his seat as king when the waters came on the earth; the Lord is seated as king for ever.

¹¹The Lord will give strength to his people; the Lord will give his people the blessing of peace.

PSALM 30

¹I will give you praise and honour, O Lord, because through you I have been lifted up; you have not given my haters cause to be glad over me.

²O Lord my God, I sent up my cry to you, and you have made me well.

³O Lord, you have made my soul come again from the underworld: you have given me life and kept me from going down among the dead.

⁴Make songs to the Lord, O you saints of his, and give praise to his holy name.

⁵For his wrath is only for a minute; in his grace there is life; weeping may be for a night, but joy comes in the morning.

⁶When things went well for me I said, I will never be moved.

⁷Lord, by your grace you have kept my mountain strong: when your face was turned from me I was troubled.

⁸My voice went up to you, O Lord; I made my prayer to the Lord.

⁹What profit is there in my blood if I go down into the underworld? will the dust give you praise, or be a witness to your help?

¹⁰Give ear to me, O Lord, and have mercy on me: Lord, be my helper.

¹¹By you my sorrow is turned into dancing; you have taken away my clothing of grief, and given me robes of joy;

¹²So that my glory may make songs of praise to you and not be quiet. O Lord my God, I will give you praise for ever.

PSALM 31

¹In you, O Lord, have I put my hope; let me never be shamed; keep me safe in your righteousness.

²Let your ear be turned to me; take me quickly out of danger; be my strong Rock, my place of strength where I may be safe.

³For you are my Rock and my strong tower; go in front of me and be my guide, because of your name.

⁴Take me out of the net which they have put ready for me secretly; for you are my strength.

⁵Into your hands I give my spirit; you are my saviour, O Lord God for ever true.

⁶I am full of hate for those who go after false gods; but my hope is in the Lord.

⁷I will be glad and have delight in your mercy; because you have seen my trouble; you have had pity on my soul in its sorrows;

⁸And you have not given me into the hand of my hater; you have put my feet in a wide place.

⁹Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am in trouble; my eyes are wasted with grief, I am wasted in soul and body.

¹⁰My life goes on in sorrow, and my years in weeping; my strength is almost gone because of my sin, and my bones are wasted away.

¹¹Because of all those who are against me, I have become a word of shame to my neighbours; a cause of shaking the head and a fear to my friends: those who saw me in the street went in flight from me.

¹²I have gone from men's minds and memory like a dead man; I am like a broken vessel.

¹³False statements against me have come to my ears; fear was on every side: they were talking together against me, designing to take away my life.

¹⁴But I had faith in you, O Lord; I said, You are my God.

¹⁵The chances of my life are in your hand; take me out of the hands of my haters, and of those who go after me.

¹⁶Let your servant see the light of your face; in your mercy be my saviour.

¹⁷Let me not be shamed, O Lord, for I have made my prayer to you; let the sinners be shamed, and let their mouths be shut in the underworld.

¹⁸Let the false lips be shut, which say evil against the upright, looking down on him in their pride.

¹⁹O how great is your grace, which you have put in store for your worshippers, and which you have made clear to those who had faith in you, before the sons of men!

²⁰You will keep them safe in your house from the designs of man; in the secret of your tent will you keep them from angry tongues.

²¹May the Lord be praised, because he has made clear to me the wonder of his grace in a strong town.

²²And as for me, I said in my fear, I am cut off from before your eyes; but you gave ear to the voice of my prayer, when my cry went up to you.

²³O have love for the Lord, all you his saints; for the Lord keeps safe from danger all those who are true to him, and gives the workers of pride their right reward.

²⁴Put away fear and let your heart be strong, all you whose hope is in the Lord.

PSALM 32

¹Happy is he who has forgiveness for his wrongdoing, and whose sin is covered.

²Happy is the man in whom the Lord sees no evil, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.

³When I kept my mouth shut, my bones were wasted, because of my crying all through the day.

⁴For the weight of your hand was on me day and night; my body became dry like the earth in summer. (Selah.)

⁵I made my wrongdoing clear to you, and did not keep back my sin. I said, I will put it all before the Lord; and you took away my wrongdoing and my sin. (Selah.)

⁶For this cause let every saint make his prayer to you at a time when you are near: then the overflowing of the great waters will not overtake him.

⁷You are my safe and secret place; you will keep me from trouble; you will put songs of salvation on the lips of those who are round me. (Selah.)

⁸I will give you knowledge, teaching you the way to go; my eye will be your guide.

⁹Do not be like the horse or the ass, without sense; ...

¹⁰The sinner will be full of trouble; but mercy will be round the man who has faith in the Lord.

¹¹Be glad in the Lord with joy, you upright men; give cries of joy, all you whose hearts are true.

PSALM 33

¹Be glad in the Lord, O doers of righteousness; for praise is beautiful for the upright.

²Give praise to the Lord on the corded instrument; make melody to him with instruments of music.

³Make a new song to him; playing expertly with a loud noise.

⁴For the word of the Lord is upright, and all his works are certain.

⁵His delight is in righteousness and wisdom; the earth is full of the mercy of the Lord.

⁶By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the army of heaven by the breath of his mouth.

⁷He makes the waters of the sea come together in a mass; he keeps the deep seas in store-houses.

⁸Let the earth be full of the fear of the Lord; let all the people of the world be in holy fear of him.

⁹For he gave the word, and it was done; by his order it was fixed for ever.

¹⁰The Lord undoes the designs of the nations; he makes the thoughts of the peoples without effect.

¹¹The Lord's purpose is eternal, the designs of his heart go on through all the generations of man.

¹²Happy is the nation whose God is the Lord; and the people whom he has taken for his heritage.

¹³The Lord is looking down from heaven; he sees all the sons of men;

¹⁴From his house he keeps watch on all who are living on the earth;

¹⁵He makes all their hearts; their works are clear to him.

¹⁶A king's salvation is not in the power of his army; a strong man does not get free by his great strength.

¹⁷A horse is a false hope; his great power will not make any man free from danger.

¹⁸See, the eye of the Lord is on those in whose hearts is the fear of him, on those whose hope is in his mercy;

¹⁹To keep their souls from death; and to keep them living in time of need.

²⁰Our souls are waiting for the Lord; he is our help and our salvation.

²¹For in him our hearts have joy; in his holy name is our hope.

²²Let your mercy be on us, O Lord, as we are waiting for you.

PSALM 34

¹I will be blessing the Lord at all times; his praise will be ever in my mouth.

²My soul will say great things of the Lord: the poor in spirit will have knowledge of it and be glad.

³O give praise to the Lord with me; let us be witnesses together of his great name.

⁴I was searching for the Lord, and he gave ear to my voice, and made me free from all my fears.

⁵Let your eyes be turned to him and you will have light, and your faces will not be shamed.

⁶This poor man's cry came before the Lord, and he gave him salvation from all his troubles.

⁷The angel of the Lord is ever watching over those who have fear of him, to keep them safe.

⁸By experience you will see that the Lord is good; happy is the man who has faith in him.

⁹Keep yourselves in the fear of the Lord, all you his saints; for those who do so will have no need of anything.

¹⁰The young lions are in need and have no food; but those who are looking to the Lord will have every good thing.

¹¹Come, children, give attention to me; I will be your teacher in the fear of the Lord.

¹²What man has a love of life, and a desire that his days may be increased so that he may see good?

¹³Keep your tongue from evil, and your lips from words of deceit.

¹⁴Be turned from evil, and do good; make a search for peace, desiring it with all your heart.

¹⁵The eyes of the Lord are on the upright, and his ears are open to their cry.

¹⁶The face of the Lord is against those who do evil, to take away the memory of them from the earth.

¹⁷The cry of the upright comes before the Lord, and he takes them out of all their troubles.

¹⁸The Lord is near the broken-hearted; he is the saviour of those whose spirits are crushed down.

¹⁹Great are the troubles of the upright: but the Lord takes him safely out of them all.

²⁰He keeps all his bones: not one of them is broken.

²¹Evil will put an end to the sinner, and those who are haters of righteousness will come to destruction.

²²The Lord will be the saviour of the souls of his servants, and no one who has faith in him will be put to shame.

PSALM 35

¹O Lord, be on my side against those who are judging me; be at war with those who make war against me.

²Be a breastplate to me, and give me your help.

³Take up your spear and keep back my attackers; say to my soul, I am your salvation.

⁴Let them be overcome and put to shame who make attempts to take my soul; let those who would do me damage be turned back and made foolish.

⁵Let them be like dust from the grain before the wind; let the angel of the Lord send them in flight.

⁶Let their way be dark and full of danger; let them be troubled by the angel of the Lord.

⁷For without cause they have put a net ready for me secretly, in which to take my soul.

⁸Let destruction come on them without their knowledge; let them be taken themselves in their secret nets, falling into the same destruction.

⁹And my soul will have joy in the Lord; it will be glad in his salvation.

¹⁰All my bones will say, Lord, who is like you? The saviour of the poor man from the hands of the strong, of him who is poor and in need from him who takes his goods.

¹¹False witnesses got up: they put questions to me about crimes of which I had no knowledge.

¹²They gave me back evil for good, troubling my soul.

¹³But as for me, when they were ill I put on the clothing of sorrow: I went without food and was sad, and my prayer came back again to my heart.

¹⁴My behaviour was as if it had been my friend or my brother: I was bent low in grief like one whose mother is dead.

¹⁵But they took pleasure in my trouble, and came together, yes, low persons came together against me without my knowledge; they never came to an end of wounding me.

¹⁶Like men of deceit they put me to shame; the voice of their wrath was loud against me.

¹⁷Lord, how long will you be looking on? take my soul from their destruction, my life from the lions.

¹⁸I will give you praise in the great meeting; I will give you honour among a strong people.

¹⁹Do not let my haters be glad over me falsely; let not those who are against me without cause make sport of me.

²⁰For they do not say words of peace; in their deceit they are designing evil things against the quiet ones in the land.

²¹Their mouths were open wide against me, and they said, Aha, aha, our eyes have seen it.

²²You have seen this, O Lord; be not unmoved: O Lord, be not far from me.

²³Be awake, O Lord, be moved to take up my cause, my God and my Lord.

²⁴Be my judge, O Lord my God, in your righteousness; do not let them be glad over me.

²⁵Let them not say in their hearts, So we will have it: let them not say, We have put an end to him.

²⁶Let all those who take pleasure in my troubles be shamed and come to nothing: let those who are lifted up against me be covered with shame and have no honour.

²⁷Let those who are on my side give cries of joy; let them ever say, The Lord be praised, for he has pleasure in the peace of his servant.

²⁸And my tongue will be talking of your righteousness and of your praise all the day.

PSALM 36

¹The sin of the evil-doer says in his heart, There is no fear of the Lord before his eyes.

²For he takes comfort in the thought that his sin will not be uncovered and hated.

³In the words of his mouth are evil and deceit; he has given up being wise and doing good.

⁴He gives thought to evil on his bed; he takes a way which is not good; he is not a hater of evil.

⁵Your mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens, and your strong purpose is as high as the clouds.

⁶Your righteousness is like the mountains of God; your judging is like the great deep; O Lord, you give life to man and beast.

⁷How good is your loving mercy, O God! the children of men take cover under the shade of your wings.

⁸The delights of your house will be showered on them; you will give them drink from the river of your pleasures.

⁹For with you is the fountain of life: in your light we will see light.

¹⁰O let there be no end to your loving mercy to those who have knowledge of you, or of your righteousness to the upright in heart.

¹¹Let not the foot of pride come against me, or the hand of the evil-doers put me out of my place.

¹²There the workers of evil have come down: they have been made low, and will not be lifted up.

PSALM 37

¹Do not be angry because of the wrongdoers, or have envy of the workers of evil.

²For they will quickly be cut down like grass, and become dry like the green plants.

³Have faith in the Lord, and do good; be at rest in the land, and go after righteousness.

⁴So will your delight be in the Lord, and he will give you your heart's desires.

⁵Put your life in the hands of the Lord; have faith in him and he will do it.

⁶And he will make your righteousness be seen like the light, and your cause like the shining of the sun.

⁷Take your rest in the Lord, waiting quietly for him; do not be angry because of the man who does well in his evil ways, and gives effect to his bad designs.

⁸Put an end to your wrath and be no longer bitter; do not give way to angry feeling which is a cause of sin.

⁹For the evil-doers will be cut off: but those who have faith in the Lord will have the earth for their heritage.

¹⁰For in a short time the evil-doer will be gone: you will go searching for his place, and it will not be there.

¹¹But the gentle will have the earth for their heritage; they will take their delight in peace without measure.

¹²The sinner has evil designs against the upright, lifting up the voice of wrath against him.

¹³He will be laughed at by the Lord, who sees that his day is coming.

¹⁴The evil-doers have taken out their swords, their bows are bent; for crushing the poor, and to put to death those who are upright in their ways.

¹⁵But their swords will be turned into their hearts, and their bows will be broken.

¹⁶The little which the good man has is better than the wealth of evil-doers.

¹⁷For the arms of the evil-doers will be broken: but the Lord is the support of the good.

¹⁸The days of the upright are numbered by the Lord, and their heritage will be for ever.

¹⁹They will not be shamed in the evil time, and in the days when all are in need of food they will have enough.

²⁰But the wrongdoers will come to destruction, and the haters of the Lord will be like the fat of lambs, they will be burned up; they will go up in smoke, and never again be seen.

²¹The sinner takes money and does not give it back; but the upright man has mercy, and gives to others.

²²Those who have his blessing will have the earth for their heritage; but those who are cursed by him will be cut off.

²³The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and he takes delight in his way.

²⁴Even if he has a fall he will not be without help: for the hand of the Lord is supporting him.

²⁵I have been young, and now am old, but I have not seen the good man without help, or his children looking for bread.

²⁶All the day he is ready to have mercy and to give; his children are a blessing.

²⁷Be turned from evil, and do good; and your place will be for ever.

²⁸For the Lord is a lover of righteousness, and takes care of his saints; they will be kept safe for ever; but the seed of the evil-doers will be cut off.

²⁹The upright will have the earth for their heritage, and will go on living there for ever.

³⁰The mouth of the good man says words of wisdom; the talk of his tongue is of righteousness.

³¹The law of his God is in his heart; he will never make a false step.

³²The sinners are watching the upright man, desiring to put him to death.

³³The Lord will not give him into their hands, or be against him when he is judged.

³⁴Be waiting for the Lord, and keep his way; and you will be lifted up, and have the land for your heritage: when the evil-doers are cut off, you will see it.

³⁵I have seen the evil-doer in great power, covering the earth like a great tree.

³⁶But he came to an end, and there was no sign of him; I made a search for him and he was not there.

³⁷Give attention to the good man, and take note of the upright; because the end of that man is peace.

³⁸But as for the sinners, they will be cut off together; the end of the wrongdoers is destruction.

³⁹But the Lord is the saviour of the upright: he is their strength in the time of trouble.

⁴⁰And the Lord will be their help, and keep them safe: he will take them out of the hands of the evil-doers, and be their saviour, because they had faith in him.

PSALM 38

¹O Lord, be not bitter with me in your wrath; let not your hand be on me in the heat of your passion.

²For your arrows have gone into my flesh, and I am crushed under the weight of your hand.

³My flesh is wasted because of your wrath; and there is no peace in my bones because of my sin.

⁴For my crimes have gone over my head; they are like a great weight which is more than my strength.

⁵My wounds are poisoned and evil-smelling, because of my foolish behaviour.

⁶I am troubled, I am made low; I go weeping all the day.

⁷For my body is full of burning; all my flesh is unhealthy.

⁸I am feeble and crushed down; I gave a cry like a lion because of the grief in my heart.

⁹Lord, all my desire is before you; my sorrow is not kept secret from you.

¹⁰My heart goes out in pain, my strength is wasting away; as for the light of my eyes, it is gone from me.

¹¹My lovers and my friends keep away from my disease; my relations keep far away.

¹²Those who have a desire to take my life put nets for me; those who are designing my destruction say evil things against me, all the day their minds are full of deceit.

¹³But I kept my ears shut like a man without hearing; like a man without a voice, never opening his mouth.

¹⁴So I was like a man whose ears are shut, and in whose mouth there are no sharp words.

¹⁵In you, O Lord, is my hope: you will give me an answer, O Lord, my God.

¹⁶I said, Let them not be glad over me; when my foot is moved, let them not be lifted up with pride against me.

¹⁷My feet are near to falling, and my sorrow is ever before me.

¹⁸I will make clear my wrongdoing, with sorrow in my heart for my sin.

¹⁹But they are strong who have hate for me without cause: those who are against me falsely are increased in numbers.

²⁰They give me back evil for good; they are my haters because I go after the thing which is right.

²¹Do not give me up, O Lord; O my God, be near to me.

²²Come quickly to give me help, O Lord, my salvation.

PSALM 39

¹I said, I will give attention to my ways, so that my tongue may do no wrong; I will keep my mouth under control, while the sinner is before me.

²I made no sound, I said no word, even of good; and I was moved with sorrow.

³My heart was burning in my breast; while I was deep in thought the fire was lighted; then I said with my tongue,

⁴Lord, give me knowledge of my end, and of the measure of my days, so that I may see how feeble I am.

⁵You have made my days no longer than a hand's measure; and my years are nothing in your eyes; truly, every man is but a breath. (Selah.)

⁶Truly, every man goes on his way like an image; he is troubled for no purpose: he makes a great store of wealth, and has no knowledge of who will get it.

⁷And now, Lord, what am I waiting for? my hope is in you.

⁸Make me free from all my sins; do not let me be shamed by the man of evil behaviour.

⁹I was quiet, and kept my mouth shut; because you had done it.

¹⁰No longer let your hand be hard on me; I am wasted by the blows of your hand.

¹¹By the weight of your wrath against man's sin, the glory of his form is wasted away; truly every man is but a breath. (Selah.)

¹²Let my prayer come to your ears, O Lord, and give attention to my cry, make an answer to my weeping: for my time here is short before you, and in a little time I will be gone, like all my fathers.

¹³Let your wrath be turned away from me, so that I may be comforted, before I go away from here, and become nothing.

PSALM 40

¹When I was waiting quietly for the Lord, his heart was turned to me, and he gave ear to my cry.

²He took me up out of a deep waste place, out of the soft and sticky earth; he put my feet on a rock, and made my steps certain.

³And he put a new song in my mouth, even praise to our God; numbers have seen it with fear, and put their faith in the Lord.

⁴Happy is the man who has faith in the Lord, and does not give honour to the men of pride or to those who are turned away to deceit.

⁵O Lord my God, great are the wonders which you have done in your thought for us; it is not possible to put them out in order before you; when I would give an account of them, their number is greater than I may say.

⁶You had no desire for offerings of beasts or fruits of the earth; ears you made for me: for burned offerings and sin offerings you made no request.

⁷Then I said, See, I come; it is recorded of me in the roll of the book,

⁸My delight is to do your pleasure, O my God; truly, your law is in my heart.

⁹I have given news of righteousness in the great meeting; O Lord, you have knowledge that I have not kept back my words.

¹⁰Your righteousness has not been folded away in my heart; I have made clear your true word and your salvation; I have not kept secret your mercy or your faith from the great meeting.

¹¹Take not away your gentle mercies from me, O Lord; let your mercy and your faith keep me safe for ever.

¹²For unnumbered evils are round about me; my sins have overtaken me, so that I am bent down with their weight; they are more than the hairs of my head, my strength is gone because of them.

¹³Be pleased, O Lord, to take me out of danger; O Lord, come quickly and give me help.

¹⁴Let those who go after my soul for its destruction have shame and trouble together; let them be turned back and made foolish who take pleasure in my trouble.

¹⁵Let those who say to me, Aha, aha! be surprised because of their shame.

¹⁶Let all those who are looking for you be glad and have joy in you; let the lovers of your salvation ever say, May the Lord be great.

¹⁷Though I am poor and in need, the Lord has me in mind; you are my help and my saviour; let there be no waiting, O my God.

PSALM 41

¹Happy is the man who gives thought to the poor; the Lord will be his saviour in the time of trouble.

²The Lord will keep him safe, and give him life; the Lord will let him be a blessing on the earth, and will not give him into the hand of his haters.

³The Lord will be his support on his bed of pain: by you will all his grief be turned to strength.

⁴I said, Lord, have mercy on me; make my soul well, because my faith is in you.

⁵My haters say evil against me, When will he be dead, and his name come to an end?

⁶If one comes to see me, deceit is in his heart; he keeps a store of evil, which he makes public in every place.

⁷All my haters are talking secretly together against me; they are designing my downfall.

⁸They say, He has an evil disease, which will not let him go: and now that he is down he will not get up again.

⁹Even my dearest friend, in whom I had faith, who took bread with me, is turned against me.

¹⁰But you, O Lord, have mercy on me, lifting me up, so that I may give them their punishment.

¹¹By this I see that you have pleasure in me, because my hater does not overcome me.

¹²And as for me, you are my support in my righteousness, giving me a place before your face for ever.

¹³May the Lord God of Israel be praised, through eternal days and for ever. So be it. So be it.

PSALM 42

¹Like the desire of the roe for the water-streams, so is my soul's desire for you, O God.

²My soul is dry for need of God, the living God; when may I come and see the face of God?

³My tears have been my food day and night, while they keep saying to me, Where is your God?

⁴Let my soul be overflowing with grief when these things come back to my mind, how I went in company to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with the song of those who were keeping the feast.

⁵Why are you crushed down, O my soul? and why are you troubled in me? put your hope in God; for I will again give him praise who is my help and my God.

⁶My soul is crushed down in me, so I will keep you in mind; from the land of Jordan and of the Hermons, from the hill Mizar.

⁷Deep is sounding to deep at the noise of your waterfalls; all your waves have gone rolling over me.

⁸But the Lord will send his mercy in the daytime, and in the night his song will be with me, a prayer to the God of my life.

⁹I will say to God my Rock, Why have you let me go from your memory? why do I go in sorrow because of the attacks of my haters?

¹⁰The cruel words of my haters are like a crushing of my bones; when they say to me every day, Where is your God?

¹¹Why are you crushed down, O my soul? and why are you troubled in me? put your hope in God; for I will again give him praise who is my help and my God.

PSALM 43

¹Be my judge, O God, supporting my cause against a nation without religion; O keep me from the false and evil man.

²You are the God of my strength; why have you put me from you? why do I go in sorrow because of the attacks of my haters?

³O send out your light and your true word; let them be my guide: let them take me to your holy hill, and to your tents.

⁴Then I will go up to the altar of God, to the God of my joy; I will be glad and give praise to you on an instrument of music, O God, my God.

⁵Why are you crushed down, O my soul? and why are you troubled in me? put your hope in God, for I will again give him praise who is my help and my God.

PSALM 44

¹It has come to our ears, O God, our fathers have given us the story, of the works which you did in their days, in the old times,

²Uprooting the nations with your hand, and planting our fathers in their place; cutting down the nations, but increasing the growth of your people.

³For they did not make the land theirs by their swords, and it was not their arms which kept them safe; but your right hand, and your arm, and the light of your face, because you had pleasure in them.

⁴You are my King and my God; ordering salvation for Jacob.

⁵Through you will we overcome our haters; by your name will they be crushed under our feet who are violent against us.

⁶I will not put faith in my bow, my sword will not be my salvation.

⁷But it is you who have been our saviour from those who were against us, and have put to shame those who had hate for us.

⁸Our pride is in God at all times, to his name we give praise for ever. (Selah.)

⁹But now you have sent us away from you, and put us to shame; you do not go out with our armies.

¹⁰Because of this we are turned back by the attacker: those who have hate for us take our goods for themselves.

¹¹You have made us like sheep which are taken for meat; we are put to flight among the nations.

¹²You let your people go for nothing; your wealth is not increased by their price.

¹³You have made us to be looked down on by our neighbours, we are laughed at and shamed by those who are round about us.

¹⁴Our name is a word of shame among the nations, a sign for the shaking of heads among the peoples.

¹⁵My downfall is ever before me, and I am covered with the shame of my face;

¹⁶Because of the voice of him who says sharp and bitter words; because of the hater and him who is the instrument of punishment.

¹⁷All this has come on us, but still we have kept you in our memory; and we have not been false to your word.

¹⁸Our hearts have not gone back, and our steps have not been turned out of your way;

¹⁹Though you have let us be crushed in the place of jackals, though we are covered with darkest shade.

²⁰If the name of our God has gone out of our minds, or if our hands have been stretched out to a strange god,

²¹Will not God make search for it? for he sees the secrets of the heart.

²²Truly, because of you we are put to death every day; we are numbered like sheep for destruction.

²³Why are you sleeping, O Lord? awake! and come to our help, do not give us up for ever.

²⁴Why is your face covered, and why do you give no thought to our trouble and our cruel fate?

²⁵For our souls are crushed down to the dust: our bodies are stretched out on the earth.

²⁶Up! and come to our help, and give us salvation because of your mercy.

PSALM 45

¹My heart is flowing over with good things; my words are of that which I have made for a king; my tongue is the pen of a ready writer.

²You are fairer than the children of men; grace is flowing through your lips; for this cause the blessing of God is with you for ever.

³Put on your sword, make it ready at your side, O strong chief, with your glory and power.

⁴And go nobly on in your power, because you are good and true and without pride; and your right hand will be teaching you things of fear.

⁵Your arrows are sharp in the heart of the king's haters; because of them the peoples are falling under you.

⁶Your seat of power, O God, is for ever and ever; the rod of your kingdom is a rod of honour.

⁷You have been a lover of righteousness and a hater of evil: and so God, your God, has put the oil of joy on your head, lifting you high over all other kings.

⁸Your robes are full of the smell of all sorts of perfumes and spices; music from the king's ivory houses has made you glad.

⁹Kings' daughters are among your noble women: on your right is the queen in gold of Ophir.

¹⁰O daughter, give thought and attention, and let your ear be open; no longer keep in mind your people, and your father's house;

¹¹So will the king have a great desire for you, seeing how beautiful you are; because he is your lord, give him honour.

¹²And the daughters of Tyre will be there with an offering; those who have wealth among the people will be looking for your approval.

¹³In the great house the king's daughter is all shining: her clothing is worked with gold.

¹⁴She will come before the king in robes of needlework; the virgins in her train will come before you.

¹⁵With joy and rapture will they come; they will go into the king's house.

¹⁶Your children will take the place of your fathers; so that you may make them rulers over all the earth.

¹⁷I will keep the memory of your name living through all generations; and because of this the people will give you praise for ever.

PSALM 46

¹God is our harbour and our strength, a very present help in trouble.

²For this cause we will have no fear, even though the earth is changed, and though the mountains are moved in the heart of the sea;

³Though its waters are sounding and troubled, and though the mountains are shaking with their violent motion. (Selah.)

⁴There is a river whose streams make glad the resting-place of God, the holy place of the tents of the Most High.

⁵God has taken his place in her; she will not be moved: he will come to her help at the dawn of morning.

⁶The nations were angry, the kingdoms were moved; at the sound of his voice the earth became like wax.

⁷The Lord of armies is with us; the God of Jacob is our high tower. (Selah.)

⁸Come, see the works of the Lord, the destruction which he has made in the earth.

⁹He puts an end to wars over all the earth; by him the bow is broken, and the spear cut in two, and the carriage burned in the fire.

¹⁰Be at peace in the knowledge that I am God: I will be lifted up among the nations, I will be honoured through all the earth.

¹¹The Lord of armies is with us; the God of Jacob is our high tower. (Selah.)

PSALM 47

¹O make a glad noise with your hands, all you peoples; letting your voices go up to God with joy.

²For the Lord Most High is to be feared; he is a great King over all the earth.

³He will put down the peoples under us, and the nations under our feet.

⁴He will give us our heritage, the glory of Jacob who is dear to him. (Selah.)

⁵God has gone up with a glad cry, the Lord with the sound of the horn.

⁶Give praises to God, make songs of praise; give praises to our King, make songs of praise.

⁷For God is the King of all the earth; make songs of praise with knowledge.

⁸God is the ruler over the nations; God is on the high seat of his holy rule.

⁹The rulers of the peoples have come together, with the people of the God of Abraham; because the powers of the earth are God's: he is lifted up on high.

PSALM 48

¹Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised, in the town of our God, in his holy mountain.

²Beautiful in its high position, the joy of all the earth, is the mountain of Zion, the mountain of God, the town of the great King.

³In its buildings God is seen to be a high tower.

⁴For see! the kings came together by agreement, they were joined together.

⁵They saw it, and so were full of wonder; they were troubled, and went quickly away in fear.

⁶Shaking came on them and pain, as on a woman in childbirth.

⁷By you the ships of Tarshish are broken as by an east wind.

⁸As it came to our ears so have we seen it, in the town of the Lord of armies, in the town of our God; God will keep it fixed for ever. (Selah.)

⁹Our thoughts were of your mercy, O God, while we were in your Temple.

¹⁰As your name is, O God, so is your praise to the ends of the earth; your right hand is full of righteousness.

¹¹Let there be joy in the mountain of Zion, and let the daughters of Judah be glad, because of your wise decisions.

¹²Make your way about Zion, and go round it, numbering its towers.

¹³Take note of its strong walls, looking well at its fair buildings; so that you may give word of it to the generation which comes after.

¹⁴Because this God is our God for ever and ever: he will be our guide.

PSALM 49

¹Give attention to this, all you peoples; let your ears be open, all you who are living in the world.

²High and low together, the poor, and those who have wealth.

³From my mouth will come words of wisdom; and in the thoughts of my heart will be knowledge.

⁴I will put my teaching into a story; I will make my dark sayings clear with music.

⁵What cause have I for fear in the days of evil, when the evil-doing of those who are working for my downfall is round about me?

⁶Even of those whose faith is in their wealth, and whose hearts are lifted up because of their stores.

⁷Truly, no man may get back his soul for a price, or give to God the payment for himself;

⁸(Because it takes a great price to keep his soul from death, and man is not able to give it.)

⁹So that he might have eternal life, and never see the underworld.

¹⁰For he sees that wise men come to their end, and foolish persons of low behaviour come to destruction together, letting their wealth go to others.

¹¹The place of the dead is their house for ever, and their resting-place through all generations; those who come after them give their names to their lands.

¹²But man, like the animals, does not go on for ever; he comes to an end like the beasts.

¹³This is the way of the foolish; their silver is for those who come after them, and their children get the pleasure of their gold. (Selah.)

¹⁴Death will give them their food like sheep; the underworld is their fate and they will go down into it; their flesh is food for worms; their form is wasted away; the underworld is their resting-place for ever.

¹⁵But God will get back my soul; for he will take me from the power of death. (Selah.)

¹⁶Have no fear when wealth comes to a man, and the glory of his house is increased;

¹⁷For at his death, he will take nothing away; his glory will not go down after him.

¹⁸Though he might have pride in his soul in his life-time, and men will give you praise if you do well for yourself,

¹⁹He will go to the generation of his fathers; he will not see the light again.

²⁰Man, like the animals, does not go on for ever; he comes to an end like the beasts.

PSALM 50

¹The God of gods, even the Lord, has sent out his voice, and the earth is full of fear; from the coming up of the sun to its going down.

²From Zion, most beautiful of places, God has sent out his light.

³Our God will come, and will not keep quiet; with fire burning before him, and storm-winds round him.

⁴His voice will go out to the heavens and to the earth, for the judging of his people:

⁵Let my saints come together to me; those who have made an agreement with me by offerings.

⁶And let the heavens make clear his righteousness; for God himself is the judge. (Selah.)

⁷Give ear, O my people, to my words; O Israel, I will be a witness against you; I am God, even your God.

⁸I will not take up a cause against you because of your offerings, or because of your burned offerings, which are ever before me.

⁹I will take no ox out of your house, or he-goats from your flocks;

¹⁰For every beast of the woodland is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills.

¹¹I see all the birds of the mountains, and the beasts of the field are mine.

¹²If I had need of food, I would not give you word of it; for the earth is mine and all its wealth.

¹³Am I to take the flesh of the ox for my food, or the blood of goats for my drink?

¹⁴Make an offering of praise to God; keep the agreements which you have made with the Most High;

¹⁵Let your voice come up to me in the day of trouble; I will be your saviour, so that you may give glory to me.

¹⁶But to the sinner, God says, What are you doing, talking of my laws, or taking the words of my agreement in your mouth?

¹⁷Seeing that you have no desire for my teaching, turning your back on my words.

¹⁸When you saw a thief, you were in agreement with him, and you were joined with those who took other men's wives.

¹⁹You have given your mouth to evil, your tongue to words of deceit.

²⁰You say evil of your brother; you make false statements against your mother's son.

²¹These things have you done, and I said nothing; it seemed to you that I was such a one as yourself; but I will make a protest against you, and put them in order before your eyes.

²²Now keep this in mind, you who have no memory of God, for fear that you may be crushed under my hand, with no one to give you help:

²³Whoever makes an offering of praise gives glory to me; and to him who is upright in his ways I will make clear the salvation of God.

PSALM 51

¹Have pity on me, O God, in your mercy; out of a full heart, take away my sin.

²Let all my wrongdoing be washed away, and make me clean from evil.

³For I am conscious of my error; my sin is ever before me.

⁴Against you, you only, have I done wrong, working that which is evil in your eyes; so that your words may be seen to be right, and you may be clear when you are judging.

⁵Truly, I was formed in evil, and in sin did my mother give me birth.

⁶Your desire is for what is true in the inner parts: in the secrets of my soul you will give me knowledge of wisdom.

⁷Make me free from sin with hyssop: let me be washed whiter than snow.

⁸Make me full of joy and rapture; so that the bones which have been broken may be glad.

⁹Let your face be turned from my wrongdoing, and take away all my sins.

¹⁰Make a clean heart in me, O God; give me a right spirit again.

¹¹Do not put me away from before you, or take your holy spirit from me.

¹²Give me back the joy of your salvation; let a free spirit be my support.

¹³Then will I make your ways clear to wrongdoers; and sinners will be turned to you.

¹⁴Be my saviour from violent death, O God, the God of my salvation; and my tongue will give praise to your righteousness.

¹⁵O Lord, let my lips be open, so that my mouth may make clear your praise.

¹⁶You have no desire for an offering or I would give it; you have no delight in burned offerings.

¹⁷The offerings of God are a broken spirit; a broken and sorrowing heart, O God, you will not put from you.

¹⁸Do good to Zion in your good pleasure, building up the walls of Jerusalem.

¹⁹Then you will have delight in the offerings of righteousness, in burned offerings and offerings of beasts; then they will make offerings of oxen on your altar.

PSALM 52

¹Why do you take pride in wrongdoing, lifting yourself up against the upright man all the day?

²Purposing destruction, using deceit; your tongue is like a sharp blade.

³You have more love for evil than for good, for deceit than for works of righteousness. (Selah.)

⁴Destruction is in all your words, O false tongue.

⁵But God will put an end to you for ever; driving you out from your tent, uprooting you from the land of the living. (Selah.)

⁶The upright will see it with fear, and will say, laughing at you:

⁷See, this is the man who did not make God his strength, but had faith in his goods and his property, and made himself strong in his wealth.

⁸But I am like a branching olive-tree in the house of God; I have put my faith in his mercy for ever and ever.

⁹I will give you praise without end for what you have done; I will give honour to your name before your saints, for it is good.

PSALM 53

¹The foolish man has said in his heart, God will not do anything. They are unclean, they have done evil works; there is not one who does good.

²God was looking down from heaven on the children of men, to see if there were any who had wisdom, searching after God.

³Every one of them has gone back; they are unclean: there is not one who does good, no, not one.

⁴Have the workers of evil no knowledge? they take my people for food, as they would take bread; they make no prayer to God.

⁵They were in great fear, where there was no cause for fear: for the bones of those who make war on you have been broken by God; you have put them to shame, because God has no desire for them.

⁶May the salvation of Israel come out of Zion! When the fate of his people is changed by God, Jacob will have joy, and Israel will be glad.

PSALM 54

¹Let your name be my salvation, O God; let my cause be judged by your strength.

²Let my prayer come before you, O God; give ear to the words of my mouth.

³For men who are going after me have come out against me, violent men are purposing to take my soul; they have not put God before their eyes. (Selah.)

⁴See, God is my helper: the Lord is the great supporter of my soul.

⁵Let the evil works of my haters come back on them again; let them be cut off by your good faith.

⁶Freely will I make my offerings to you; I will give praise to your name, O Lord, for it is good.

⁷Because it has been my saviour from all my trouble; and my eyes have seen the punishment of my haters.

PSALM 55

¹Give hearing to my prayer, O God; and let not your ear be shut against my request.

²Give thought to me, and let my prayer be answered: I have been made low in sorrow;

³I am troubled because of the voice of the cruel ones, because of the loud cry of the evil-doers; for they put a weight of evil on me, and they are cruel in their hate for me.

⁴My heart is deeply wounded, and the fear of death has come on me.

⁵Fear and shaking have come over me, with deep fear I am covered.

⁶And I said, If only I had wings like a dove! for then I would go in flight from here and be at rest.

⁷I would go wandering far away, living in the waste land. (Selah.)

⁸I would quickly take cover from the driving storm and from the violent wind.

⁹Send destruction on them, O Lord, make a division of tongues among them: for I have seen fighting and violent acts in the town.

¹⁰By day and night they go round the town, on the walls; trouble and sorrow are in the heart of it.

¹¹Evil is there; cruel rule and deceit are ever in the streets.

¹²For it was not my hater who said evil of me; that would have been no grief to me; it was not one outside the number of my friends who made himself strong against me, or I would have kept myself from him in a secret place;

¹³But it was you, my equal, my guide, my well-loved friend.

¹⁴We had loving talk together, and went to the house of God in company.

¹⁵Let the hand of death come on them suddenly, and let them go down living into the underworld; because evil is in their houses and in their hearts.

¹⁶As for me, I will make my prayer to God, and he will be my saviour.

¹⁷In the evening and in the morning and in the middle of the day I will make my prayer with sounds of grief; and my voice will come to his ears.

¹⁸He has taken my soul away from the attack which was made against me, and given it peace; for great numbers were against me.

¹⁹God will give thought to me; he who from early times is strong will send pain and trouble on them. (Selah.) Because they are unchanged, they have no fear of God.

²⁰He has put out his hand against those who were at peace with him; he has not kept his agreement.

²¹The words of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart; his words were softer than oil, but they were sharp swords.

²²Put your cares on the Lord, and he will be your support; he will not let the upright man be moved.

²³But you, O God, will send them down into the underworld; the cruel and the false will be cut off before half their days are ended; but I will have faith in you.

PSALM 56

¹Have mercy on me, O God, for man is attempting my destruction; every day he makes cruel attacks against me.

²My haters are ever ready to put an end to me; great numbers are lifting themselves up against me.

³In the time of my fear, I will have faith in you.

⁴In God will I give praise to his word; in God have I put my hope; I will have no fear of what flesh may do to me.

⁵Every day they make wrong use of my words; all their thoughts are against me for evil.

⁶They come together, they are waiting in secret places, they take note of my steps, they are waiting for my soul.

⁷By evil-doing they will not get free from punishment. In wrath, O God, let the peoples be made low.

⁸You have seen my wanderings; put the drops from my eyes into your bottle; are they not in your record?

⁹When I send up my cry to you, my haters will be turned back; I am certain of this, for God is with me.

¹⁰In God will I give praise to his word; in the Lord will I give praise to his word.

¹¹In God have I put my hope, I will have no fear of what man may do to me.

¹²I keep the memory of my debt to you, O God; I will give you the offerings of praise.

¹³Because you have taken my soul from the power of death; and kept my feet from falling, so that I may be walking before God in the light of life.

PSALM 57

¹Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy on me; for the hope of my soul is in you: I will keep myself safely under the shade of your wings, till these troubles are past.

²I will send up my cry to the Most High God; to God who does all things for me.

³He will send from heaven, and take me from the power of him whose desire is for my destruction. God will send out his mercy and his good faith.

⁴My soul is among lions; I am stretched out among those who are on fire, even the sons of men, whose teeth are spears and arrows, and whose tongue is a sharp sword.

⁵O God, be lifted up higher than the heavens; let your glory be over all the earth.

⁶They have made ready a net for my steps; my soul is bent down; they have made a great hole before me, and have gone down into it themselves. (Selah.)

⁷My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed; I will make songs, and give praise.

⁸You are my glory; let the instruments of music be awake; I myself will be awake with the dawn.

⁹I will give you praise, O Lord, among the peoples; I will make songs to you among the nations.

¹⁰For your mercy is great, stretching up to the heavens, and your righteousness goes up to the clouds.

¹¹Be lifted up, O God, higher than the heavens, let your glory be over all the earth.

PSALM 58

¹Is there righteousness in your mouths, O you gods? are you upright judges, O you sons of men?

²The purposes of your hearts are evil; your hands are full of cruel doings on the earth.

³The evil-doers are strange from the first; from the hour of their birth they go out of the true way, saying false words.

⁴Their poison is like the poison of a snake; they are like the adder, whose ears are shut;

⁵Who will not be moved by the voice of the wonder-worker, however great are his powers.

⁶O God, let their teeth be broken in their mouths; let the great teeth of the young lions be pulled out, O Lord.

⁷Let them be turned to liquid like the ever-flowing waters; let them be cut off like the grass by the way.

⁸Let them be like an after-birth which is turned to water and comes to an end; like the fruit of a woman who gives birth before her time, let them not see the sun.

⁹Before they are conscious of it, let them be cut down like thorns; let a strong wind take them away like waste growth.

¹⁰The upright man will be glad when he sees their punishment; his feet will be washed in the blood of the evil-doer.

¹¹So that men will say, Truly there is a reward for righteousness; truly there is a God who is judge on the earth.

PSALM 59

¹Take me out of the hands of the cruel ones, O my God; keep me safe from those who come up against me.

²Take me out of the power of the workers of evil, and keep me safe from the men of blood.

³For see, they are watching in secret for my soul; the strong have come together against me? but not because of my sin, or my evil-doing, O Lord.

⁴For no sin of mine they go quickly and get themselves ready; be awake and come to my help, and see.

⁵You, O Lord God of armies, are the God of Israel; come now and give punishment to the nations; have no mercy on any workers of deceit. (Selah.)

⁶They come back in the evening; they make a noise like a dog, and go round the town.

⁷See, hate is dropping from their lips; curses are on their tongues: they say, Who gives attention to it?

⁸But you are laughing at them, O Lord; you will make sport of all the nations.

⁹O my strength, I will put my hope in you; because God is my strong tower.

¹⁰The God of my mercy will go before me: God will let me see my desire effected on my haters.

¹¹Put them not to death, for so my people will keep the memory of them: let them be sent in all directions by your power; make them low, O Lord our saviour.

¹²Because of the sin of their mouths and the word of their lips, let them even be taken in their pride; and for their curses and their deceit,

¹³Put an end to them in your wrath, put an end to them, so that they may not be seen again; let them see that God is ruling in Jacob and to the ends of the earth. (Selah.)

¹⁴And in the evening let them come back, and make a noise like a dog, and go round the town.

¹⁵Let them go wandering up and down in search of food, and be there all night if they have not enough.

¹⁶But I will make songs of your power; yes, I will give cries of joy for your mercy in the morning; because you have been my strength and my high tower in the day of my trouble.

¹⁷To you, O my strength, will I make my song: because God is my high tower, even the God of my mercy.

PSALM 60

¹God, you have put us away from you, you have sent us in all directions, you have been angry; O be turned to us again.

²By the power of your hand the earth is shaking and broken; make it strong again, for it is moved.

³You have made the people see hard times; you have given us the wine of shaking for our drink.

⁴Give a safe place to those who have fear of you, where they may go in flight from before the bow. (Selah.)

⁵So that your loved ones may be made safe, let your right hand be my salvation, and give me an answer.

⁶God has said in his holy place, I will be glad: I will make a division of Shechem, and the valley of Succoth will be measured out.

⁷Gilead is mine, and Manasseh is mine; and Ephraim is the strength of my head; Judah is my law-giver;

⁸Moab is my washpot; over Edom will I put out my shoe; over Philistia will a glad cry be sounded.

⁹Who will take me into the strong town? who will be my guide into Edom?

¹⁰Have not you put us away, O God? and you have not gone out with our armies.

¹¹Give us help in our trouble; for there is no help in man.

¹²Through God we will do great things, for through him our haters will be crushed under our feet.

PSALM 61

¹Let my cry come to you, O God; let your ears be open to my prayer.

²From the end of the earth will I send up my cry to you, when my heart is overcome: take me to the rock which is over-high for me.

³For you have been my secret place, and my high tower from those who made war on me.

⁴I will make your tent my resting-place for ever: I will keep myself under the cover of your wings. (Selah.)

⁵For you, O God, have made answer to my prayers; you have given me the heritage of those who give honour to your name.

⁶You will give the king long life; and make his years go on through the generations.

⁷May the seat of his authority be before God for ever; may mercy and righteousness keep him safe.

⁸So will I make songs in praise of your name for ever, giving to God that which is right day by day.

PSALM 62

¹My soul, put all your faith in God; for from him comes my salvation.

²He only is my Rock and my salvation; he is my high tower; I will not be greatly moved.

³How long will you go on designing evil against a man? running against him as against a broken wall, which is on the point of falling?

⁴Their only thought is to put him down from his place of honour; their delight is in deceit: blessing is in their mouths but cursing in their hearts. (Selah.)

⁵My soul, put all your faith in God; for from him comes my hope.

⁶He only is my Rock and my salvation; he is my high tower; I will not be greatly moved.

⁷In God is my salvation, and my glory; the Rock of my strength, and my safe place.

⁸Have faith in him at all times, you people; let your hearts go flowing out before him: God is our safe place. (Selah.)

⁹Truly men of low birth are nothing, and men of high position are not what they seem; if they are put in the scales together they are less than a breath.

¹⁰Have no faith in the rewards of evil-doing, or in profits wrongly made: if your wealth is increased, do not put your hopes on it.

¹¹Once has God said, twice has it come to my ears, that power is God's:

¹²And mercy, O Lord, is yours, for you give to every man the reward of his work.

PSALM 63

¹O God, you are my God; early will I make my search for you: my soul is dry for need of you, my flesh is wasted with desire for you, as a dry and burning land where no water is;

²To see your power and your glory, as I have seen you in the holy place.

³Because your mercy is better than life, my lips will give you praise.

⁴So will I go on blessing you all my life, lifting up my hands in your name.

⁵My soul will be comforted, as with good food; and my mouth will give you praise with songs of joy;

⁶When the memory of you comes to me on my bed, and when I give thought to you in the night-time.

⁷Because you have been my help, I will have joy in the shade of your wings.

⁸My soul keeps ever near you: your right hand is my support.

⁹But those whose desire is my soul's destruction will go down to the lower parts of the earth.

¹⁰They will be cut off by the sword; they will be food for foxes.

¹¹But the king will have joy in God; everyone who takes an oath by him will have cause for pride; but the false mouth will be stopped.

PSALM 64

¹O God, let the voice of my grief come to your ear: keep my life from the fear of those who are against me.

²Keep me safe from the secret purpose of wrongdoers; from the band of the workers of evil;

³Who make their tongues sharp like a sword, and whose arrows are pointed, even bitter words;

⁴So that in secret they may let loose their arrows at the upright, suddenly and unseen.

⁵They make themselves strong in an evil purpose; they make holes for secret nets; they say, Who will see it,

⁶Or make discovery of our secret purpose? The design is framed with care; and the inner thought of a man, and his heart, is deep.

⁷But God sends out an arrow against them; suddenly they are wounded.

⁸The evil of their tongues is the cause of their fall; all those who see them are shaking their heads at them.

⁹And in fear men make public the works of God; and giving thought to his acts they get wisdom.

¹⁰The upright will be glad in the Lord and have hope in him; and all the lovers of righteousness will give him glory.

PSALM 65

¹It is right for you, O God, to have praise in Zion: to you let the offering be made.

²To you, O hearer of prayer, let the words of all flesh come.

³Evils have overcome us: but as for our sins, you will take them away.

⁴Happy is the man of your selection, to whom you give a resting-place in your house; we will be full of the good things out of your holy place.

⁵You will give us an answer in righteousness by great acts of power, O God of our salvation; you who are the hope of all the ends of the earth, and of the far-off lands of the sea;

⁶The God by whose strength the mountains are fixed; who is robed with power:

⁷Who makes the loud voice of the sea quiet, and puts an end to the sound of its waves.

⁸Those in the farthest parts of the earth have fear when they see your signs: the outgoings of the morning and evening are glad because of you.

⁹You have given your blessing to the earth, watering it and making it fertile; the river of God is full of water: and having made it ready, you give men grain.

¹⁰You make the ploughed lands full of water; you make smooth the slopes: you make the earth soft with showers, sending your blessing on its growth.

¹¹The year is crowned with the good you give; life-giving rain is dropping from your footsteps,

¹²Falling on the grass of the waste land: and the little hills are glad on every side.

¹³The grass-land is thick with flocks; the valleys are full of grain; they give glad cries and songs of joy.

PSALM 66

¹Send up a glad cry to God, all the earth:

²Make a song in honour of his name: give praise and glory to him.

³Say to God, How greatly to be feared are your works! because of your great power your haters are forced to put themselves under your feet.

⁴Let all the earth give you worship, and make songs to you; let them make songs to your name. (Selah.)

⁵Come and see the works of God: he is to be feared in all he does to the children of men.

⁶The sea was turned into dry land: they went through the river on foot: there did we have joy in him.

⁷He is ruling in power for ever; his eyes are watching the nations: may his haters have no strength against him. (Selah.)

⁸Give blessings to our God, O you peoples, let the voice of his praise be loud;

⁹Because he gives us life, and has not let our feet be moved.

¹⁰For you, O God, have put us to the test: testing us by fire like silver.

¹¹You let us be put in prison; chains were put on our legs.

¹²You let men go driving over our heads; we went through fire and through water; but you took us out into a wide place.

¹³I will come into your house with burned offerings, I will make payment of my debt to you,

¹⁴Keeping the word which came from my lips, and which my mouth said, when I was in trouble.

¹⁵I will give you burned offerings of fat beasts, and the smoke of sheep; I will make offerings of oxen and goats. (Selah.)

¹⁶Come, give ear to me, all you God-fearing men, so that I may make clear to you what he has done for my soul.

¹⁷My voice went up to him, and I was lifted up from the underworld.

¹⁸I said in my heart, The Lord will not give ear to me:

¹⁹But truly God's ear has been open; he has give attention to the voice of my prayer.

²⁰Praise be to God who has not taken away his good faith and his mercy from me.

PSALM 67

¹May God give us mercy and blessing, and let the light of his face be shining on us; (Selah.)

²So that men may see your way on the earth, and your salvation among all nations.

³Let the peoples give you praise, O God; let all the peoples give you praise.

⁴O let the nations be glad, and make song of joy; for you will be the judge of the peoples in righteousness, guiding the nations of the earth. (Selah.)

⁵Let the peoples give you praise, O God; let all the peoples give you praise.

⁶The earth has given her increase; and God, even our God, will give us his blessing.

⁷God will give us his blessing; so let all the ends of the earth be in fear of him.

PSALM 68

¹Let God be seen, and let his haters be put to flight; let those who are against him be turned back before him.

²Let them be like smoke before the driving wind; as wax turning soft before the fire, so let them come to an end before the power of God.

³But let the upright be glad; let them have delight before God; let them be full of joy.

⁴Make songs to God, make songs of praise to his name; make a way for him who comes through the waste lands; his name is Jah; be glad before him.

⁵A father to those who have no father, a judge of the widows, is God in his holy place.

⁶Those who are without friends, God puts in families; he makes free those who are in chains; but those who are turned away from him are given a dry land.

⁷O God, when you went out before your people, wandering through the waste land; (Selah.)

⁸The earth was shaking and the heavens were streaming, because God was present; even Sinai itself was moved before God, the God of Israel.

⁹You, O God, did freely send the rain, giving strength to the weariness of your heritage.

¹⁰Those whose resting-place was there, even the poor, were comforted by your good things, O God.

¹¹The Lord gives the word; great is the number of the women who make it public.

¹²Kings of armies quickly go in flight: and the women in the houses make a division of their goods.

¹³Will you take your rest among the flocks? like the wings of a dove covered with silver, and its feathers with yellow gold.

¹⁴When the Most High put the kings to flight, it was as white as snow in Salmon.

¹⁵A hill of God is the hill of Bashan; a hill with high tops is the hill of Bashan.

¹⁶Why are you looking with envy, you high hills, on the hill desired by God as his resting-place? truly, God will make it his house for ever.

¹⁷The war-carriage of God is among Israel's thousands; the Lord has come from Sinai to the holy place.

¹⁸You have gone up on high, taking your prisoners with you; you have taken offerings from men; the Lord God has taken his place on the seat of his power.

¹⁹Praise be to the Lord, who is our support day by day, even the God of our salvation. (Selah.)

²⁰Our God is for us a God of salvation; his are the ways out of death.

²¹The heads of the haters of God will be crushed; even the head of him who still goes on in his evil ways.

²²The Lord said, I will make them come back from Bashan, and from the deep parts of the sea;

²³So that your foot may be red with blood, and the tongues of your dogs with the same.

²⁴We see your going, O God: even the going of my God, my King, into the holy place.

²⁵The makers of songs go before, the players of music come after, among the young girls playing on brass instruments.

²⁶Give praise to God in the great meeting; even the Lord, you who come from the fountain of Israel.

²⁷There is little Benjamin ruling them, the chiefs of Judah and their army, the rulers of Zebulun and the rulers of Naphtali.

²⁸O God, send out your strength; the strength, O God, with which you have done great things for us,

²⁹Out of your Temple in Jerusalem.

³⁰Say sharp words to the beast among the water-plants, the band of strong ones, with the lords of the peoples, put an end to the people whose delight is in war.

³¹Kings will give you offerings, they will come out of Egypt; from Pathros will come offerings of silver; Ethiopia will be stretching out her hands to God.

³²Make songs to God, you kingdoms of the earth; O make songs of praise to the Lord; (Selah.)

³³To him who goes or the clouds of heaven, the heaven which was from earliest times; he sends out his voice of power.

³⁴Make clear that strength is God's: he is lifted up over Israel, and his power is in the clouds.

³⁵O God, you are to be feared in your holy place: the God of Israel gives strength and power to his people. Praise be to God.

PSALM 69

¹Be my saviour, O God; because the waters have come in, even to my neck.

²My feet are deep in the soft earth, where there is no support; I have come into deep waters, the waves are flowing over me.

³I am tired with my crying; my throat is burning: my eyes are wasted with waiting for my God.

⁴Those who have hate for me without cause are greater in number than the hairs of my head; those who are against me, falsely desiring my destruction, are very strong; I gave back what I had not taken away.

⁵O God, you see how foolish I am; and my wrongdoing is clear to you.

⁶Let not those who have hope in you be put to shame because of me, O Lord God of armies: let not those who are waiting for you be made low because of me, O God of Israel.

⁷I have been wounded with sharp words because of you; my face has been covered with shame.

⁸I have become strange to my brothers, and like a man from a far country to my mother's children.

⁹I am on fire with passion for your house; and the hard things which are said about you have come on me.

¹⁰My bitter weeping, and my going without food, were turned to my shame.

¹¹When I put on the clothing of grief, they said evil of me.

¹²I am a cause of wonder to those in authority; a song to those who are given to strong drink.

¹³But as for me, let my prayer be made to you, O Lord, at a time when you are pleased; O God, give me an answer in your great mercy, for your salvation is certain.

¹⁴Take me from the grip of the sticky earth, so that I may not go down into it; let me be lifted up from the deep waters.

¹⁵Let me not be covered by the flowing waters; let not the deep waters go over my head, and let me not be shut up in the underworld.

¹⁶Give an answer to my words, O Lord; for your mercy is good: be turned to me, because of your great pity.

¹⁷Let not your face be covered from your servant, for I am in trouble; quickly give me an answer.

¹⁸Come near to my soul, for its salvation: be my saviour, because of those who are against me.

¹⁹You have seen my shame, how I was laughed at and made low; my haters are all before you.

²⁰My heart is broken by bitter words, I am full of grief; I made a search for some to have pity on me, but there was no one; I had no comforter.

²¹They gave me poison for my food; and bitter wine for my drink.

²²Let their table before them be for their destruction; let their feasts become a net to take them.

²³Let their eyes be blind so that they may not see; let their bodies for ever be shaking.

²⁴Let your curse come on them; let the heat of your wrath overtake them.

²⁵Give their houses to destruction, and let there be no one in their tents.

²⁶Because they are cruel to him against whom your hand is turned; they make bitter the grief of him who is wounded by you.

²⁷Let their punishment be increased; let them not come into your righteousness.

²⁸Let their names be taken from the book of the living, let them not be numbered with the upright.

²⁹But I am poor and full of sorrow; let me be lifted up by your salvation, O Lord.

³⁰I will give praise to the name of God with a song; I will give glory to him for what he has done.

³¹This will be more pleasing to the Lord than an ox, or a young ox of full growth.

³²The poor will see it and be glad: you who are lovers of God, let your hearts have life.

³³For the ears of the Lord are open to the poor, and he takes thought for his prisoners.

³⁴Let the heavens and the earth give praise to him, the seas, and everything moving in them.

³⁵For God will be the saviour of Zion, and the builder of the towns of Judah; so that it may be their resting-place and heritage.

³⁶The seed of his servants will have their part in it, and there the lovers of his name will have rest.

PSALM 70

¹Let your salvation come quickly, O God; come quickly to my help, O Lord.

²Let those who go after my soul have shame and trouble; let those who have evil designs against me be turned back and made foolish.

³Let those who say Aha, aha! be turned back as a reward of their shame.

⁴Let all those who are looking for you be glad and have joy in you; let the lovers of your salvation ever say, May God be great.

⁵But I am poor and in need; come to me quickly, O God; you are my help and my saviour; let there be no waiting, O Lord.

PSALM 71

¹In you, O Lord, have I put my hope; let me never be shamed.

²Keep me safe in your righteousness, and come to my help; give ear to my voice, and be my saviour.

³Be my strong Rock, the strong place of my salvation; for you are my Rock, and my safe place.

⁴O my God, take me out of the hand of the sinner, out of the hand of the evil and cruel man.

⁵For you are my hope, O Lord God; I have had faith in you from the time when I was young.

⁶You have been my support from the day of my birth; you took me out of my mother's body; my praise will be ever of you.

⁷I am a wonder to all; but you are my strong tower.

⁸My mouth will be full of your praise and glory all the day.

⁹Do not give me up when I am old; be my help even when my strength is gone.

¹⁰For my haters are waiting secretly for me; and those who are watching for my soul are banded together in their evil designs,

¹¹Saying, God has given him up; go after him and take him, for he has no helper.

¹²O God, be not far from me; O my God, come quickly to my help.

¹³Let those who say evil against my soul be overcome and put to shame; let my haters be made low and have no honour.

¹⁴But I will go on ever hoping, and increasing in all your praise.

¹⁵My mouth will make clear your righteousness and your salvation all the day; for they are more than may be measured.

¹⁶I will give news of the great acts of the Lord God; my words will be of your righteousness, and of yours only.

¹⁷O God, you have been my teacher from the time when I was young; and I have been talking of your works of wonder even till now.

¹⁸Now when I am old and grey-headed, O God, give me not up; till I have made clear your strength to this generation, and your power to all those to come.

¹⁹Your righteousness, O God, is very high; you have done great things; O God, who is like you?

²⁰You, who have sent great and bitter troubles on me, will give me life again, lifting me up from the deep waters of the underworld.

²¹You will make me greater than before, and give me comfort on every side.

²²I will give praise to you with instruments of music, O my God, for you are true; I will make songs to you with music, O Holy One of Israel.

²³Joy will be on my lips when I make melody to you; and in my soul, to which you have given salvation.

²⁴My tongue will be talking of your righteousness all the day; for those whose purpose is to do me evil have been crushed and put to shame.

PSALM 72

¹Give the king your authority, O God, and your righteousness to the king's son.

²May he be a judge of your people in righteousness, and make true decisions for the poor.

³May the mountains give peace to the people, and the hills righteousness.

⁴May he be a judge of the poor among the people, may he give salvation to the children of those who are in need; by him let the violent be crushed.

⁵May his life go on as long as the sun and moon, through all generations.

⁶May he come down like rain on the cut grass; like showers watering the earth.

⁷In his days may the upright do well, living in peace as long as there is a moon in heaven.

⁸Let his kingdom be from sea to sea, from the River to the ends of the earth.

⁹Let those who are against him go down before him; and let his haters be low in the dust.

¹⁰Let the kings of Tarshish and of the islands come back with offerings; let the kings of Sheba and Seba give of their stores.

¹¹Yes, let all kings go down before him; let all nations be his servants.

¹²For he will be a saviour to the poor in answer to his cry; and to him who is in need, without a helper.

¹³He will have pity on the poor, and be the saviour of those who are in need.

¹⁴He will keep their souls free from evil designs and violent attacks; and their blood will be of value in his eyes.

¹⁵May he have long life, and may gold from Sheba be given to him: may prayers be made for him at all times; may blessings be on him every day.

¹⁶May there be wide-stretching fields of grain in the land, shaking on the top of the mountains, full of fruit like Lebanon: may its stems be unnumbered like the grass of the earth.

¹⁷May his name go on for ever, as long as the sun: may men be blessing themselves by him; may all nations be blessing his name.

¹⁸Praise be to the Lord God, the God of Israel, the only doer of wonders.

¹⁹Praise to the glory of his noble name for ever; let all the earth be full of his glory. So be it, So be it.

²⁰The prayers of David, the son of Jesse, are ended.

PSALM 73

¹Truly, God is good to Israel, even to such as are clean in heart.

²But as for me, my feet had almost gone from under me; I was near to slipping;

³Because of my envy of the men of pride, when I saw the well-being of the wrongdoers.

⁴For they have no pain; their bodies are fat and strong.

⁵They are not in trouble as others are; they have no part in the unhappy fate of men.

⁶For this reason pride is round them like a chain; they are clothed with violent behaviour as with a robe.

⁷Their eyes are bursting with fat; they have more than their heart's desire.

⁸Their thoughts are deep with evil designs; their talk from their seats of power is of cruel acts.

⁹Their mouth goes up to heaven; their tongues go walking through the earth.

¹⁰For this reason they are full of bread; and water is ever flowing for them.

¹¹And they say, How will the Lord see this? is there knowledge in the Most High?

¹²Truly, such are the sinners; they do well at all times, and their wealth is increased.

¹³As for me, I have made my heart clean to no purpose, washing my hands in righteousness;

¹⁴For I have been troubled all the day; every morning have I undergone punishment.

¹⁵If I would make clear what it is like, I would say, You are false to the generation of your children.

¹⁶When my thoughts were turned to see the reason of this, it was a weariness in my eyes;

¹⁷Till I went into God's holy place, and saw the end of the evil-doers.

¹⁸You put their feet where there was danger of slipping, so that they go down into destruction.

¹⁹How suddenly are they wasted! fears are the cause of their destruction.

²⁰As a dream when one is awake, they are ended; they are like an image gone out of mind when sleep is over.

²¹My heart was made bitter, and I was pained by the bite of grief:

²²As for me, I was foolish, and without knowledge; I was like a beast before you.

²³But still I am ever with you; you have taken me by my right hand.

²⁴Your wisdom will be my guide, and later you will put me in a place of honour.

²⁵Whom have I in heaven but you? and having you I have no desire for anything on earth.

²⁶My flesh and my heart are wasting away: but God is the Rock of my heart and my eternal heritage.

²⁷For those who are far away from you will come to destruction: you will put an end to all those who have not kept faith with you.

²⁸But it is good for me to come near to God: I have put my faith in the Lord God, so that I may make clear all his works.

PSALM 74

¹Of God, why have you put us away from you for ever? why is the fire of your wrath smoking against the sheep who are your care?

²Keep in mind your band of worshippers, for whom you gave payment in the days which are past, whom you took for yourself as the people of your heritage; even this mountain of Zion, which has been your resting-place.

³Go up and see the unending destruction; all the evil which your haters have done in the holy place;

⁴Sending out their voices like lions among your worshippers; they have put up their signs to be seen.

⁵They are cutting down, like a man whose blade is lifted up against the thick trees.

⁶Your doors are broken down with hammers and iron blades.

⁷They have put on fire your holy place; they have made the place of your name unclean, pulling it down to the earth.

⁸They have said in their hearts, Let us put an end to them all together; they have given over to the fire all God's places of worship in the land.

⁹We do not see our signs: there is no longer any prophet, or anyone among us to say how long.

¹⁰O God, how long will those who are against us say cruel things? will the hater go on looking down on your name for ever?

¹¹Why are you keeping back your hand, and covering your right hand in your robe?

¹²For from the past God is my King, working salvation in the earth.

¹³The sea was parted in two by your strength; the heads of the great sea-beasts were broken.

¹⁴The heads of the great snake were crushed by you; you gave them as food to the fishes of the sea.

¹⁵You made valleys for fountains and springs; you made the ever-flowing rivers dry.

¹⁶The day is yours and the night is yours: you made the light and the sun.

¹⁷By you all the limits of the earth were fixed; you have made summer and winter.

¹⁸Keep this in mind, O Lord, that your haters have said cruel things, and that your name has been looked down on by a people of evil behaviour.

¹⁹O give not the soul of your dove to the hawk; let not the life of the poor go out of your memory for ever.

²⁰Keep in mind your undertaking; for the dark places of the earth are full of pride and cruel acts.

²¹O let not the crushed be turned back in shame; let the low man and the poor give praise to your name.

²²Up! O God, be the judge of your cause; keep in mind the bitter things which the man of evil behaviour says against you every day.

²³Keep in mind the voice of your haters; the outcry of those who come against you goes up every day.

PSALM 75

¹To you, O God, we give praise, to you we give praise: and those who give honour to your name make clear your works of power.

²When the right time has come, I will be the judge in righteousness.

³When the earth and all its people become feeble, I am the support of its pillars. (Selah.)

⁴I say to the men of pride, Let your pride be gone: and to the sinners, Let not your horn be lifted up.

⁵Let not your horn be lifted up: let no more words of pride come from your outstretched necks.

⁶For honour does not come from the east, or from the west, or uplifting from the south;

⁷But God is the judge, putting down one, and lifting up another.

⁸For in the hand of the Lord is a cup, and the wine is red; it is well mixed, overflowing from his hand: he will make all the sinners of the earth take of it, even to the last drop.

⁹But I will ever be full of joy, making songs of praise to the God of Jacob.

¹⁰By him will all the horns of the sinners be cut off; but the horns of the upright will be lifted up.

PSALM 76

¹In Judah is the knowledge of God; his name is great in Israel,

²In Salem is his tent, his resting-place in Zion.

³There were the arrows of the bow broken, there he put an end to body-cover, sword, and fight. (Selah.)

⁴You are shining and full of glory, more than the eternal mountains.

⁵Gone is the wealth of the strong, their last sleep has overcome them; the men of war have become feeble.

⁶At the voice of your wrath, O God of Jacob, deep sleep has overcome carriage and horse.

⁷You, you are to be feared; who may keep his place before you in the time of your wrath?

⁸From heaven you gave your decision; the earth, in its fear, gave no sound,

⁹When God took his place as judge, for the salvation of the poor on the earth. (Selah.)

¹⁰The ... will give you praise; the rest of ...

¹¹Give to the Lord your God what is his by right; let all who are round him give offerings to him who is to be feared.

¹²He puts an end to the wrath of rulers; he is feared by the kings of the earth.

PSALM 77

¹I was crying to God with my voice; even to God with my voice, and he gave ear to me.

²In the day of my trouble, my heart was turned to the Lord: my hand was stretched out in the night without resting; my soul would not be comforted.

³I will keep God in memory, with sounds of grief; my thoughts are troubled, and my spirit is overcome. (Selah.)

⁴You keep my eyes from sleep; I am so troubled that no words come.

⁵My thoughts go back to the days of the past, to the years which are gone.

⁶The memory of my song comes back to me in the night; my thoughts are moving in my heart; my spirit is searching with care.

⁷Will the Lord put me away for ever? will he be kind no longer?

⁸Is his mercy quite gone for ever? has his word come to nothing?

⁹Has God put away the memory of his pity? are his mercies shut up by his wrath? (Selah.)

¹⁰And I said, It is a weight on my spirit; but I will keep in mind the years of the right hand of the Most High.

¹¹I will keep in mind the works of Jah: I will keep the memory of your wonders in the past.

¹²I will give thought to all your work, while my mind goes over your acts of power.

¹³Your way, O God, is holy: what god is so great as our God?

¹⁴You are the God who does works of power: you have made your strength clear to the nations.

¹⁵With your arm you have made your people free, the sons of Jacob and Joseph. (Selah.)

¹⁶The waters saw you, O God; the waters saw you, they were in fear: even the deep was troubled.

¹⁷The clouds sent out water; the skies gave out a sound; truly, your arrows went far and wide.

¹⁸The voice of your thunder went rolling on; the world was flaming with the light of the storm; the earth was shaking.

¹⁹Your way was in the sea, and your road in the great waters; there was no knowledge of your footsteps.

²⁰You were guiding your people like a flock, by the hand of Moses and Aaron.

PSALM 78

¹Give ear, O my people, to my law; let your ears be bent down to the words of my mouth.

²Opening my mouth I will give out a story, even the dark sayings of old times;

³Which have come to our hearing and our knowledge, as they were given to us by our fathers.

⁴We will not keep them secret from our children; we will make clear to the coming generation the praises of the Lord and his strength, and the great works of wonder which he has done.

⁵He put up a witness in Jacob, and made a law in Israel; which he gave to our fathers so that they might give knowledge of them to their children;

⁶So that the generation to come might have knowledge of them, even the children of the future, who would give word of them to their children;

⁷So that they might put their hope in God, and not let God's works go out of their minds, but keep his laws;

⁸And not be like their fathers, a stiff-necked and uncontrolled generation; a generation whose heart was hard, whose spirit was not true to God.

⁹The children of Ephraim, armed with bows, were turned back on the day of the fight.

¹⁰They were not ruled by God's word, and they would not go in the way of his law;

¹¹They let his works go out of their memory, and the wonders which he had made them see.

¹²He did great works before the eyes of their fathers, in the land of Egypt, in the fields of Zoan.

¹³The sea was cut in two so that they might go through; the waters were massed together on this side and on that.

¹⁴In the daytime he was guiding them in the cloud, and all through the night with a light of fire.

¹⁵The rocks of the waste land were broken by his power, and he gave them drink as out of the deep waters.

¹⁶He made streams come out of the rock; and waters came flowing down like rivers.

¹⁷And they went on sinning against him even more, turning away from the Most High in the waste land;

¹⁸Testing God in their hearts, requesting meat for their desire.

¹⁹They said bitter words against God, saying, Is God able to make ready a table in the waste land?

²⁰See, the rock was cut open by his power, so that the water came rushing out, and overflowing streams; is he able to give us bread? is he able to get meat for his people?

²¹So these things came to the Lord's ears, and he was angry; and a fire was lighted against Jacob, and wrath came up against Israel;

²²Because they had no faith in God, and no hope in his salvation.

²³And he gave orders to the clouds on high, and the doors of heaven were open;

²⁴And he sent down manna like rain for their food, and gave them the grain of heaven.

²⁵Man took part in the food of strong ones; he sent them meat in full measure.

²⁶He sent an east wind from heaven, driving on the south wind by his power.

²⁷He sent down meat on them like dust, and feathered birds like the sand of the sea,

²⁸And he let it come down into their resting-place, round about their tents.

²⁹So they had food and were full; for he gave them their desire;

³⁰But they were not turned from their desires; and while the food was still in their mouths,

³¹The wrath of God came on them, and put to death the fattest of them, and put an end to the young men of Israel.

³²For all this they went on sinning even more, and had no faith in his great wonders.

³³So their days were wasted like a breath, and their years in trouble.

³⁴When he sent death on them, then they made search for him; turning to him and looking for him with care;

³⁵In the memory that God was their Rock, and the Most High God their saviour.

³⁶But their lips were false to him, and their tongues were untrue to him;

³⁷And their hearts were not right with him, and they did not keep their agreement with him.

³⁸But he, being full of pity, has forgiveness for sin, and does not put an end to man: frequently turning back his wrath, and not being violently angry.

³⁹So he kept in mind that they were only flesh; a breath which is quickly gone, and will not come again.

⁴⁰How frequently did they go against him in the waste land, and give him cause for grief in the dry places!

⁴¹Again they put God to the test, and gave pain to the Holy One of Israel.

⁴²They did not keep in mind the work of his hand, or the day when he took them from the power of their haters;

⁴³How he had done his signs in Egypt, and his wonders in the field of Zoan;

⁴⁴So that their rivers were turned to blood, and they were not able to get drink from their streams.

⁴⁵He sent different sorts of flies among them, poisoning their flesh; and frogs for their destruction.

⁴⁶He gave the increase of their fields to worms, the fruits of their industry to the locusts.

⁴⁷He sent ice for the destruction of their vines; their trees were damaged by the bitter cold.

⁴⁸Ice was rained down on their cattle; thunderstorms sent destruction among the flocks.

⁴⁹He sent on them the heat of his wrath, his bitter disgust, letting loose evil angels among them.

⁵⁰He let his wrath have its way; he did not keep back their soul from death, but gave their life to disease.

⁵¹He gave to destruction all the first sons of Egypt; the first-fruits of their strength in the tents of Ham;

⁵²But he took his people out like sheep, guiding them in the waste land like a flock.

⁵³He took them on safely so that they had no fear; but their haters were covered by the sea.

⁵⁴And he was their guide to his holy land, even to the mountain, which his right hand had made his;

⁵⁵Driving out nations before them, marking out the line of their heritage, and giving the people of Israel their tents for a resting-place.

⁵⁶But they were bitter against the Most High God, testing him, and not keeping his laws;

⁵⁷Their hearts were turned back and untrue like their fathers; they were turned to one side like a twisted bow.

⁵⁸They made him angry with their high places; moving him to wrath with their images.

⁵⁹When this came to God's ears he was very angry, and gave up Israel completely;

⁶⁰So that he went away from the holy place in Shiloh, the tent which he had put among men;

⁶¹And he let his strength be taken prisoner, and gave his glory into the hands of his hater.

⁶²He gave his people up to the sword, and was angry with his heritage.

⁶³Their young men were burned in the fire; and their virgins were not praised in the bride-song.

⁶⁴Their priests were put to death by the sword, and their widows made no weeping for them.

⁶⁵Then was the Lord like one awaking from sleep, and like a strong man crying out because of wine.

⁶⁶His haters were turned back by his blows and shamed for ever.

⁶⁷And he put the tent of Joseph on one side, and took not the tribe of Ephraim;

⁶⁸But he took the tribe of Judah for himself, and the mountain of Zion, in which he had pleasure.

⁶⁹And he made his holy place like the high heaven, like the earth which is fixed by him for ever.

⁷⁰He took David to be his servant, taking him from the place of the flocks;

⁷¹From looking after the sheep which were giving milk, he took him to give food to Jacob his people, and to Israel his heritage.

⁷²So he gave them food with an upright heart, guiding them by the wisdom of his hands.

PSALM 79

¹O God, the nations have come into your heritage; they have made your holy Temple unclean; they have made Jerusalem a mass of broken walls.

²They have given the bodies of your servants as food to the birds of the air, and the flesh of your saints to the beasts of the earth.

³Their blood has been flowing like water round about Jerusalem; there was no one to put them in their last resting-place.

⁴We are looked down on by our neighbours, we are laughed at and made sport of by those who are round us.

⁵How long, O Lord? will you be angry for ever? will your wrath go on burning like fire?

⁶Let your wrath be on the nations who have no knowledge of you, and on the kingdoms who have not made prayer to your name.

⁷For they have taken Jacob for their meat, and made waste his house.

⁸Do not keep in mind against us the sins of our fathers; let your mercy come to us quickly, for we have been made very low.

⁹Give us help, O God of our salvation, for the glory of your name; take us out of danger and give us forgiveness for our sins, because of your name.

¹⁰Why may the nations say, Where is their God? Let payment for the blood of your servants be made openly among the nations before our eyes.

¹¹Let the cry of the prisoner come before you; with your strong arm make free the children of death;

¹²And give punishment seven times over into the breast of our neighbours for the bitter words which they have said against you, O Lord.

¹³So we your people, and the sheep of your flock, will give you glory for ever: we will go on praising you through all generations.

PSALM 80

¹Give ear, O Keeper of Israel, guiding Joseph like a flock; you who have your seat on the winged ones, let your glory be seen.

²Before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh, let your strength be awake from sleep, and come as our salvation.

³Take us back again, O God; let us see the shining of your face, and let us be safe.

⁴O Lord God of armies, how long will your wrath be burning against the rest of your people?

⁵You have given them the bread of weeping for food; for their drink you have given them sorrow in great measure.

⁶You make us a cause of war among our neighbours; our haters are laughing at us among themselves.

⁷Take us back again, O God of armies; let us see the shining of your face, and let us be safe.

⁸You took a vine out of Egypt: driving out the nations, and planting it in their land.

⁹You made ready a place for it, so that it might take deep root, and it sent out its branches over all the land.

¹⁰The mountains were covered with its shade, and the great trees with its branches.

¹¹It sent out its arms to the Sea, and its branches to the River.

¹²Why are its walls broken down by your hands, so that all who go by may take its fruit?

¹³It is uprooted by the pigs from the woods, the beasts of the field get their food from it.

¹⁴Come back, O God of armies: from heaven let your eyes be turned to this vine, and give your mind to it,

¹⁵Even to the tree which was planted by your right hand, and to the branch which you made strong for yourself.

¹⁶It is burned with fire; it is cut down: they are made waste by the wrath of your face.

¹⁷Let your hand be on the man of your right hand, on the son of man whom you made strong for yourself.

¹⁸So will we not be turned back from you; keep us in life, and we will give praise to your name.

¹⁹Take us back, O Lord God of armies; let us see the shining of your face, and let us be safe.

PSALM 81

¹Make a song to God our strength: make a glad cry to the God of Jacob.

²Take up the melody, playing on an instrument of music, even on corded instruments.

³Let the horn be sounded in the time of the new moon, at the full moon, on our holy feast-day:

⁴For this is a rule for Israel, and a law of the God of Jacob.

⁵He gave it to Joseph as a witness, when he went out over the land of Egypt; then the words of a strange tongue were sounding in my ears.

⁶I took the weight from his back; his hands were made free from the baskets.

⁷You gave a cry in your trouble, and I made you free; I gave you an answer in the secret place of the thunder; I put you to the test at the waters of Meribah. (Selah.)

⁸Give ear, O my people, and I will give you my word, O Israel, if you will only do as I say!

⁹There is to be no strange god among you; you are not to give worship to any other god.

¹⁰I am the Lord your God, who took you up from the land of Egypt: let your mouth be open wide, so that I may give you food.

¹¹But my people did not give ear to my voice; Israel would have nothing to do with me.

¹²So I gave them up to the desires of their hearts; that they might go after their evil purposes.

¹³If only my people would give ear to me, walking in my ways!

¹⁴I would quickly overcome their haters: my hand would be turned against those who make war on them.

¹⁵The haters of the Lord would be broken, and their destruction would be eternal.

¹⁶I would give them the best grain for food; you would be full of honey from the rock.

PSALM 82

¹God is in the meeting-place of God; he is judging among the gods.

²How long will you go on judging falsely, having respect for the persons of evil-doers? (Selah.)

³Give ear to the cause of the poor and the children without fathers; let those who are troubled and in need have their rights.

⁴Be the saviour of the poor and those who have nothing: take them out of the hand of the evil-doers.

⁵They have no knowledge or sense; they go about in the dark: all the bases of the earth are moved.

⁶I said, You are gods; all of you are the sons of the Most High:

⁷But you will come to death like men, falling like one of the rulers of the earth.

⁸Up! O God, come as judge of the earth; for all the nations are your heritage.

PSALM 83

¹O God, do not keep quiet: let your lips be open and take no rest, O God.

²For see! those who make war on you are out of control; your haters are lifting up their heads.

³They have made wise designs against your people, talking together against those whom you keep in a secret place.

⁴They have said, Come, let us put an end to them as a nation; so that the name of Israel may go out of man's memory.

⁵For they have all come to an agreement; they are all joined together against you:

⁶The tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites; Moab and the Hagarites;

⁷Gebal and Ammon and Amalek; the Philistines and the people of Tyre;

⁸Assur is joined with them; they have become the support of the children of Lot. (Selah.)

⁹Do to them what you did to the Midianites; what you did to Sisera and Jabin, at the stream of Kishon:

¹⁰Who came to destruction at En-dor; their bodies became dust and waste.

¹¹Make their chiefs like Oreb and Zeeb; and all their rulers like Zebah and Zalmunna:

¹²Who have said, Let us take for our heritage the resting-place of God.

¹³O my God, make them like the rolling dust; like dry stems before the wind.

¹⁴As fire burning a wood, and as a flame causing fire on the mountains,

¹⁵So go after them with your strong wind, and let them be full of fear because of your storm.

¹⁶Let their faces be full of shame; so that they may give honour to your name, O Lord.

¹⁷Let them be overcome and troubled for ever; let them be put to shame and come to destruction;

¹⁸So that men may see that you only, whose name is Yahweh, are Most High over all the earth.

PSALM 84

¹How dear are your tents, O Lord of armies!

²The passion of my soul's desire is for the house of the Lord; my heart and my flesh are crying out for the living God.

³The little birds have places for themselves, where they may put their young, even your altars, O Lord of armies, my King and my God.

⁴Happy are they whose resting-place is in your house: they will still be praising you. (Selah.)

⁵Happy is the man whose strength is in you; in whose heart are the highways to Zion.

⁶Going through the valley of balsam-trees, they make it a place of springs; it is clothed with blessings by the early rain.

⁷They go from strength to strength; every one of them comes before God in Zion.

⁸O Lord God of armies, let my prayer come to you: give ear, O God of Jacob. (Selah.)

⁹O God, let your eyes be on him who is our safe cover, and let your heart be turned to your king.

¹⁰For a day in your house is better than a thousand. It is better to be a door-keeper in the house of my God, than to be living in the tents of sin.

¹¹The Lord God is our sun and our strength: the Lord will give grace and glory: he will not keep back any good thing from those whose ways are upright.

¹²O Lord of armies, happy is the man whose hope is in you.

PSALM 85

¹Lord, you were good to your land: changing the fate of Jacob.

²The wrongdoing of your people had forgiveness; all their sin had been covered. (Selah.)

³You were no longer angry: you were turned from the heat of your wrath.

⁴Come back to us, O God of our salvation, and be angry with us no longer.

⁵Will you go on being angry with us for ever? will you keep your wrath against us through all the long generations?

⁶Will you not give us life again, so that your people may be glad in you?

⁷Let us see your mercy, O Lord, and give us your salvation.

⁸I will give ear to the voice of the Lord; for he will say words of peace to his people and to his saints; but let them not go back to their foolish ways.

⁹Truly, his salvation is near to his worshippers; so that glory may be in our land.

¹⁰Mercy and faith have come together; righteousness and peace have given one another a kiss.

¹¹Faith comes up from the earth like a plant; righteousness is looking down from heaven.

¹²The Lord will give what is good; and our land will give its increase.

¹³Righteousness will go before him, making a way for his footsteps.

PSALM 86

¹Let your ears be open to my voice, O Lord, and give me an answer; for I am poor and in need.

²Keep my soul, for I am true to you; O my God, give salvation to your servant, whose hope is in you.

³Have mercy on me, O Lord; for my cry goes up to you all the day.

⁴Make glad the soul of your servant; for it is lifted up to you, O Lord.

⁵You are good, O Lord, and full of forgiveness; your mercy is great to all who make their cry to you.

⁶O Lord, give ear to my prayer; and take note of the sound of my requests.

⁷In the day of my trouble I send up my cry to you; for you will give me an answer.

⁸There is no god like you, O Lord; there are no works like your works.

⁹Let all the nations whom you have made come and give worship to you, O Lord, giving glory to your name.

¹⁰For you are great, and do great works of wonder; you only are God.

¹¹Make your way clear to me, O Lord; I will go on my way in your faith: let my heart be glad in the fear of your name.

¹²I will give you praise, O Lord my God, with all my heart; I will give glory to your name for ever.

¹³For your mercy to me is great; you have taken my soul up from the deep places of the underworld.

¹⁴O God, men of pride have come up against me, and the army of violent men would take my life; they have not put you before them.

¹⁵But you, O Lord, are a God full of pity and forgiveness, slow to get angry, great in mercy and wisdom.

¹⁶O be turned to me and have mercy on me: give your strength to your servant, and your salvation to the son of her who is your servant.

¹⁷Give me a sign for good; so that my haters may see it and be shamed; because you, Lord, have been my help and comfort.

PSALM 87

¹This house is resting on the holy mountain.

²The Lord has more love for the doors of Zion than for all the tents of Jacob.

³Noble things are said of you, O town of God. (Selah.)

⁴Rahab and Babylon will be named among those who have knowledge of me; see, Philistia and Tyre, with Ethiopia; this man had his birth there.

⁵And of Zion it will be said, This or that man had his birth there; and the Most High will make her strong.

⁶The Lord will keep in mind, when he is writing the records of the people, that this man had his birth there. (Selah.)

⁷The players on instruments will be there, and the dancers will say, All my springs are in you.

PSALM 88

¹O Lord, God of my salvation, I have been crying to you for help by day and by night:

²Let my prayer come before you; give ear to my cry:

³For my soul is full of evils, and my life has come near to the underworld.

⁴I am numbered among those who go down into the earth; I have become like a man for whom there is no help:

⁵My soul is among the dead, like those in the underworld, to whom you give no more thought; for they are cut off from your care.

⁶You have put me in the lowest deep, even in dark places.

⁷The weight of your wrath is crushing me, all your waves have overcome me. (Selah.)

⁸You have sent my friends far away from me; you have made me a disgusting thing in their eyes: I am shut up, and not able to come out.

⁹My eyes are wasting away because of my trouble: Lord, my cry has gone up to you every day, my hands are stretched out to you.

¹⁰Will you do works of wonder for the dead? will the shades come back to give you praise? (Selah.)

¹¹Will the story of your mercy be given in the house of the dead? will news of your faith come to the place of destruction?

¹²May there be knowledge of your wonders in the dark? or of your righteousness where memory is dead?

¹³But to you did I send up my cry, O Lord; in the morning my prayer came before you.

¹⁴Lord, why have you sent away my soul? why is your face covered from me?

¹⁵I have been troubled and in fear of death from the time when I was young; your wrath is hard on me, and I have no strength.

¹⁶The heat of your wrath has gone over me; I am broken by your cruel punishments.

¹⁷They are round me all the day like water; they have made a circle about me.

¹⁸You have sent my friends and lovers far from me; I am gone from the memory of those who are dear to me.

PSALM 89

¹My song will be of the mercies of the Lord for ever: with my mouth will I make his faith clear to all generations.

²For you have said, Mercy will be made strong for ever; my faith will be unchanging in the heavens.

³I have made an agreement with the man of my selection, I have made an oath to David my servant;

⁴I will make your seed go on for ever, your kingdom will be strong through all generations. (Selah.)

⁵In heaven let them give praise for your wonders, O Lord; and your unchanging faith among the saints.

⁶For who is there in the heavens in comparison with the Lord? who is like the Lord among the sons of the gods?

⁷God is greatly to be feared among the saints, and to be honoured over all those who are about him.

⁸O Lord God of armies, who is strong like you, O Jah? and your unchanging faith is round about you.

⁹You have rule over the sea in storm; when its waves are troubled, you make them calm.

¹⁰Rahab was crushed by you like one wounded to death; with your strong arm you put to flight all your haters.

¹¹Yours are the heavens, and the earth is yours; you have made the world, and everything which is in it.

¹²You have made the north and the south; Tabor and Hermon are sounding with joy at your name.

¹³Yours is an arm of power; strong is your hand and high your right hand.

¹⁴The seat of your kingdom is resting on righteousness and right judging: mercy and good faith come before your face.

¹⁵Happy are the people who have knowledge of the holy cry: the light of your face, O Lord, will be shining on their way.

¹⁶In your name will they have joy all the day: in your righteousness will they be lifted up.

¹⁷For you are the glory of their strength; in your pleasure will our horn be lifted up.

¹⁸For our breastplate is the Lord; and our king is the Holy One of Israel's.

¹⁹Then your voice came to your holy one in a vision, saying, I have put the crown on a strong one, lifting up one taken from among the people.

²⁰I have made discovery of David my servant; I have put my holy oil on his head.

²¹My hand will be his support; my arm will give him strength.

²²The deceit of those who are against him will not overcome him; he will not be troubled by the sons of evil.

²³I will have those who are against him broken before his face, and his haters will be crushed under my blows.

²⁴But my faith and my mercy will be with him; and in my name will his horn be lifted up.

²⁵I will put his hand in the sea, and his right hand in the rivers.

²⁶He will say to me, You are my father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation.

²⁷And I will make him the first of my sons, most high over the kings of the earth.

²⁸I will keep my mercy for him for ever; my agreement with him will not be changed.

²⁹His seed will keep their place for ever; his kingdom will be eternal, like the heavens.

³⁰If his children give up my law, and are not ruled by my decisions;

³¹If my rules are broken, and my orders are not kept;

³²Then I will send punishment on them for their sin; my rod will be the reward of their evil-doing.

³³But I will not take away my mercy from him, and will not be false to my faith.

³⁴I will be true to my agreement; the things which have gone out of my lips will not be changed.

³⁵I have made an oath once by my holy name, that I will not be false to David.

³⁶His seed will not come to an end for ever; the seat of his kingdom will be like the sun before me.

³⁷It will be fixed for ever like the moon; and the witness in heaven is true. (Selah.)

³⁸But you have put him away in disgust; you have been angry with the king of your selection.

³⁹You have made your agreement with your servant of no effect: you have had no respect for his crown, it has come down even to the earth.

⁴⁰All his walls are broken down; you have given his strong towers to destruction.

⁴¹All those who come by take away his goods; he is laughed at by his neighbours.

⁴²You have given power to the right hand of his haters; you have made glad all those who are against him.

⁴³His sword is turned back; you have not been his support in the fight.

⁴⁴You have put an end to his glory: the seat of his kingdom has been levelled to the earth.

⁴⁵You have made him old before his time; he is covered with shame. (Selah.)

⁴⁶How long, O Lord, will you Keep yourself for ever from our eyes? how long will your wrath be burning like fire?

⁴⁷See how short my time is; why have you made all men for no purpose?

⁴⁸What man now living will not see death? will he be able to keep back his soul from the underworld? (Selah.)

⁴⁹Lord, where are your earlier mercies? where is the oath which you made to David in unchanging faith?

⁵⁰Keep in mind, O Lord, the shame of your servants, and how the bitter words of all the people have come into my heart;

⁵¹The bitter words of your haters, O Lord, shaming the footsteps of your king.

⁵²Let the Lord be praised for ever. So be it, So be it.

PSALM 90

¹Lord, you have been our resting-place in all generations.

²Before the mountains were made, before you had given birth to the earth and the world, before time was, and for ever, you are God.

³You send man back to his dust; and say, Go back, you children of men.

⁴For to you a thousand years are no more than yesterday when it is past, and like a watch in the night.

⁵...

⁶In the morning it is green; in the evening it is cut down, and becomes dry.

⁷We are burned up by the heat of your passion, and troubled by your wrath.

⁸You have put our evil doings before you, our secret sins in the light of your face.

⁹For all our days have gone by in your wrath; our years come to an end like a breath.

¹⁰The measure of our life is seventy years; and if through strength it may be eighty years, its pride is only trouble and sorrow, for it comes to an end and we are quickly gone.

¹¹Who has knowledge of the power of your wrath, or who takes note of the weight of your passion?

¹²So give us knowledge of the number of our days, that we may get a heart of wisdom.

¹³Come back, O Lord; how long? let your purpose for your servants be changed.

¹⁴In the morning give us your mercy in full measure; so that we may have joy and delight all our days.

¹⁵Make us glad in reward for the days of our sorrow, and for the years in which we have seen evil.

¹⁶Make your work clear to your servants, and your glory to their children.

¹⁷Let the pleasure of the Lord our God be on us: O Lord, give strength to the work of our hands.

PSALM 91

¹Happy is he whose resting-place is in the secret of the Lord, and under the shade of the wings of the Most High;

²Who says of the Lord, He is my safe place and my tower of strength: he is my God, in whom is my hope.

³He will take you out of the bird-net, and keep you safe from wasting disease.

⁴You will be covered by his feathers; under his wings you will be safe: his good faith will be your salvation.

⁵You will have no fear of the evil things of the night, or of the arrow in flight by day,

⁶Or of the disease which takes men in the dark, or of the destruction which makes waste when the sun is high.

⁷You will see a thousand falling by your side, and ten thousand at your right hand; but it will not come near you.

⁸Only with your eyes will you see the reward of the evil-doers.

⁹Because you have said, I am in the hands of the Lord, the Most High is my safe resting-place;

¹⁰No evil will come on you, and no disease will come near your tent.

¹¹For he will give you into the care of his angels to keep you wherever you go.

¹²In their hands they will keep you up, so that your foot may not be crushed against a stone.

¹³You will put your foot on the lion and the snake; the young lion and the great snake will be crushed under your feet.

¹⁴Because he has given me his love, I will take him out of danger: I will put him in a place of honour, because he has kept my name in his heart.

¹⁵When his cry comes up to me, I will give him an answer: I will be with him in trouble; I will make him free from danger and give him honour.

¹⁶With long life will he be rewarded; and I will let him see my salvation.

PSALM 92

¹It is a good thing to give praise to the Lord, and to make melody to your name, O Most High;

²To make clear your mercy in the morning, and your unchanging faith every night;

³On a ten-corded instrument, and on an instrument of music with a quiet sound.

⁴For you, O Lord, have made me glad through your work; I will have joy in the works of your hands.

⁵O Lord, how great are your works! and your thoughts are very deep.

⁶A man without sense has no knowledge of this; and a foolish man may not take it in.

⁷When the sinners come up like the grass, and all the workers of evil do well for themselves, it is so that their end may be eternal destruction.

⁸But you, O Lord, are on high for ever.

⁹For see! your haters, O Lord, will be put to death; all the workers of evil will be put to flight;

¹⁰But my horn is lifted up like the horn of the ox: the best oil is flowing on my head.

¹¹My eyes have seen trouble come on my haters; my ears have news of the fate of the evil-doers who have come up against me.

¹²The good man will be like a tall tree in his strength; his growth will be as the wide-stretching trees of Lebanon.

¹³Those who are planted in the house of the Lord will come up tall and strong in his gardens.

¹⁴They will give fruit even when they are old; they will be fertile and full of growth;

¹⁵For a sign that the Lord is upright; he is my Rock, there is no deceit in him.

PSALM 93

¹The Lord is King; he is clothed with glory; the Lord is clothed with strength; power is the cord of his robe; the world is fixed, so that it may not be moved.

²The seat of your power has been from the past; you are eternal.

³The rivers send up, O Lord, the rivers send up their voices; they send them up with a loud cry.

⁴The Lord in heaven is stronger than the noise of great waters, yes, he is stronger than the great waves of the sea.

⁵Your witness is most certain; it is right for your house to be holy, O Lord, for ever.

PSALM 94

¹O God, in whose hands is punishment, O God of punishment, let your shining face be seen.

²Be lifted up, O judge of the earth; let their reward come to the men of pride.

³How long will sinners, O Lord, how long will sinners have joy over us?

⁴Words of pride come from their lips; all the workers of evil say great things of themselves.

⁵Your people are crushed by them, O Lord, your heritage is troubled,

⁶They put to death the widow and the guest, they take the lives of children who have no father;

⁷And they say, Jah will not see it, the God of Jacob will not give thought to it.

⁸Give your mind to my words, you who are without wisdom among the people; you foolish men, when will you be wise?

⁹Has he by whom your ears were planted no hearing? or is he blind by whom your eyes were formed?

¹⁰He who is the judge of the nations, will he not give men the reward of their acts, even he who gives knowledge to man?

¹¹The Lord has knowledge of the thoughts of man, for they are only a breath.

¹²Happy is the man who is guided by you, O Jah, and to whom you give teaching out of your law;

¹³So that you may give him rest from the days of evil, till a hole is made ready for the destruction of the sinners.

¹⁴The Lord will not give up his people, or take away his support from his heritage;

¹⁵But decisions will again be made in righteousness; and they will be kept by all whose hearts are true.

¹⁶Who will give me help against the sinners? and who will be my support against the workers of evil?

¹⁷If the Lord had not been my helper, my soul would quickly have gone down into death.

¹⁸If I say, My foot is slipping; your mercy, O Lord, is my support.

¹⁹Among all my troubled thoughts, your comforts are the delight of my soul.

²⁰What part with you has the seat of sin, which makes evil into a law?

²¹They are banded together against the soul of the upright, to give decisions against those who have done no wrong.

²²But the Lord is my safe resting-place; my God is the Rock where I am safe.

²³And he has made their evil designs come back on themselves, cutting them off in their sin; the Lord our God will put an end to them.

PSALM 95

¹O come, let us make songs to the Lord; sending up glad voices to the Rock of our salvation.

²Let us come before his face with praises; and make melody with holy songs.

³For the Lord is a great God, and a great King over all gods.

⁴The deep places of the earth are in his hand; and the tops of the mountains are his.

⁵The sea is his, and he made it; and the dry land was formed by his hands.

⁶O come, let us give worship, falling down on our knees before the Lord our Maker.

⁷For he is our God; and we are the people to whom he gives food, and the sheep of his flock. Today, if you would only give ear to his voice!

⁸Let not your hearts be hard, as at Meribah, as in the day of Massah in the waste land;

⁹When your fathers put me to the test and saw my power and my work.

¹⁰For forty years I was angry with this generation, and said, They are a people whose hearts are turned away from me, for they have no knowledge of my ways;

¹¹And I made an oath in my wrath, that they might not come into my place of rest.

PSALM 96

¹O make a new song to the Lord; let all the earth make melody to the Lord.

²Make songs to the Lord, blessing his name; give the good news of his salvation day by day.

³Make clear his glory to the nations, and his wonders to all the peoples.

⁴For the Lord is great, and greatly to be praised; he is more to be feared than all other gods.

⁵For all the gods of the nations are false gods; but the Lord made the heavens.

⁶Honour and glory are before him: strong and fair is his holy place.

⁷Give to the Lord, O you families of the peoples, give to the Lord glory and strength.

⁸Give to the Lord the glory of his name; take with you an offering and come into his house.

⁹O give worship to the Lord in holy robes; be in fear before him, all the earth.

¹⁰Say among the nations, The Lord is King; yes, the world is ordered so that it may not be moved; he will be an upright judge of the peoples.

¹¹Let the heavens have joy and the earth be glad; let the sea be thundering with all its waters;

¹²Let the field be glad, and everything which is in it; yes, let all the trees of the wood be sounding with joy,

¹³Before the Lord, for he is come; he is come to be the judge of the earth; the earth will be judged in righteousness, and the peoples with unchanging faith.

PSALM 97

¹The Lord is King, let the earth have joy; let all the sea-lands be glad.

²Dark clouds are round him; his kingdom is based on righteousness and right judging.

³Fire goes before him, burning up all those who are against him round about.

⁴His bright flames give light to the world; the earth saw it with fear.

⁵The mountains became like wax at the coming of the Lord, at the coming of the Lord of all the earth.

⁶The heavens gave out the news of his righteousness, and all the people saw his glory.

⁷Shamed be all those who give worship to images, and take pride in false gods; give him worship, all you gods.

⁸Zion gave ear and was glad; and the daughters of Judah were full of joy, because of your decisions, O Lord.

⁹For you, Lord, are most high over the earth; you are lifted up over all other gods.

¹⁰You who are lovers of the Lord, be haters of evil; he keeps the souls of his saints; he takes them out of the hand of sinners.

¹¹Light is shining on the lovers of righteousness, and for the upright in heart there is joy.

¹²Be glad in the Lord, you upright men; praising the memory of his holy name.

PSALM 98

¹O make a new song to the Lord, because he has done works of wonder; with his right hand, and with his holy arm, he has overcome.

²The Lord has given to all the knowledge of his salvation; he has made clear his righteousness in the eyes of the nations.

³He has kept in mind his mercy and his unchanging faith to the house of Israel; all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.

⁴Let all the earth send out a glad cry to the Lord; sounding with a loud voice, and praising him with songs of joy.

⁵Make melody to the Lord with instruments of music; with a corded instrument and the voice of song.

⁶With wind instruments and the sound of the horn, make a glad cry before the Lord, the King.

⁷Let the sea be thundering, with all its waters; the world, and all who are living in it;

⁸Let the streams make sounds of joy with their hands; let the mountains be glad together,

⁹Before the Lord, for he has come as judge of the earth; judging the world in righteousness, and giving true decisions for the peoples.

PSALM 99

¹The Lord is King; let the peoples be in fear: his seat is on the winged ones; let the earth be moved.

²The Lord is great in Zion; he is high over all the nations.

³Let them give praise to your name, for it is great and to be feared; holy is he.

⁴The king's power is used for righteousness; you give true decisions, judging rightly in the land of Jacob.

⁵Give high honour to the Lord our God, worshipping at his feet; holy is he.

⁶Moses and Aaron among his priests, and Samuel among those who gave honour to his name; they made prayers to the Lord, and he gave answers to them.

⁷His voice came to them from the pillar of cloud; they kept his witness, and the law which he gave them.

⁸You gave them an answer, O Lord our God; you took away their sin, though you gave them punishment for their wrongdoing.

⁹Give high honour to the Lord our God, worshipping with your faces turned to his holy hill; for the Lord our God is holy.

PSALM 100

¹Make a glad sound to the Lord, all the earth.

²Give worship to the Lord with joy; come before him with a song.

³Be certain that the Lord is God; it is he who has made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep to whom he gives food.

⁴Come into his doors with joy, and into his house with praise; give him honour, blessing his name.

⁵For the Lord is good, and his mercy is never-ending; his faith is unchanging through all generations.

PSALM 101

¹I will make a song of mercy and righteousness; to you, O Lord, will I make melody.

²I will do wisely in the way of righteousness: O when will you come to me? I will be walking in my house with a true heart.

³I will not put any evil thing before my eyes; I am against all turning to one side; I will not have it near me.

⁴The false heart I will send away from me: I will not have an evil-doer for a friend.

⁵I will put to death anyone who says evil of his neighbour secretly; the man with a high look and a heart of pride is disgusting to me.

⁶My eyes will be on those of good faith in the land, so that they may be living in my house; he who is walking in the right way will be my servant.

⁷The worker of deceit will not come into my house; the false man will have no place before my eyes.

⁸Morning by morning will I put to death all the sinners in the land, so that all evil-doers may be cut off from Jerusalem.

PSALM 102

¹Give ear to my prayer, O Lord, and let my cry come to you.

²Let not your face be veiled from me in the day of my trouble; give ear to me, and let my cry be answered quickly.

³My days are wasted like smoke, and my bones are burned up as in a fire.

⁴My heart is broken; it has become dry and dead like grass, so that I give no thought to food.

⁵Because of the voice of my sorrow, my flesh is wasted to the bone.

⁶I am like a bird living by itself in the waste places; like the night-bird in a waste of sand.

⁷I keep watch like a bird by itself on the house-top.

⁸My haters say evil of me all day; those who are violent against me make use of my name as a curse.

⁹I have had dust for bread and my drink has been mixed with weeping:

¹⁰Because of your passion and your wrath, for I have been lifted up and then made low by you.

¹¹My days are like a shade which is stretched out; I am dry like the grass.

¹²But you, O Lord, are eternal; and your name will never come to an end.

¹³You will again get up and have mercy on Zion: for the time has come for her to be comforted.

¹⁴For your servants take pleasure in her stones, looking with love on her dust.

¹⁵So the nations will give honour to the name of the Lord, and all the kings of the earth will be in fear of his glory:

¹⁶When the Lord has put up the walls of Zion, and has been been in his glory;

¹⁷When he has given ear to the prayer of the poor, and has not put his request on one side.

¹⁸This will be put in writing for the coming generation, and the people of the future will give praise to the Lord.

¹⁹For from his holy place the Lord has seen, looking down on the earth from heaven;

²⁰Hearing the cry of the prisoner, making free those for whom death is ordered;

²¹So that they may give out the name of the Lord in Zion, and his praise in Jerusalem;

²²When the peoples are come together, and the kingdoms, to give worship to the Lord.

²³He has taken my strength from me in the way; he has made short my days.

²⁴I will say, O my God, take me not away before my time; your years go on through all generations:

²⁵In the past you put the earth on its base, and the heavens are the work of your hands.

²⁶They will come to an end, but you will still go on; they all will become old like a coat, and like a robe they will be changed:

²⁷But you are the unchanging One, and your years will have no end.

²⁸The children of your servants will have a safe resting-place, and their seed will be ever before you.

PSALM 103

¹Give praise to the Lord, O my soul; let everything in me give praise to his holy name.

²Give praise to the Lord, O my soul; let not all his blessings go from your memory.

³He has forgiveness for all your sins; he takes away all your diseases;

⁴He keeps back your life from destruction, crowning you with mercy and grace.

⁵He makes your mouth full of good things, so that your strength is made new again like the eagle's.

⁶The Lord gives decisions in righteousness for all who are in trouble.

⁷He gave knowledge of his way to Moses, and made his acts clear to the children of Israel.

⁸The Lord is kind and full of pity, not quickly made angry, but ever ready to have mercy.

⁹His feeling will no longer be bitter; he will not keep his wrath for ever.

¹⁰He has not given us the punishment for our sins, or the reward of our wrongdoing.

¹¹For as the heaven is high over the earth, so great is his mercy to his worshippers.

¹²As far as the east is from the west, so far has he put our sins from us.

¹³As a father has pity on his children, so the Lord has pity on his worshippers.

¹⁴For he has knowledge of our feeble frame; he sees that we are only dust.

¹⁵As for man, his days are as grass: his beautiful growth is like the flower of the field.

¹⁶The wind goes over it and it is gone; and its place sees it no longer.

¹⁷But the mercy of the Lord is eternal for his worshippers, and their children's children will see his righteousness;

¹⁸If they keep his agreement, and have his laws in mind to do them.

¹⁹The Lord has made ready his high seat in the heavens; his kingdom is ruling over all.

²⁰Give praise to the Lord, you his angels, who are great in strength, doing his orders, and waiting for his voice.

²¹Give praise to the Lord, all you his armies; and you his servants who do his pleasure.

²²Give praise to the Lord, all his works, in all places under his rule: give praise to the Lord, O my soul.

PSALM 104

¹Give praise to the Lord, O my soul. O Lord my God, you are very great; you are robed with honour and power.

²You are clothed with light as with a robe; stretching out the heavens like a curtain:

³The arch of your house is based on the waters; you make the clouds your carriage; you go on the wings of the wind:

⁴He makes winds his angels, and flames of fire his servants.

⁵He has made the earth strong on its bases, so that it may not be moved for ever and ever;

⁶Covering it with the sea as with a robe: the waters were high over the mountains;

⁷At the voice of your word they went in flight; at the sound of your thunder they went away in fear;

⁸The mountains came up and the valleys went down into the place which you had made ready for them.

⁹You made a limit over which they might not go, so that the earth would never again be covered by them.

¹⁰You sent the springs into the valleys; they are flowing between the hills.

¹¹They give drink to every beast of the field; the mountain asses come to them for water.

¹²The birds of the air have their resting-places by them, and make their song among the branches.

¹³He sends down rain from his store-houses on the hills: the earth is full of the fruit of his works.

¹⁴He makes the grass come up for the cattle, and plants for the use of man; so that bread may come out of the earth;

¹⁵And wine to make glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face shining, and bread giving strength to his heart.

¹⁶The trees of the Lord are full of growth, the cedars of Lebanon of his planting;

¹⁷Where the birds have their resting-places; as for the stork, the tall trees are her house.

¹⁸The high hills are a safe place for the mountain goats, and the rocks for the small beasts.

¹⁹He made the moon for a sign of the divisions of the year; teaching the sun the time of its going down.

²⁰When you make it dark, it is night, when all the beasts of the woods come quietly out of their secret places.

²¹The young lions go thundering after their food; searching for their meat from God.

²²The sun comes up, and they come together, and go back to their secret places to take their rest.

²³Man goes out to his work, and to his business, till the evening.

²⁴O Lord, how great is the number of your works! in wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of the things you have made.

²⁵There is the great, wide sea, where there are living things, great and small, more than may be numbered.

²⁶There go the ships; there is that great beast, which you have made as a plaything.

²⁷All of them are waiting for you, to give them their food in its time.

²⁸They take what you give them; they are full of the good things which come from your open hand.

²⁹If your face is veiled, they are troubled; when you take away their breath, they come to an end, and go back to the dust.

³⁰If you send out your spirit, they are given life; you make new the face of the earth.

³¹Let the glory of the Lord be for ever; let the Lord have joy in his works:

³²At whose look the earth is shaking; at whose touch the mountains send out smoke.

³³I will make songs to the Lord all my life; I will make melody to my God while I have my being.

³⁴Let my thoughts be sweet to him: I will be glad in the Lord.

³⁵Let sinners be cut off from the earth, and let all evil-doers come to an end. Give praise to the Lord, O my soul. Give praise to the Lord.

PSALM 105

¹O give praise to the Lord; give honour to his name, talking of his doings among the peoples.

²Let your voice be sounding in songs and melody; let all your thoughts be of the wonder of his works.

³Have glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who are searching after the Lord be glad.

⁴Let your search be for the Lord and for his strength; let your hearts ever be turned to him.

⁵Keep in mind the great works which he has done; his wonders, and the decisions of his mouth;

⁶O you seed of Abraham, his servant, you children of Jacob, his loved ones.

⁷He is the Lord our God: he is judge of all the earth.

⁸He has kept his agreement in mind for ever, the word which he gave for a thousand generations;

⁹The agreement which he made with Abraham, and his oath to Isaac;

¹⁰And he gave it to Jacob for a law, and to Israel for an eternal agreement;

¹¹Saying, To you will I give the land of Canaan, the measured line of your heritage:

¹²When they were still small in number, and strange in the land;

¹³When they went about from one nation to another, and from one kingdom to another people.

¹⁴He would not let anyone do them wrong; he even kept back kings because of them,

¹⁵Saying, Put not your hand on those who have been marked with my holy oil, and do my prophets no wrong.

¹⁶And he took away all food from the land, so that the people were without bread.

¹⁷He sent a man before them, even Joseph, who was given as a servant for a price:

¹⁸His feet were fixed in chains; his neck was put in iron bands;

¹⁹Till the time when his word came true; he was tested by the word of the Lord.

²⁰The king sent men to take off his chains; even the ruler of the people, who let him go free.

²¹He made him lord of his house, and ruler over everything he had;

²²To give his chiefs teaching at his pleasure, and so that his law-givers might get wisdom from him.

²³Then Israel came into Egypt, and Jacob was living in the land of Ham.

²⁴And his people were greatly increased, and became stronger than those who were against them.

²⁵Their hearts were turned to hate against his people, so that they made secret designs against them.

²⁶He sent Moses, his servant, and Aaron, the man of his selection.

²⁷He let his signs be seen among the people, and his wonders in the land of Ham.

²⁸He sent black night and made it dark; and they did not go against his word.

²⁹At his word their waters were turned to blood, and he sent death on all their fish.

³⁰Their land was full of frogs, even in the rooms of the king.

³¹He gave the word, and there came the dog-fly, and insects over all the land.

³²He gave them ice for rain, and flaming fire in their land.

³³He gave their vines and their fig-trees to destruction, and the trees of their land were broken down.

³⁴At his word the locusts came, and young locusts more than might be numbered,

³⁵And put an end to all the plants of their land, taking all the fruit of the earth for food.

³⁶He put to death the first child of every family in the land, the first-fruits of their strength.

³⁷He took his people out with silver and gold: there was not one feeble person among them.

³⁸Egypt was glad when they went; for the fear of them had come down on them.

³⁹A cloud was stretched over them for a cover; and he sent fire to give light in the night.

⁴⁰At the people's request he sent birds, and gave them the bread of heaven for food.

⁴¹His hand made the rock open, and the waters came streaming out; they went down through the dry places like a river.

⁴²For he kept in mind his holy word, and Abraham, his servant.

⁴³And he took his people out with joy, the men of his selection with glad cries:

⁴⁴And gave them the lands of the nations; and they took the work of the peoples for a heritage;

⁴⁵So that they might keep his orders, and be true to his laws. Give praise to the Lord.

PSALM 106

¹Let the Lord be praised. O give praise to the Lord, for he is good: for his mercy is unchanging for ever.

²Who is able to give an account of the great acts of the Lord, or to make clear all his praise?

³Happy are they whose decisions are upright, and he who does righteousness at all times.

⁴Keep me in mind, O Lord, when you are good to your people; O let your salvation come to me;

⁵So that I may see the well-being of the people of your selection, and have a part in the joy of your nation, and take pride in your heritage.

⁶We are sinners like our fathers, we have done wrong, our acts are evil.

⁷Our fathers did not give thought to your wonders in Egypt; they did not keep in memory the great number of your mercies, but gave you cause for wrath at the sea, even at the Red Sea.

⁸But he was their saviour because of his name, so that men might see his great power.

⁹By his word the Red Sea was made dry: and he took them through the deep waters as through the waste land.

¹⁰And he took them safely out of the hands of their haters, and kept them from the attacks of those who were against them.

¹¹And the waters went over their haters; all of them came to an end.

¹²Then they had faith in his words; they gave him songs of praise.

¹³But their memory of his works was short; not waiting to be guided by him,

¹⁴They gave way to their evil desires in the waste land, and put God to the test in the dry places.

¹⁵And he gave them their request, but sent a wasting disease into their souls.

¹⁶They were full of envy against Moses among the tents, and against Aaron, the holy one of the Lord.

¹⁷The earth opening put an end to Dathan, covering up Abiram and his band.

¹⁸And a fire was lighted among their tents; the sinners were burned up by the flames.

¹⁹They made a young ox in Horeb, and gave worship to an image of gold.

²⁰And their glory was changed into the image of an ox, whose food is grass.

²¹They had no memory of God their saviour, who had done great things in Egypt;

²²Works of wonder in the land of Ham, and things of fear by the Red Sea.

²³And he was purposing to put an end to them if Moses, his special servant, had not gone up before him, between him and his people, turning back his wrath, to keep them from destruction.

²⁴They were disgusted with the good land; they had no belief in his word;

²⁵Talking against him secretly in their tents, they did not give ear to the voice of the Lord.

²⁶So he made an oath against them, to put an end to them in the waste land:

²⁷That their children might be mixed among the nations, and sent away into other lands.

²⁸And they were joined to Baal-peor, and took part in the offerings to the dead.

²⁹So they made him angry by their behaviour; and he sent disease on them.

³⁰Then Phinehas got up, and made prayer for them; and the disease went no farther.

³¹And all the generations coming after him kept the memory of his righteousness for ever.

³²They made God angry again at the waters of Meribah, so that Moses was troubled because of them;

³³For they made his spirit bitter, and he said unwise things.

³⁴They did not put an end to the peoples, as the Lord had said;

³⁵But they were joined to the nations, learning their works.

³⁶And they gave worship to images; which were a danger to them:

³⁷They even made offerings of their sons and their daughters to evil spirits,

³⁸And gave the blood of their sons and their daughters who had done no wrong, offering them to the images of Canaan; and the land was made unclean with blood.

³⁹So they became unclean through their works, going after their evil desires.

⁴⁰Then the wrath of the Lord was burning against his people, and he was angry with his heritage.

⁴¹And he gave them into the hands of the nations; and they were ruled by their haters.

⁴²By them they were crushed, and made low under their hands.

⁴³Again and again he made them free; but their hearts were turned against his purpose, and they were overcome by their sins.

⁴⁴But when their cry came to his ears, he had pity on their trouble:

⁴⁵And kept in mind his agreement with them, and in his great mercy gave them forgiveness.

⁴⁶He put pity into the hearts of those who made them prisoners.

⁴⁷Be our saviour, O Lord our God, and let us come back together from among the nations, so that we may give honour to your holy name, and have glory in your praise.

⁴⁸Praise be to the Lord God of Israel for ever and for ever; and let all the people say, So be it. Give praise to the Lord.

PSALM 107

¹O give praise to the Lord, for he is good: for his mercy is unchanging for ever.

²Let those whose cause the Lord has taken up say so, his people whom he has taken out of the hands of their haters;

³Making them come together out of all the lands, from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south.

⁴They were wandering in the waste places; they saw no way to a resting-place.

⁵Their souls became feeble for need of food and drink.

⁶Then they sent up their cry to the Lord in their sorrow, and he gave them salvation out of all their troubles;

⁷Guiding them in the right way, so that they might come into the town of their resting-place.

⁸Let men give praise to the Lord for his mercy, and for the wonders which he does for the children of men!

⁹He gives its desire to the unresting soul, so that it is full of good things.

¹⁰Those who were in the dark, in the black night, in chains of sorrow and iron;

¹¹Because they went against the words of God, and gave no thought to the laws of the Most High:

¹²So that he made their hearts weighted down with grief; they were falling, and had no helper.

¹³Then they sent up their cry to the Lord in their sorrow, and he gave them salvation out of all their troubles.

¹⁴He took them out of the dark and the black night, and all their chains were broken.

¹⁵Let men give praise to the Lord for his mercy, and for the wonders which he does for the children of men!

¹⁶The doors of brass are broken by his arm, and the bands of iron are cut in two.

¹⁷Foolish men, because of their sins, and because of their wrongdoing, are troubled;

¹⁸They are disgusted by all food, and they come near to the doors of death.

¹⁹Then they send up their cry to the Lord in their sorrow, and he gives them salvation out of all their troubles.

²⁰He sent his word and made them well, and kept them safe from the underworld.

²¹Let men give praise to the Lord for his mercy, and for the wonders which he does for the children of men!

²²Let them make offerings of praise, giving news of his works with cries of joy.

²³Those who go down to the sea in ships, who do business in the great waters;

²⁴They see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep.

²⁵For at his word comes up the storm-wind, lifting high the waves.

²⁶The sailors go up to heaven, and down into the deep; their souls are wasted because of their trouble.

²⁷They are turned here and there, rolling like a man who is full of wine; and all their wisdom comes to nothing.

²⁸Then they send up their cry to the Lord in their sorrow, and he gives them salvation out of all their troubles.

²⁹He makes the storm into a calm, so that the waves are at peace.

³⁰Then they are glad, because the sea is quiet, and he takes them to the harbour of their desire.

³¹Let men give praise to the Lord for his mercy, and for the wonders which he does for the children of men!

³²Let them give glory to him in the meeting of the people, and praise among the chiefs.

³³He makes rivers into waste places, and springs of water into a dry land;

³⁴He makes a fertile country into a salt waste, because of the sins of those who are living there.

³⁵He makes a waste land into a place of water, and a dry land into water-springs.

³⁶And there he gives the poor a resting-place, so that they may make themselves a town;

³⁷And put seed in the fields and make vine-gardens, to give them fruit.

³⁸He gives them his blessing so that they are increased greatly, and their cattle do not become less.

³⁹And when they are made low, and crushed by trouble and sorrow,

⁴⁰He puts an end to the pride of kings, and sends them wandering in the waste lands where there is no way.

⁴¹But he puts the poor man on high from his troubles, and gives him families like a flock.

⁴²The upright see it and are glad: the mouth of the sinner is stopped.

⁴³Let the wise give thought to these things, and see the mercies of the Lord.

PSALM 108

¹O God, my heart is fixed; I will make songs and melody, even with my glory.

²Give out your sounds, O corded instruments: the dawn will be awaking with my song.

³I will give you praise, O Lord, among the peoples; I will make melody to you among the nations.

⁴For your mercy is higher than the heavens: and your unchanging faith than the clouds.

⁵Be lifted up, O God, higher than the heavens; let your glory be over all the earth.

⁶Let your right hand be stretched out for salvation, and give me an answer, so that your loved ones may be safe from danger.

⁷This is the word of the holy God: I will be glad; I will make Shechem a heritage, measuring out the valley of Succoth.

⁸Gilead is mine; Manasseh is mine; Ephraim is the strength of my head; Judah is my law-giver;

⁹Moab is my washpot; on Edom is the resting-place of my shoe; over Philistia will I send out a glad cry.

¹⁰Who will take me into the strong town? who will be my guide into Edom?

¹¹Have you not sent us away from you, O God? and you go not out with our armies.

¹²Give us help in our trouble; for there is no help in man.

¹³With God we will do great things; for by him will our haters be crushed underfoot.

PSALM 109

¹God of my praise, let my prayer be answered;

²For the mouth of the sinner is open against me in deceit: his tongue has said false things against me.

³Words of hate are round about me; they have made war against me without cause.

⁴For my love they give me back hate; but I have given myself to prayer.

⁵They have put on me evil for good; hate in exchange for my love.

⁶Put an evil man over him; and let one be placed at his right hand to say evil of him.

⁷When he is judged, let the decision go against him; and may his prayer become sin.

⁸Let his life be short; let another take his position of authority.

⁹Let his children have no father, and his wife be made a widow.

¹⁰Let his children be wanderers, looking to others for their food; let them be sent away from the company of their friends.

¹¹Let his creditor take all his goods; and let others have the profit of his work.

¹²Let no man have pity on him, or give help to his children when he is dead.

¹³Let his seed be cut off; in the coming generation let their name go out of memory.

¹⁴Let the Lord keep in mind the wrongdoing of his fathers; and may the sin of his mother have no forgiveness.

¹⁵Let them be ever before the eyes of the Lord, so that the memory of them may be cut off from the earth.

¹⁶Because he had no mercy, but was cruel to the low and the poor, designing the death of the broken-hearted.

¹⁷As he took pleasure in cursing, so let it come on him; and as he had no delight in blessing, let it be far from him.

¹⁸He put on cursing like a robe, and it has come into his body like water, and into his bones like oil.

¹⁹Let it be to him as a robe which he puts on, let it be like a band which is round him at all times.

²⁰Let this be the reward given to my haters from the Lord, and to those who say evil of my soul.

²¹But, O Lord God, give me your help, because of your name; take me out of danger, because your mercy is good.

²²For I am poor and in need, and my heart is wounded in me.

²³I am gone like the shade when it is stretched out: I am forced out of my place like a locust.

²⁴My knees are feeble for need of food; there is no fat on my bones.

²⁵As for me, they make sport of me; shaking their heads when they see me.

²⁶Give me help, O Lord my God; in your mercy be my saviour;

²⁷So that they may see that it is the work of your hand; that you, Lord, have done it.

²⁸They may give curses but you give blessing; when they come up against me, put them to shame; but let your servant be glad.

²⁹Let my haters be clothed with shame, covering themselves with shame as with a robe.

³⁰I will give the Lord great praise with my mouth; yes, I will give praise to him among all the people.

³¹For he is ever at the right hand of the poor, to take him out of the hands of those who go after his soul.

PSALM 110

¹The Lord said to my lord, Be seated at my right hand, till I put all those who are against you under your feet.

²The Lord will send out the rod of your strength from Zion; be king over your haters.

³Your people give themselves gladly in the day of your power; like the dew of the morning on the holy mountains is the army of your young men.

⁴The Lord has made an oath, and will not take it back. You are a priest for ever, after the order of Melchizedek.

⁵In the day of his wrath kings will be wounded by the Lord at your right hand.

⁶He will be judge among the nations, the valleys will be full of dead bodies; the head over a great country will be wounded by him.

⁷He will take of the stream by the way; so his head will be lifted up.

PSALM 111

¹Let the Lord be praised. I will give praise to the Lord with all my heart, among the upright, and in the meeting of the people.

²The works of the Lord are great, searched out by all those who have delight in them.

³His work is full of honour and glory; and his righteousness is unchanging for ever.

⁴Certain for ever is the memory of his wonders: the Lord is full of pity and mercy.

⁵He has given food to his worshippers; he will keep his agreement in mind for ever.

⁶He has made clear to his people the power of his works, giving them the heritage of the nations.

⁷The works of his hands are faith and righteousness; all his laws are unchanging.

⁸They are fixed for ever and ever, they are done in faith and righteousness.

⁹He has sent salvation to his people; he has given his word for ever: holy is his name and greatly to be feared.

¹⁰The fear of the Lord is the best part of wisdom: all those who keep his laws are wise: his praise is eternal.

PSALM 112

¹Let the Lord be praised. Happy is the man who gives honour to the Lord, and has great delight in his laws.

²His seed will be strong on the earth; blessings will be on the generation of the upright.

³A store of wealth will be in his house, and his righteousness will be for ever.

⁴For the upright there is a light shining in the dark; he is full of grace and pity.

⁵All is well for the man who is kind and gives freely to others; he will make good his cause when he is judged.

⁶He will not ever be moved; the memory of the upright will be living for ever.

⁷He will have no fear of evil news; his heart is fixed, for his hope is in the Lord.

⁸His heart is resting safely, he will have no fear, till he sees trouble come on his haters.

⁹He has given with open hands to the poor; his righteousness is for ever; his horn will be lifted up with honour.

¹⁰The sinner will see it with grief; he will be wasted away with envy; the desire of the evil-doers will come to nothing.

PSALM 113

¹Let the Lord be praised. O you servants of the Lord, give praise to the name of the Lord.

²Let blessing be on the name of the Lord, from this time and for ever.

³From the coming up of the sun to its going down, the Lord's name is to be praised.

⁴The Lord is high over all nations, and his glory is higher than the heavens.

⁵Who is like the Lord our God, who is seated on high,

⁶Looking down on the heavens, and on the earth?

⁷He takes the poor man out of the dust, lifting him up from his low position;

⁸To give him a place among the rulers, even with the rulers of his people.

⁹He gives the unfertile woman a family, making her a happy mother of children. Give praise to the Lord.

PSALM 114

¹When Israel came out of Egypt, the children of Jacob from a people whose language was strange to them;

²Judah became his holy place, and Israel his kingdom.

³The sea saw it, and went in flight; Jordan was turned back.

⁴The mountains were jumping like goats, and the little hills like lambs.

⁵What was wrong with you, O sea, that you went in flight? O Jordan, that you were turned back?

⁶You mountains, why were you jumping like goats, and you little hills like lambs?

⁷Be troubled, O earth, before the Lord, before the God of Jacob;

⁸Who made the rock into a water-spring, and the hard stone into a fountain.

PSALM 115

¹Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name let glory be given, because of your mercy and your unchanging faith.

²Why may the nations say, Where is now their God?

³But our God is in heaven: he has done whatever was pleasing to him.

⁴Their images are silver and gold, the work of men's hands.

⁵They have mouths, but no voice; they have eyes, but they see not;

⁶They have ears, but no hearing; they have noses, but no sense of smell;

⁷They have hands without feeling, and feet without power of walking; and no sound comes from their throat.

⁸Those who make them are like them; and so is everyone who puts his faith in them.

⁹O Israel, have faith in the Lord: he is their help and their breastplate.

¹⁰O house of Aaron, have faith in the Lord: he is their help and their breastplate.

¹¹You worshippers of the Lord, have faith in the Lord: he is their help and their breastplate.

¹²The Lord has kept us in mind and will give us his blessing; he will send blessings on the house of Israel and on the house of Aaron.

¹³He will send blessings on the worshippers of the Lord, on the small and on the great.

¹⁴May the Lord give you and your children still greater increase.

¹⁵May you have the blessing of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.

¹⁶The heavens are the Lord's; but the earth he has given to the children of men.

¹⁷The dead do not give praise to the Lord; or those who go down to the underworld.

¹⁸But we will give praise to the Lord now and for ever. Praise be to the Lord.

PSALM 116

¹I have given my love to the Lord, because he has given ear to the voice of my cry and my prayer.

²He has let my request come before him, and I will make my prayer to him all my days.

³The nets of death were round me, and the pains of the underworld had me in their grip; I was full of trouble and sorrow.

⁴Then I made my prayer to the Lord, saying, O Lord, take my soul out of trouble.

⁵The Lord is full of grace and righteousness; truly, he is a God of mercy.

⁶The Lord keeps the simple; I was made low, and he was my saviour.

⁷Come back to your rest, O my soul; for the Lord has given you your reward.

⁸You have taken my soul from the power of death, keeping my eyes from weeping, and my feet from falling.

⁹I will go before the Lord in the land of the living.

¹⁰I still had faith, though I said, I am in great trouble;

¹¹Though I said in my fear, All men are false.

¹²What may I give to the Lord for all the good things which he has done for me?

¹³I will take the cup of salvation, and give praise to the name of the Lord.

¹⁴I will make the offering of my oath to the Lord, even before all his people.

¹⁵Dear in the eyes of the Lord is the death of his saints.

¹⁶O Lord, truly I am your servant; I am your servant, the son of her who is your servant; by you have my cords been broken.

¹⁷I will give an offering of praise to you, and make my prayer in the name of the Lord.

¹⁸I will make the offerings of my oath, even before all his people;

¹⁹In the Lord's house, even in Jerusalem. Praise be to the Lord.

PSALM 117

¹Let all the nations give praise to the Lord: let all the people give him praise.

²For great is his mercy to us, and his faith is unchanging for ever. Praise be to the Lord.

PSALM 118

¹O give praise to the Lord, for he is good: for his mercy is unchanging for ever.

²Let Israel now say, that his mercy is unchanging for ever.

³Let the house of Aaron now say, that his mercy is unchanging for ever.

⁴Let all worshippers of the Lord now say, that his mercy is unchanging for ever.

⁵I made my prayer to the Lord in my trouble: and the Lord gave me an answer, and put me in a wide place.

⁶The Lord is on my side; I will have no fear: what is man able to do to me?

⁷The Lord is my great helper: I will see my desire against my haters.

⁸It is better to have faith in the Lord than to put one's hope in man.

⁹It is better to have faith in the Lord than to put one's hope in rulers.

¹⁰All the nations have come round me; but in the name of the Lord I will have them cut down.

¹¹They are round me, yes, they are all about me; but in the name of the Lord I will have them cut down.

¹²They are round me like bees; but they are put out like a fire among thorns; for in the name of the Lord I will have them cut down.

¹³I have been hard pushed by you, so that I might have a fall: but the Lord was my helper.

¹⁴The Lord is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation.

¹⁵The sound of joy and salvation is in the tents of the upright; the right hand of the Lord does works of power.

¹⁶The right hand of the Lord is lifted up; the right hand of the Lord does works of power.

¹⁷Life and not death will be my part, and I will give out the story of the works of the Lord.

¹⁸The hand of Jah has been hard on me; but he has not given me up to death.

¹⁹Let the doors of righteousness be open to me; I will go in and give praise to the Lord.

²⁰This is the door of the Lord's house; the workers of righteousness will go in through it.

²¹I will give you praise, for you have given me an answer, and have become my salvation.

²²The stone which the builders put on one side has become the chief stone of the building.

²³This is the Lord's doing; it is a wonder in our eyes.

²⁴This is the day which the Lord has made; we will be full of joy and delight in it.

²⁵Send salvation now, O Lord; Lord, send us your blessing.

²⁶A blessing be on him who comes in the name of the Lord; we give you blessing from the house of the Lord.

²⁷The Lord is God, and he has given us light; let the holy dance be ordered with branches, even up to the horns of the altar.

²⁸You are my God, and I will give you praise; my God, and I will give honour to your name.

²⁹O give praise to the Lord, for he is good: for his mercy is unchanging for ever.

PSALM 119

¹Happy are they who are without sin in their ways, walking in the law of the Lord.

²Happy are they who keep his unchanging word, searching after him with all their heart.

³They do no evil; they go in his ways.

⁴You have put your orders into our hearts, so that we might keep them with care.

⁵If only my ways were ordered so that I might keep your rules!

⁶Then I would not be put to shame, as long as I have respect for all your teaching.

⁷I will give you praise with an upright heart in learning your right decisions.

⁸I will keep your rules: O give me not up completely.

⁹How may a young man make his way clean? by guiding it after your word.

¹⁰I have made search for you with all my heart: O let me not go wandering far from your teaching.

¹¹I have kept your sayings secretly in my heart, so that I might do no sin against you.

¹²Praise be to you, O Lord: give me knowledge of your rules.

¹³With my lips have I made clear all the decisions of your mouth.

¹⁴I have taken as much delight in the way of your unchanging word, as in all wealth.

¹⁵I will give thought to your orders, and have respect for your ways.

¹⁶I will have delight in your rules; I will not let your word go out of my mind.

¹⁷Give me, your servant, the reward of life, so that I may keep your word;

¹⁸Let my eyes be open to see the wonders of your law.

¹⁹I am living in a strange land: do not let your teachings be kept secret from me.

²⁰My soul is broken with desire for your decisions at all times.

²¹Your hand has been against the men of pride, a curse is on those who go wandering out of your way.

²²Take away from me shame and bitter words; for I have kept your unchanging word in my heart.

²³Rulers make evil designs against me; but your servant gives thought to your rules.

²⁴Your unchanging word is my delight, and the guide of my footsteps.

²⁵My soul is joined to the dust: O give me life, in keeping with your word.

²⁶I put the record of my ways before you, and you gave me an answer: O give me knowledge of your rules.

²⁷Make the way of your orders clear to me; then my thoughts will be ever on your wonders.

²⁸My soul is wasted with sorrow; give me strength again in keeping with your word

²⁹Take from me every false way; and in mercy give me your law.

³⁰I have taken the way of faith: I have kept your decisions before me.

³¹I have been true to your unchanging word; O Lord, do not put me to shame.

³²I will go quickly in the way of your teaching, because you have given me a free heart.

³³O Lord, let me see the way of your rules, and I will keep it to the end.

³⁴Give me wisdom, so that I may keep your law; going after it with all my heart.

³⁵Make me go in the way of your teachings; for they are my delight.

³⁶Let my heart be turned to your unchanging word, and not to evil desire.

³⁷Let my eyes be turned away from what is false; give me life in your ways.

³⁸Give effect to your word to your servant, in whose heart is the fear of you.

³⁹Take away the shame which is my fear; for your decisions are good.

⁴⁰See how great is my desire for your orders: give me life in your righteousness.

⁴¹Let your mercies come to me, O Lord, even your salvation, as you have said.

⁴²So that I may have an answer for the man who would put me to shame; for I have faith in your word.

⁴³Take not your true word quite out of my mouth; for I have put my hope in your decisions.

⁴⁴So that I may keep your law for ever and ever;

⁴⁵So that my way may be in a wide place: because my search has been for your orders.

⁴⁶So that I may give knowledge of your unchanging word before kings, and not be put to shame.

⁴⁷And so that I may take delight in your teachings, to which I have given my love.

⁴⁸And so that my hands may be stretched out to you; and I will give thought to your rules.

⁴⁹Keep in mind your word to your servant, for on it has my hope been fixed.

⁵⁰This is my comfort in my trouble; that your sayings have given me life.

⁵¹The men of pride have made great sport of me; but I have not been turned from your law.

⁵²I have kept the memory of your decisions from times past, O Lord; and they have been my comfort.

⁵³I am burning with wrath, because of the sinners who have given up your law.

⁵⁴Your rules have been melodies to me, while I have been living in strange lands.

⁵⁵I have given thought to your name in the night, O Lord, and have kept your law.

⁵⁶This has been true of me, that I have kept your orders in my heart.

⁵⁷The Lord is my heritage: I have said that I would be ruled by your words.

⁵⁸I have given my mind to do your pleasure with all my heart; have mercy on me, as you have said.

⁵⁹I gave thought to my steps, and my feet were turned into the way of your unchanging word.

⁶⁰I was quick to do your orders, and let no time be wasted.

⁶¹The cords of evil-doers are round me; but I have kept in mind your law.

⁶²In the middle of the night I will get up to give you praise, because of all your right decisions.

⁶³I keep company with all your worshippers, and those who have your orders in their memory.

⁶⁴The earth, O Lord, is full of your mercy: give me knowledge of your rules.

⁶⁵You have done good to your servant, O Lord, in keeping with your word.

⁶⁶Give me knowledge and good sense; for I have put my faith in your teachings.

⁶⁷Before I was in trouble I went out of the way; but now I keep your word.

⁶⁸You are good, and your works are good; give me knowledge of your rules.

⁶⁹The men of pride have said false things about me; but I will keep your orders in my heart.

⁷⁰Their hearts are shut up with fat; but my delight is in your law.

⁷¹It is good for me to have been through trouble; so that I might come to the knowledge of your rules.

⁷²The law of your mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver.

⁷³Your hands have made me, and given me form: give me wisdom, so that I may have knowledge of your teaching.

⁷⁴Your worshippers will see me and be glad; because my hope has been in your word.

⁷⁵I have seen, O Lord, that your decisions are right, and that in unchanging faith you have sent trouble on me.

⁷⁶Let your mercy now be my comfort, as you have said to your servant.

⁷⁷Let your gentle mercies come to me, so that I may have life; for your law is my delight.

⁷⁸Let the men of pride be shamed; because they have falsely given decision against me; but I will give thought to your orders.

⁷⁹Let your worshippers be turned to me, and those who have knowledge of your words.

⁸⁰Let all my heart be given to your orders, so that I may not be put to shame.

⁸¹My soul is wasted with desire for your salvation: but I have hope in your word.

⁸²My eyes are full of weariness with searching for your word, saying, When will you give me comfort?

⁸³For I have become like a wine-skin black with smoke; but I still keep the memory of your rules.

⁸⁴How short is the life of your servant! when will you give your decision against those who are attacking me?

⁸⁵The men of pride, who are turned away from your law, have put nets for me.

⁸⁶All your teachings are certain; they go after me with evil design; give me your help.

⁸⁷They had almost put an end to me on earth; but I did not give up your orders.

⁸⁸Give me life in your mercy; so that I may be ruled by the unchanging word of your mouth.

⁸⁹For ever, O Lord, your word is fixed in heaven.

⁹⁰Your faith is unchanging from generation to generation: you have put the earth in its place, and it is not moved.

⁹¹They are ruled this day by your decisions; for all things are your servants.

⁹²If your law had not been my delight, my troubles would have put an end to me.

⁹³I will ever keep your orders in mind; for in them I have life.

⁹⁴I am yours, O be my saviour; for my desire has been for your rules.

⁹⁵The sinners have been waiting for me to give me up to destruction; but I will give all my mind to your unchanging ward.

⁹⁶I have seen that nothing on earth is complete; but your teaching is very wide.

⁹⁷O what love I have for your law! I give thought to it all the day.

⁹⁸Your teaching has made me wiser than my haters: for it is mine for ever.

⁹⁹I have more knowledge than all my teachers, because I give thought to your unchanging word.

¹⁰⁰I have more wisdom than the old, because I have kept your orders.

¹⁰¹I have kept back my feet from all evil ways, so that I might be true to your word.

¹⁰²My heart has not been turned away from your decisions; for you have been my teacher.

¹⁰³How sweet are your sayings to my taste! truly, they are sweeter than honey in my mouth!

¹⁰⁴Through your orders I get wisdom; for this reason I am a hater of every false way.

¹⁰⁵Your word is a light for my feet, ever shining on my way.

¹⁰⁶I have made an oath and kept it, to be guided by your upright decisions.

¹⁰⁷I am greatly troubled, O Lord, give me life in keeping with your word.

¹⁰⁸Take, O Lord, the free offerings of my mouth, and give me knowledge of your decisions.

¹⁰⁹My soul is ever in danger; but I still keep the memory of your law.

¹¹⁰Sinners have put a net to take me; but I was true to your orders.

¹¹¹I have taken your unchanging word as an eternal heritage; for it is the joy of my heart.

¹¹²My heart is ever ready to keep your rules, even to the end.

¹¹³I am a hater of men of doubting mind; but I am a lover of your law.

¹¹⁴You are my secret place and my breastplate against danger; my hope is in your word.

¹¹⁵Go far from me, you evil-doers; so that I may keep the teachings of my God.

¹¹⁶Be my support as you have said, and give me life; let not my hope be turned to shame.

¹¹⁷Let me not be moved, and I will be safe, and ever take delight in your rules.

¹¹⁸You have overcome all those who are wandering from your rules; for all their thoughts are false.

¹¹⁹All the sinners of the earth are like waste metal in your eyes; and for this cause I give my love to your unchanging word.

¹²⁰My flesh is moved for fear of you; I give honour to your decisions.

¹²¹I have done what is good and right: you will not give me into the hands of those who are working against me.

¹²²Take your servant's interests into your keeping; let me not be crushed by the men of pride.

¹²³My eyes are wasted with desire for your salvation, and for the word of your righteousness.

¹²⁴Be good to your servant in your mercy, and give me teaching in your rules.

¹²⁵I am your servant; give me wisdom, so that I may have knowledge of your unchanging word.

¹²⁶It is time, O Lord, for you to let your work be seen; for they have made your law without effect.

¹²⁷For this reason I have greater love far your teachings than for gold, even for shining gold.

¹²⁸Because of it I keep straight in all things by your orders; and I am a hater of every false way.

¹²⁹Your unchanging word is full of wonder; for this reason my soul keeps it.

¹³⁰The opening of your words gives light; it gives good sense to the simple.

¹³¹My mouth was open wide, waiting with great desire for your teachings.

¹³²Let your eyes be turned to me, and have mercy on me, as it is right for you to do to those who are lovers of your name.

¹³³Let my steps be guided by your word; and let not sin have control over me.

¹³⁴Make me free from the cruel rule of man; then I will keep your orders.

¹³⁵Let your servant see the shining of your face; give me knowledge of your rules.

¹³⁶Rivers of water are flowing from my eyes, because men do not keep your law.

¹³⁷O Lord, great is your righteousness, and upright are your decisions.

¹³⁸You have given your unchanging word in righteousness, and it is for ever.

¹³⁹My passion has overcome me; because my haters are turned away from your words.

¹⁴⁰Your word is of tested value; and it is dear to your servant.

¹⁴¹I am small and of no account; but I keep your orders in mind.

¹⁴²Your righteousness is an unchanging righteousness, and your law is certain.

¹⁴³Pain and trouble have overcome me: but your teachings are my delight.

¹⁴⁴The righteousness of your unchanging word is eternal; give me wisdom so that I may have life.

¹⁴⁵I have made my prayer with all my heart; give answer to me, O Lord: I will keep your rules.

¹⁴⁶My cry has gone up to you; take me out of trouble, and I will be guided by your unchanging word.

¹⁴⁷Before the sun is up, my cry for help comes to your ear; my hope is in your words.

¹⁴⁸In the night watches I am awake, so that I may give thought to your saying.

¹⁴⁹Let my voice come to you, in your mercy; O Lord, by your decisions give me life.

¹⁵⁰Those who have evil designs against me come near; they are far from your law.

¹⁵¹You are near, O Lord; and all your teachings are true.

¹⁵²I have long had knowledge that your unchanging word is for ever.

¹⁵³O see my trouble, and be my saviour; for I keep your law in my mind,

¹⁵⁴Undertake my cause, and come to my help, give me life, as you have said.

¹⁵⁵Salvation is far from evil-doers; for they have made no search for your rules.

¹⁵⁶Great is the number of your mercies, O Lord; give me life in keeping with your decisions.

¹⁵⁷Great is the number of those who are against me; but I have not been turned away from your unchanging word.

¹⁵⁸I saw with hate those who were untrue to you; for they did not keep your saying.

¹⁵⁹See how great is my love for your orders: give me life, O Lord, in keeping with your mercy.

¹⁶⁰Your word is true from the first; and your upright decision is unchanging for ever.

¹⁶¹Rulers have been cruel to me without cause; but I have the fear of your word in my heart.

¹⁶²I am delighted by your saying, like a man who makes discovery of great wealth.

¹⁶³I am full of hate and disgust for false words; but I am a lover of your law.

¹⁶⁴Seven times a day do I give you praise, because of your upright decisions.

¹⁶⁵Great peace have lovers of your law; they have no cause for falling.

¹⁶⁶Lord, my hope has been in your salvation; and I have kept your teachings.

¹⁶⁷My soul has kept your unchanging word; great is my love for it.

¹⁶⁸I have been ruled by your orders; for all my ways are before you.

¹⁶⁹Let my cry come before you, O Lord; give me wisdom in keeping with your word.

¹⁷⁰Let my prayer come before you; take me out of trouble, as you have said.

¹⁷¹Let my lips be flowing with praise, because you have given me knowledge of your rules.

¹⁷²Let my tongue make songs in praise of your word; for all your teachings are righteousness.

¹⁷³Let your hand be near for my help; for I have given my heart to your orders.

¹⁷⁴All my desire has been for your salvation, O Lord; and your law is my delight.

¹⁷⁵Give life to my soul so that it may give you praise; and let your decisions be my support.

¹⁷⁶I have gone out of the way like a wandering sheep; make search for your servant; for I keep your teachings ever in mind.

PSALM 120

¹In my trouble my cry went up to the Lord, and he gave me an answer.

²O Lord, be the saviour of my soul from false lips, and from the tongue of deceit.

³What punishment will he give you? what more will he do to you, you false tongue?

⁴Sharp arrows of the strong, and burning fire.

⁵Sorrow is mine because I am strange in Meshech, and living in the tents of Kedar.

⁶My soul has long been living with the haters of peace.

⁷I am for peace: but when I say so, they are for war.

PSALM 121

¹My eyes are lifted up to the hills: O where will my help come from?

²Your help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.

³May he not let your foot be moved: no need of sleep has he who keeps you.

⁴See, the eyes of Israel's keeper will not be shut in sleep.

⁵The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade on your right hand.

⁶You will not be touched by the sun in the day, or by the moon at night.

⁷The Lord will keep you safe from all evil; he will take care of your soul.

⁸The Lord will keep watch over your going out and your coming in, from this time and for ever.

PSALM 122

¹I was glad because they said to me, We will go into the house of the Lord.

²At last our feet were inside your doors, O Jerusalem.

³O Jerusalem, you are like a town which is well joined together;

⁴To which the tribes went up, even the tribes of the Lord, for a witness to Israel, to give praise to the name of the Lord.

⁵For there seats for the judges were placed, even the rulers' seats of the line of David.

⁶O make prayers for the peace of Jerusalem; may they whose love is given to you do well.

⁷May peace be inside your walls, and wealth in your noble houses.

⁸Because of my brothers and friends, I will now say, Let peace be with you.

⁹Because of the house of the Lord our God, I will be working for your good.

PSALM 123

¹To you my eyes are lifted up, even to you whose seat is in the heavens.

²See! as the eyes of servants are turned to the hands of their masters, and the eyes of a servant-girl to her owner, so our eyes are waiting for the Lord our God, till he has mercy on us.

³Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us: for all men are looking down on us.

⁴For long enough have men of pride made sport of our soul.

PSALM 124

¹If it had not been the Lord who was on our side (let Israel now say);

²If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, when men came up against us;

³They would have made a meal of us while still living, in the heat of their wrath against us:

⁴We would have been covered by the waters; the streams would have gone over our soul;

⁵Yes, the waters of pride would have gone over our soul.

⁶Praise be to the Lord, who has not let us be wounded by their teeth.

⁷Our soul has gone free like a bird out of the net of those who would take her: the net is broken, and we are free.

⁸Our help is in the name of the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.

PSALM 125

¹Those whose hope is in the Lord are like the mountain of Zion, which may not be moved, but keeps its place for ever.

²As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about his people, from this time and for ever.

³For the rod of sinners will not be resting on the heritage of the upright; so that the upright may not put out their hands to evil.

⁴Do good, O Lord, to those who are good, and to those who are upright in heart.

⁵But as for such as are turned out of the straight way, the Lord will take them away with the workers of evil. Let peace be on Israel.

PSALM 126

¹When the Lord made a change in Zion's fate, we were like men in a dream.

²Then our mouths were full of laughing, and our tongues gave a glad cry; they said among the nations, The Lord has done great things for them.

³The Lord has done great things for us; because of which we are glad.

⁴Let our fate be changed, O Lord, like the streams in the South.

⁵Those who put in seed with weeping will get in the grain with cries of joy.

⁶Though a man may go out weeping, taking his vessel of seed with him; he will come again in joy, with the corded stems of grain in his arms.

PSALM 127

¹If the Lord is not helping the builders, then the building of a house is to no purpose: if the Lord does not keep the town, the watchman keeps his watch for nothing.

²It is of no use for you to get up early, and to go late to your rest, with the bread of sorrow for your food; for the Lord gives to his loved ones in sleep.

³See, sons are a heritage from the Lord; the fruit of the body is his reward.

⁴Like arrows in the hand of a man of war, are the children of the young.

⁵Happy is the man who has a good store of them; he will not be put to shame, but his cause will be supported by them against his haters.

PSALM 128

¹Happy is the worshipper of the Lord, who is walking in his ways.

²You will have the fruit of the work of your hands: happy will you be, and all will be well for you.

³Your wife will be like a fertile vine in the inmost parts of your house: your children will be like olive plants round your table.

⁴See! this is the blessing of the worshipper of the Lord.

⁵May the Lord send you blessing out of Zion: may you see the good of Jerusalem all the days of your life.

⁶May you see your children's children. Peace be on Israel.

PSALM 129

¹Great have been my troubles from the time when I was young (let Israel now say);

²Great have been my troubles from the time when I was young, but my troubles have not overcome me.

³The ploughmen were ploughing on my back; long were the wounds they made.

⁴The Lord is true: the cords of the evil-doers are broken in two.

⁵Let all the haters of Zion be shamed and turned back.

⁶Let them be like the grass on the house-tops, which is dry before it comes to full growth.

⁷He who gets in the grain has no use for it; and they do not make bands of it for the grain-stems.

⁸And those who go by do not say, The blessing of the Lord be on you; we give you blessing in the name of the Lord.

PSALM 130

¹Out of the deep have I sent up my cry to you, O Lord.

²Lord, let my voice come before you: let your ears be awake to the voice of my prayer.

³O Jah, if you took note of every sin, who would go free?

⁴But there is forgiveness with you, so that you may be feared.

⁵I am waiting for the Lord, my soul is waiting for him, and my hope is in his word.

⁶My soul is watching for the Lord more than those who are watching for the morning; yes, more than the watchers for the morning.

⁷O Israel, have hope in the Lord; for with the Lord is mercy and full salvation.

⁸And he will make Israel free from all his sins.

PSALM 131

¹Lord, there is no pride in my heart and my eyes are not lifted up; and I have not taken part in great undertakings, or in things over-hard for me.

²See, I have made my soul calm and quiet, like a child on its mother's breast; my soul is like a child on its mother's breast.

³O Israel, have hope in the Lord, from this time and for ever.

PSALM 132

¹Lord, give thought to David, and to all his troubles;

²How he made an oath to the Lord, and gave his word to the great God of Jacob, saying,

³Truly, I will not come into my house, or go to my bed,

⁴I will not give sleep to my eyes, or rest to my eyeballs,

⁵Till I have got a place for the Lord, a resting-place for the great God of Jacob.

⁶We had news of it at Ephrathah: we came to it in the fields of the wood.

⁷Let us go into his tent; let us give worship at his feet.

⁸Come back, O Lord, to your resting-place; you and the ark of your strength.

⁹Let your priests be clothed with righteousness; and let your saints give cries of joy.

¹⁰Because of your servant David, do not give up your king.

¹¹The Lord gave a true oath to David, which he will not take back, saying, I will give your kingdom to the fruit of your body.

¹²If your children keep my word, and the teachings which I will give them, their children will be rulers of your kingdom for ever.

¹³For the Lord's heart is on Zion, desiring it for his resting-place.

¹⁴This is my rest for ever: here will I ever be; for this is my desire.

¹⁵My blessing will be on her food; and her poor will be full of bread.

¹⁶Her priests will be clothed with salvation; and her saints will give cries of joy.

¹⁷There I will make the horn of David fertile: I have made ready a light for my king.

¹⁸His haters will be clothed with shame; but I will make his crown shining.

PSALM 133

¹See how good and how pleasing it is for brothers to be living together in harmony!

²It is like oil of great price on the head, flowing down over the face, even Aaron's face: coming down to the edge of his robe;

³Like the dew of Hermon, which comes down on the mountains of Zion: for there the Lord gave orders for the blessing, even life for ever.

PSALM 134

¹Give praise to the Lord, all you servants of the Lord, who take your places in the house of the Lord by night.

²Give praise to the Lord, lifting up your hands in his holy place.

³May the Lord, who made heaven and earth, send you blessing out of Zion,

PSALM 135

¹Let the Lord be praised. O you servants of the Lord, give praise to the name of the Lord.

²You who are in the house of the Lord, and in the open spaces of the house of our God,

³Give praise to Jah, for he is good: make melody to his name, for it is pleasing.

⁴For the Lord has taken Jacob for himself, and Israel for his property.

⁵I know that the Lord is great, and that our Lord is greater than all other gods.

⁶The Lord has done whatever was pleasing to him, in heaven, and on the earth, in the seas and in all the deep waters.

⁷He makes the mists go up from the ends of the earth; he makes thunder-flames for the rain; he sends out the winds from his store-houses.

⁸He put to death the first-fruits of Egypt, of man and of beast.

⁹He sent signs and wonders among you, O Egypt, on Pharaoh, and on all his servants.

¹⁰He overcame great nations, and put strong kings to death;

¹¹Sihon, king of the Amorites, and Og, king of Bashan, and all the kingdoms of Canaan;

¹²And gave their land for a heritage, even for a heritage to Israel his people.

¹³O Lord, your name is eternal; and the memory of you will have no end.

¹⁴For the Lord will be judge of his people's cause; his feelings will be changed to his servants.

¹⁵The images of the nations are silver and gold, the work of men's hands.

¹⁶They have mouths, but no voice, they have eyes, but they do not see;

¹⁷They have ears, but no hearing; and there is no breath in their mouths.

¹⁸Those who make them are like them; and so is everyone who puts his hope in them.

¹⁹Give praise to the Lord, O children of Israel: give praise to the Lord, O sons of Aaron:

²⁰Give praise to the Lord, O sons of Levi: let all the worshippers of the Lord give him praise.

²¹Praise be to the Lord out of Zion, even to the Lord whose house is in Jerusalem, Let the Lord be praised.

PSALM 136

¹O give praise to the Lord, for he is good: for his mercy is unchanging for ever.

²O give praise to the God of gods: for his mercy is unchanging for ever.

³O give praise to the Lord of lords: for his mercy is unchanging for ever.

⁴To him who only does great wonders: for his mercy is unchanging for ever.

⁵To him who by wisdom made the heavens: for his mercy is unchanging for ever.

⁶To him by whom the earth was stretched out over the waters: for his mercy is unchanging for ever.

⁷To him who made great lights: for his mercy is unchanging for ever.

⁸The sun to have rule by day: for his mercy is unchanging for ever.

⁹The moon and the stars to have rule by night: for his mercy is unchanging for ever.

¹⁰To him who put to death the first-fruits of Egypt: for his mercy is unchanging for ever:

¹¹And took out Israel from among them: for his mercy is unchanging for ever:

¹²With a strong hand and an outstretched arm: for his mercy is unchanging for ever.

¹³To him who made a way through the Red Sea: for his mercy is unchanging for ever:

¹⁴And let Israel go through it: for his mercy is unchanging for ever:

¹⁵By him Pharaoh and his army were overturned in the Red Sea: for his mercy is unchanging for ever.

¹⁶To him who took his people through the waste land: for his mercy is unchanging for ever.

¹⁷To him who overcame great kings: for his mercy is unchanging for ever:

¹⁸And put noble kings to death: for his mercy is unchanging for ever:

¹⁹Sihon, king of the Amorites: for his mercy is unchanging for ever:

²⁰And Og, king of Bashan: for his mercy is unchanging for ever:

²¹And gave their land to his people for a heritage: for his mercy is unchanging for ever.

²²Even a heritage for his servant Israel: for his mercy is unchanging for ever.

²³Who kept us in mind when we were in trouble: for his mercy is unchanging for ever.

²⁴And has taken us out of the hands of our haters: for his mercy is unchanging for ever.

²⁵Who gives food to all flesh: for his mercy is unchanging for ever.

²⁶O give praise to the God of heaven: for his mercy is unchanging for ever.

PSALM 137

¹By the rivers of Babylon we were seated, weeping at the memory of Zion,

²Hanging our instruments of music on the trees by the waterside.

³For there those who had taken us prisoners made request for a song; and those who had taken away all we had gave us orders to be glad, saying, Give us one of the songs of Zion.

⁴How may we give the Lord's song in a strange land?

⁵If I keep not your memory, O Jerusalem, let not my right hand keep the memory of its art.

⁶If I let you go out of my thoughts, and if I do not put Jerusalem before my greatest joy, let my tongue be fixed to the roof of my mouth.

⁷O Lord, keep in mind against the children of Edom the day of Jerusalem; how they said, Let it be uncovered, uncovered even to its base.

⁸O daughter of Babylon, whose fate is destruction; happy is the man who does to you what you have done to us.

⁹Happy is the man who takes your little ones, crushing them against the rocks.

PSALM 138

¹I will give you praise with all my heart: I will make melody to you before the gods.

²I will give worship before your holy Temple, praising your name for your mercy and for your unchanging faith: for you have made your word greater than all your name.

³When my cry came to your ears you gave me an answer, and made me great with strength in my soul.

⁴All the kings of the earth will give you praise, O Lord, when the words of your mouth come to their ears.

⁵They will make songs about the ways of the Lord; for great is the glory of the Lord.

⁶Though the Lord is high, he sees those who are low; and he has knowledge from far off of those who are lifted up.

⁷Even when trouble is round me, you will give me life; your hand will be stretched out against the wrath of my haters, and your right hand will be my salvation.

⁸The Lord will make all things complete for me: O Lord, your mercy is eternal; do not give up the works of your hands.

PSALM 139

¹O Lord, you have knowledge of me, searching out all my secrets.

²You have knowledge when I am seated and when I get up, you see my thoughts from far away.

³You keep watch over my steps and my sleep, and have knowledge of all my ways.

⁴For there is not a word on my tongue which is not clear to you, O Lord.

⁵I am shut in by you on every side, and you have put your hand on me.

⁶Such knowledge is a wonder greater than my powers; it is so high that I may not come near it.

⁷Where may I go from your spirit? how may I go in flight from you?

⁸If I go up to heaven, you are there: or if I make my bed in the underworld, you are there.

⁹If I take the wings of the morning, and go to the farthest parts of the sea;

¹⁰Even there will I be guided by your hand, and your right hand will keep me.

¹¹If I say, Only let me be covered by the dark, and the light about me be night;

¹²Even the dark is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day: for dark and light are the same to you.

¹³My flesh was made by you, and my parts joined together in my mother's body.

¹⁴I will give you praise, for I am strangely and delicately formed; your works are great wonders, and of this my soul is fully conscious.

¹⁵My frame was not unseen by you when I was made secretly, and strangely formed in the lowest parts of the earth.

¹⁶Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book all my days were recorded, even those which were purposed before they had come into being.

¹⁷How dear are your thoughts to me, O God! how great is the number of them!

¹⁸If I made up their number, it would be more than the grains of sand; when I am awake, I am still with you.

¹⁹If only you would put the sinners to death, O God; go far from me, you men of blood.

²⁰For they go against you with evil designs, and your haters make sport of your name.

²¹Are not your haters hated by me, O Lord? are not those who are lifted up against you a cause of grief to me?

²²My hate for them is complete; my thoughts of them are as if they were making war on me.

²³O God, let the secrets of my heart be uncovered, and let my wandering thoughts be tested:

²⁴See if there is any way of sorrow in me, and be my guide in the eternal way.

PSALM 140

¹O Lord, take me out of the power of the evil man; keep me safe from the violent man:

²For their hearts are full of evil designs; and they are ever making ready causes of war.

³Their tongues are sharp like the tongue of a snake; the poison of snakes is under their lips. (Selah.)

⁴O Lord, take me out of the hands of sinners; keep me safe from the violent man: for they are designing my downfall.

⁵The men of pride have put secret cords for my feet; stretching nets in my way, so that they may take me with their tricks. (Selah.)

⁶I have said to the Lord, You are my God: give ear, O Lord, to the voice of my prayer.

⁷O Lord God, the strength of my salvation, you have been a cover over my head in the day of the fight.

⁸O Lord, give not the wrongdoer his desire; give him no help in his evil designs, or he may be uplifted in pride. (Selah.)

⁹As for those who come round me, let their heads be covered by the evil of their lips.

¹⁰Let burning flames come down on them: let them be put into the fire, and into deep waters, so that they may not get up again.

¹¹Let not a man of evil tongue be safe on earth: let destruction overtake the violent man with blow on blow.

¹²I am certain that the Lord will take care of the cause of the poor, and of the rights of those who are troubled.

¹³Truly, the upright will give praise to your name: the holy will have a place in your house.

PSALM 141

¹Lord, I have made my cry to you; come to me quickly; give ear to my voice, when it goes up to you.

²Let my prayer be ordered before you like a sweet smell; and let the lifting up of my hands be like the evening offering.

³O Lord, keep a watch over my mouth; keep the door of my lips.

⁴Keep my heart from desiring any evil thing, or from taking part in the sins of the evil-doers with men who do wrong: and let me have no part in their good things.

⁵Let the upright give me punishment; and let the god-fearing man put me in the right way; but I will not let the oil of sinners come on my head: when they do evil I will give myself to prayer.

⁶When destruction comes to their judges by the side of the rock, they will give ear to my words, for they are sweet.

⁷Our bones are broken up at the mouth of the underworld, as the earth is broken by the plough.

⁸But my eyes are turned to you, O Lord God: my hope is in you; let not my soul be given up to death.

⁹Keep me from the net which they have put down for me, and from the designs of the workers of evil.

¹⁰Let the sinners be taken in the nets which they themselves have put down, while I go free.

PSALM 142

¹The sound of my cry went up to the Lord; with my voice I made my prayer for grace to the Lord.

²I put all my sorrows before him; and made clear to him all my trouble.

³When my spirit is overcome, your eyes are on my goings; nets have been secretly placed in the way in which I go.

⁴Looking to my right side, I saw no man who was my friend: I had no safe place; no one had any care for my soul.

⁵I have made my cry to you, O Lord; I have said, You are my safe place, and my heritage in the land of the living.

⁶Give ear to my cry, for I am made very low: take me out of the hands of my haters, for they are stronger than I.

⁷Take my soul out of prison, so that I may give praise to your name: the upright will give praise because of me; for you have given me a full reward.

PSALM 143

¹Let my prayer come to you, O Lord; give ear to my requests for your grace; keep faith with me, and give me an answer in your righteousness;

²Let not your servant come before you to be judged; for no man living is upright in your eyes.

³The evil man has gone after my soul; my life is crushed down to the earth: he has put me in the dark, like those who have long been dead.

⁴Because of this my spirit is overcome; and my heart is full of fear.

⁵I keep in mind the early days of the past, giving thought to all your acts, even to the work of your hands.

⁶My hands are stretched out to you: my soul is turned to you, like a land in need of water. (Selah.)

⁷Be quick in answering me, O Lord, for the strength of my spirit is gone: let me see your face, so that I may not be like those who go down into the underworld.

⁸Let the story of your mercy come to me in the morning, for my hope is in you: give me knowledge of the way in which I am to go; for my soul is lifted up to you.

⁹O Lord, take me out of the hands of my haters; my soul is waiting for you.

¹⁰Give me teaching so that I may do your pleasure; for you are my God: let your good Spirit be my guide into the land of righteousness.

¹¹Give me life, O Lord, because of your name; in your righteousness take my soul out of trouble.

¹²And in your mercy put an end to my haters, and send destruction on all those who are against my soul; for I am your servant.

PSALM 144

¹Praise be to the God of my strength, teaching my hands the use of the sword, and my fingers the art of fighting:

²He is my strength, and my Rock; my high tower, and my saviour; my keeper and my hope: he gives me authority over my people.

³Lord, what is man, that you keep him in mind? or the son of man that you take him into account?

⁴Man is like a breath: his life is like a shade which is quickly gone.

⁵Come down, O Lord, from your heavens: at your touch let the mountains give out smoke.

⁶With your storm-flames send them in flight: send out your arrows for their destruction.

⁷Put out your hand from on high; make me free, take me safely out of the great waters, and out of the hands of strange men;

⁸In whose mouths are false words, and whose right hand is a right hand of deceit.

⁹I will make a new song to you, O God; I will make melody to you on an instrument of ten cords.

¹⁰It is God who gives salvation to kings; and who kept his servant David from the wounding sword.

¹¹Make me free, and take me out of the hands of strange men, in whose mouths are false words, and whose right hand is a right hand of deceit.

¹²Our sons are like tall young plants; and our daughters like the shining stones of a king's house;

¹³Our store-houses are full of all good things; and our sheep give birth to thousands and ten thousands in our fields.

¹⁴Our oxen are well weighted down; our cows give birth safely; there is no going out, and there is no cry of sorrow in our open places.

¹⁵Happy is the nation whose ways are so ordered: yes, happy is the nation whose God is the Lord.

PSALM 145

¹Let me give glory to you, O God, my King; and blessing to your name for ever and ever.

²Every day will I give you blessing, praising your name for ever and ever.

³Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; his power may never be searched out.

⁴One generation after another will give praise to your great acts, and make clear the operation of your strength.

⁵My thoughts will be of the honour and glory of your rule, and of the wonder of your works.

⁶Men will be talking of the power and fear of your acts; I will give word of your glory.

⁷Their sayings will be full of the memory of all your mercy, and they will make songs of your righteousness.

⁸The Lord is full of grace and pity; not quickly angry, but great in mercy.

⁹The Lord is good to all men; and his mercies are over all his works.

¹⁰All the works of your hands give praise to you, O Lord; and your saints give you blessing.

¹¹Their words will be of the glory of your kingdom, and their talk of your strength;

¹²So that the sons of men may have knowledge of his acts of power, and of the great glory of his kingdom.

¹³Your kingdom is an eternal kingdom, and your rule is through all generations.

¹⁴The Lord is the support of all who are crushed, and the lifter up of all who are bent down.

¹⁵The eyes of all men are waiting for you; and you give them their food in its time.

¹⁶By the opening of your hand, every living thing has its desire in full measure.

¹⁷The Lord is upright in all his ways, and kind in all his works.

¹⁸The Lord is near all those who give honour to his name; even to all who give honour to him with true hearts.

¹⁹To his worshippers, he will give their desire; their cry comes to his ears, and he gives them salvation.

²⁰The Lord will keep all his worshippers from danger; but he will send destruction on all sinners.

²¹My mouth will give praise to the Lord; let all flesh be blessing his holy name for ever and ever.

PSALM 146

¹Let the Lord be praised. Give praise to the Lord, O my soul.

²While I have breath I will give praise to the Lord: I will make melody to my God while I have my being.

³Put not your faith in rulers, or in the son of man, in whom there is no salvation.

⁴Man's breath goes out, he is turned back again to dust; in that day all his purposes come to an end.

⁵Happy is the man who has the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God:

⁶Who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all things in them; who keeps faith for ever:

⁷Who gives their rights to those who are crushed down; and gives food to those who are in need of it: the Lord makes the prisoners free;

⁸The Lord makes open the eyes of the blind; the Lord is the lifter up of those who are bent down; the Lord is a lover of the upright;

⁹The Lord takes care of those who are in a strange land; he gives help to the widow and to the child who has no father; but he sends destruction on the way of sinners.

¹⁰The Lord will be King for ever; your God, O Zion, will be King through all generations. Praise be to the Lord.

PSALM 147

¹Give praise to the Lord; for it is good to make melody to our God; praise is pleasing and beautiful.

²The Lord is building up Jerusalem; he makes all the outlaws of Israel come together.

³He makes the broken-hearted well, and puts oil on their wounds.

⁴He sees the number of the stars; he gives them all their names.

⁵Great is our Lord, and great his power; there is no limit to his wisdom.

⁶The Lord gives help to the poor in spirit; but he sends sinners down in shame.

⁷Make songs of praise to the Lord; make melody to our God with instruments of music.

⁸By his hand the heaven is covered with clouds and rain is stored up for the earth; he makes the grass tall on the mountains.

⁹He gives food to every beast, and to the young ravens in answer to their cry.

¹⁰He has no delight in the strength of a horse; he takes no pleasure in the legs of a man.

¹¹The Lord takes pleasure in his worshippers, and in those whose hope is in his mercy.

¹²Give praise to the Lord, O Jerusalem; give praise to your God, O Zion.

¹³He has made strong the iron bands of your doors; he has sent blessings on your children inside your walls.

¹⁴He gives peace in all your land, making your stores full of fat grain.

¹⁵He sends out his orders to the earth; his word goes out quickly.

¹⁶He gives snow like wool; he sends out ice-drops like dust.

¹⁷He sends down ice like raindrops: water is made hard by his cold.

¹⁸At the outgoing of his word, the ice is turned to water; when he sends out his wind, there is a flowing of waters.

¹⁹He makes his word clear to Jacob, teaching Israel his laws and his decisions.

²⁰He has not done these things for any other nation: and as for his laws, they have no knowledge of them. Let the Lord be praised.

PSALM 148

¹Give praise to the Lord. Let the Lord be praised from the heavens: give him praise in the skies.

²Give praise to him, all you his angels: give praise to him, all his armies.

³Give praise to him, you sun and moon: give praise to him, all you stars of light.

⁴Give praise to him, you highest heavens, and you waters which are over the heavens.

⁵Let them give praise to the name of the Lord: for he gave the order, and they were made.

⁶He has put them in their places for ever; he has given them their limits which may not be broken.

⁷Give praise to the Lord from the earth, you great sea-beasts, and deep places:

⁸Fire and rain of ice, snow and mists; storm-wind, doing his word:

⁹Mountains and all hills; fruit-trees and all trees of the mountains:

¹⁰Beasts and all cattle; insects and winged birds:

¹¹Kings of the earth, and all peoples; rulers and all judges of the earth:

¹²Young men and virgins; old men and children:

¹³Let them give glory to the name of the Lord: for his name only is to be praised: his kingdom is over the earth and the heaven.

¹⁴He has put on high the horn of his people, for the praise of all his saints; even the children of Israel, a people which is near to him. Let the Lord be praised.

PSALM 149

¹Let the Lord be praised. Make a new song to the Lord, let his praise be in the meeting of his saints.

²Let Israel have joy in his maker; let the children of Zion be glad in their King.

³Let them give praise to his name in the dance: let them make melody to him with instruments of brass and corded instruments of music.

⁴For the Lord has pleasure in his people: he gives the poor in spirit a crown of salvation.

⁵Let the saints have joy and glory: let them give cries of joy on their beds.

⁶Let the high praises of God be in their mouths, and a two-edged sword in their hands;

⁷To give the nations the reward of their sins, and the peoples their punishment;

⁸To put their kings in chains, and their rulers in bands of iron;

⁹To give them the punishment which is in the holy writings: this honour is given to all his saints. Praise be to the Lord.

PSALM 150

¹Let the Lord be praised. Give praise to God in his holy place: give him praise in the heaven of his power.

²Give him praise for his acts of power: give him praise in the measure of his great strength.

³Give him praise with the sound of the horn: give him praise with corded instruments of music.

⁴Give him praise with instruments of brass and in the dance: give him praise with horns and corded instruments.

⁵Give him praise with the loud brass: give him praise with the high-sounding brass.

⁶Let everything which has breath give praise to the Lord. Let the Lord be praised.

1The wise sayings of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel.

²To have knowledge of wise teaching; to be clear about the words of reason:

³To be trained in the ways of wisdom, in righteousness and judging truly and straight behaviour:

⁴To make the simple-minded sharp, and to give the young man knowledge, and serious purpose:

⁵(The wise man, hearing, will get greater learning, and the acts of the man of good sense will be wisely guided:)

⁶To get the sense of wise sayings and secrets, and of the words of the wise and their dark sayings.

⁷The fear of the Lord is the start of knowledge: but the foolish have no use for wisdom and teaching.

⁸My son, give ear to the training of your father, and do not give up the teaching of your mother:

⁹For they will be a crown of grace for your head, and chain-ornaments about your neck.

¹⁰My son, if sinners would take you out of the right way, do not go with them.

¹¹If they say, Come with us; let us make designs against the good, waiting secretly for the upright, without cause;

¹²Let us overcome them living, like the underworld, and in their strength, as those who go down to death;

¹³Goods of great price will be ours, our houses will be full of wealth;

¹⁴Take your chance with us, and we will all have one money-bag:

¹⁵My son, do not go with them; keep your feet from their ways:

¹⁶For their feet are running after evil, and they are quick to take a man's life.

¹⁷Truly, to no purpose is the net stretched out before the eyes of the bird:

¹⁸And they are secretly waiting for their blood and making ready destruction for themselves.

¹⁹Such is the fate of everyone who goes in search of profit; it takes away the life of its owners.

²⁰Wisdom is crying out in the street; her voice is loud in the open places;

²¹Her words are sounding in the meeting-places, and in the doorways of the town:

²²How long, you simple ones, will foolish things be dear to you? and pride a delight to the haters of authority? how long will the foolish go on hating knowledge?

²³Be turned again by my sharp words: see, I will send the flow of my spirit on you, and make my words clear to you.

²⁴Because your ears were shut to my voice; no one gave attention to my out-stretched hand;

²⁵You were not controlled by my guiding, and would have nothing to do with my sharp words:

²⁶So in the day of your trouble I will be laughing; I will make sport of your fear;

²⁷When your fear comes on you like a storm, and your trouble like a rushing wind; when pain and sorrow come on you.

²⁸Then I will give no answer to their cries; searching for me early, they will not see me:

²⁹For they were haters of knowledge, and did not give their hearts to the fear of the Lord:

³⁰They had no desire for my teaching, and my words of protest were as nothing to them.

³¹So the fruit of their way will be their food, and with the designs of their hearts they will be made full.

³²For the turning back of the simple from teaching will be the cause of their death, and the peace of the foolish will be their destruction.

³³But whoever gives ear to me will take his rest safely, living in peace without fear of evil.

2My son, if you will take my words to your heart, storing up my laws in your mind;

²So that your ear gives attention to wisdom, and your heart is turned to knowledge;

³Truly, if you are crying out for good sense, and your request is for knowledge;

⁴If you are looking for her as for silver, and searching for her as for stored-up wealth;

⁵Then the fear of the Lord will be clear to you, and knowledge of God will be yours.

⁶For the Lord gives wisdom; out of his mouth come knowledge and reason:

⁷He has salvation stored up for the upright, he is a breastplate to those in whom there is no evil;

⁸He keeps watch on the ways which are right, and takes care of those who have the fear of him.

⁹Then you will have knowledge of righteousness and right acting, and upright behaviour, even of every good way.

¹⁰For wisdom will come into your heart, and knowledge will be pleasing to your soul;

¹¹Wise purposes will be watching over you, and knowledge will keep you;

¹²Giving you salvation from the evil man, from those whose words are false;

¹³Who give up the way of righteousness, to go by dark roads;

¹⁴Who take pleasure in wrongdoing, and have joy in the evil designs of the sinner;

¹⁵Whose ways are not straight, and whose footsteps are turned to evil:

¹⁶To take you out of the power of the strange woman, who says smooth words with her tongue;

¹⁷Who is false to the husband of her early years, and does not keep the agreement of her God in mind:

¹⁸For her house is on the way down to death; her footsteps go down to the shades:

¹⁹Those who go to her do not come back again; their feet do not keep in the ways of life:

²⁰So that you may go in the way of good men, and keep in the footsteps of the upright.

²¹For the upright will be living in the land, and the good will have it for their heritage.

²²But sinners will be cut off from the land, and those whose acts are false will be uprooted.

3My son, keep my teaching in your memory, and my rules in your heart:

²For they will give you increase of days, years of life, and peace.

³Let not mercy and good faith go from you; let them be hanging round your neck, recorded on your heart;

⁴So you will have grace and a good name in the eyes of God and men.

⁵Put all your hope in God, not looking to your reason for support.

⁶In all your ways give ear to him, and he will make straight your footsteps.

⁷Put no high value on your wisdom: let the fear of the Lord be before you, and keep yourself from evil:

⁸This will give strength to your flesh, and new life to your bones.

⁹Give honour to the Lord with your wealth, and with the first-fruits of all your increase:

¹⁰So your store-houses will be full of grain, and your vessels overflowing with new wine.

¹¹My son, do not make your heart hard against the Lord's teaching; do not be made angry by his training:

¹²For to those who are dear to him the Lord says sharp words, and makes the son in whom he has delight undergo pain.

¹³Happy is the man who makes discovery of wisdom, and he who gets knowledge.

¹⁴For trading in it is better than trading in silver, and its profit greater than bright gold.

¹⁵She is of more value than jewels, and nothing for which you may have a desire is fair in comparison with her.

¹⁶Long life is in her right hand, and in her left are wealth and honour.

¹⁷Her ways are ways of delight, and all her goings are peace.

¹⁸She is a tree of life to all who take her in their hands, and happy is everyone who keeps her.

¹⁹The Lord by wisdom put in position the bases of the earth; by reason he put the heavens in their place.

²⁰By his knowledge the deep was parted, and dew came dropping from the skies.

²¹My son, keep good sense, and do not let wise purpose go from your eyes.

²²So they will be life for your soul, and grace for your neck.

²³Then you will go safely on your way, and your feet will have no cause for slipping.

²⁴When you take your rest you will have no fear, and on your bed sleep will be sweet to you.

²⁵Have no fear of sudden danger, or of the storm which will come on evil-doers:

²⁶For the Lord will be your hope, and will keep your foot from being taken in the net.

²⁷Do not keep back good from those who have a right to it, when it is in the power of your hand to do it.

²⁸Say not to your neighbour, Go, and come again, and tomorrow I will give; when you have it by you at the time.

²⁹Do not make evil designs against your neighbour, when he is living with you without fear.

³⁰Do not take up a cause at law against a man for nothing, if he has done you no wrong.

³¹Have no envy of the violent man, or take any of his ways as an example.

³²For the wrong-hearted man is hated by the Lord, but he is a friend to the upright.

³³The curse of the Lord is on the house of the evil-doer, but his blessing is on the tent of the upright.

³⁴He makes sport of the men of pride, but he gives grace to the gentle-hearted.

³⁵The wise will have glory for their heritage, but shame will be the reward of the foolish.

4Give ear, my sons, to the teaching of a father; give attention so that you may have knowledge:

²For I give you good teaching; do not give up the knowledge you are getting from me.

³For I was a son to my father, a gentle and an only one to my mother.

⁴And he gave me teaching, saying to me, Keep my words in your heart; keep my rules so that you may have life:

⁵Get wisdom, get true knowledge; keep it in memory, do not be turned away from the words of my mouth.

⁶Do not give her up, and she will keep you; give her your love, and she will make you safe.

⁷The first sign of wisdom is to get wisdom; go, give all you have to get true knowledge.

⁸Put her in a high place, and you will be lifted up by her; she will give you honour, when you give her your love.

⁹She will put a crown of grace on your head, giving you a head-dress of glory.

¹⁰Give ear, O my son, and let your heart be open to my sayings; and long life will be yours.

¹¹I have given you teaching in the way of wisdom, guiding your steps in the straight way.

¹²When you go, your way will not be narrow, and in running you will not have a fall.

¹³Take learning in your hands, do not let her go: keep her, for she is your life.

¹⁴Do not go in the road of sinners, or be walking in the way of evil men.

¹⁵Keep far from it, do not go near; be turned from it, and go on your way.

¹⁶For they take no rest till they have done evil; their sleep is taken away if they have not been the cause of someone's fall.

¹⁷The bread of evil-doing is their food, the wine of violent acts their drink.

¹⁸But the way of the upright is like the light of early morning, getting brighter and brighter till the full day.

¹⁹The way of sinners is dark; they see not the cause of their fall.

²⁰My son, give attention to my words; let your ear be turned to my sayings.

²¹Let them not go from your eyes; keep them deep in your heart.

²²For they are life to him who gets them, and strength to all his flesh.

²³And keep watch over your heart with all care; so you will have life.

²⁴Put away from you an evil tongue, and let false lips be far from you.

²⁵Keep your eyes on what is in front of you, looking straight before you.

²⁶Keep a watch on your behaviour; let all your ways be rightly ordered.

²⁷Let there be no turning to the right or to the left, keep your feet from evil.

5My son, give attention to my wisdom; let your ear be turned to my teaching:

²So that you may be ruled by a wise purpose, and your lips may keep knowledge.

³For honey is dropping from the lips of the strange woman, and her mouth is smoother than oil;

⁴But her end is bitter as wormwood, and sharp as a two-edged sword;

⁵Her feet go down to death, and her steps to the underworld;

⁶She never keeps her mind on the road of life; her ways are uncertain, she has no knowledge.

⁷Give ear to me then, my sons, and do not put away my words from you.

⁸Go far away from her, do not come near the door of her house;

⁹For fear that you may give your honour to others, and your wealth to strange men:

¹⁰And strange men may be full of your wealth, and the fruit of your work go to the house of others;

¹¹And you will be full of grief at the end of your life, when your flesh and your body are wasted;

¹²And you will say, How was teaching hated by me, and my heart put no value on training;

¹³I did not give attention to the voice of my teachers, my ear was not turned to those who were guiding me!

¹⁴I was in almost all evil in the company of the people.

¹⁵Let water from your store and not that of others be your drink, and running water from your fountain.

¹⁶Let not your springs be flowing in the streets, or your streams of water in the open places.

¹⁷Let them be for yourself only, not for other men with you.

¹⁸Let blessing be on your fountain; have joy in the wife of your early years.

¹⁹As a loving hind and a gentle doe, let her breasts ever give you rapture; let your passion at all times be moved by her love.

²⁰Why let yourself, my son, go out of the way with a strange woman, and take another woman in your arms?

²¹For a man's ways are before the eyes of the Lord, and he puts all his goings in the scales.

²²The evil-doer will be taken in the net of his crimes, and prisoned in the cords of his sin.

²³He will come to his end for need of teaching; he is so foolish that he will go wandering from the right way.

6My son, if you have made yourself responsible for your neighbour, or given your word for another,

²You are taken as in a net by the words of your mouth, the sayings of your lips have overcome you.

³Do this, my son, and make yourself free, because you have come into the power of your neighbour; go without waiting, and make a strong request to your neighbour.

⁴Give no sleep to your eyes, or rest to them;

⁵Make yourself free, like the roe from the hand of the archer, and the bird from him who puts a net for her.

⁶Go to the ant, you hater of work; give thought to her ways and be wise:

⁷Having no chief, overseer, or ruler,

⁸She gets her meat in the summer, storing up food at the time of the grain-cutting.

⁹How long will you be sleeping, O hater of work? when will you get up from your sleep?

¹⁰A little sleep, a little rest, a little folding of the hands in sleep:

¹¹Then loss will come on you like an outlaw, and your need like an armed man

¹²A good-for-nothing man is an evil-doer; he goes on his way causing trouble with false words;

¹³Making signs with his eyes, rubbing with his feet, and giving news with his fingers;

¹⁴His mind is ever designing evil: he lets loose violent acts.

¹⁵For this cause his downfall will be sudden; quickly he will be broken, and there will be no help for him.

¹⁶Six things are hated by the Lord; seven things are disgusting to him:

¹⁷Eyes of pride, a false tongue, hands which take life without cause;

¹⁸A heart full of evil designs, feet which are quick in running after sin;

¹⁹A false witness, breathing out untrue words, and one who lets loose violent acts among brothers.

²⁰My son, keep the rule of your father, and have in memory the teaching of your mother:

²¹Keep them ever folded in your heart, and have them hanging round your neck.

²²In your walking, it will be your guide; when you are sleeping, it will keep watch over you; when you are awake, it will have talk with you.

²³For the rule is a light, and the teaching a shining light; and the guiding words of training are the way of life.

²⁴They will keep you from the evil woman, from the smooth tongue of the strange woman.

²⁵Let not your heart's desire go after her fair body; let not her eyes take you prisoner.

²⁶For a loose woman is looking for a cake of bread, but another man's wife goes after one's very life.

²⁷May a man take fire to his breast without burning his clothing?

²⁸Or may one go on lighted coals, and his feet not be burned?

²⁹So it is with him who goes in to his neighbour's wife; he who has anything to do with her will not go free from punishment.

³⁰Men do not have a low opinion of a thief who takes food when he is in need of it:

³¹But if he is taken in the act he will have to give back seven times as much, giving up all his property which is in his house.

³²He who takes another man's wife is without all sense: he who does it is the cause of destruction to his soul.

³³Wounds will be his and loss of honour, and his shame may not be washed away.

³⁴For bitter is the wrath of an angry husband; in the day of punishment he will have no mercy.

³⁵He will not take any payment; and he will not make peace with you though your money offerings are increased.

7My son, keep my sayings, and let my rules be stored up with you.

²Keep my rules and you will have life; let my teaching be to you as the light of your eyes;

³Let them be fixed to your fingers, and recorded in your heart.

⁴Say to wisdom, You are my sister; let knowledge be named your special friend:

⁵So that they may keep you from the strange woman, even from her whose words are smooth.

⁶Looking out from my house, and watching through the window,

⁷I saw among the young men one without sense,

⁸Walking in the street near the turn of her road, going on the way to her house,

⁹At nightfall, in the evening of the day, in the black dark of the night.

¹⁰And the woman came out to him, in the dress of a loose woman, with a designing heart;

¹¹She is full of noise and uncontrolled; her feet keep not in her house.

¹²Now she is in the street, now in the open spaces, waiting at every turning of the road.

¹³So she took him by his hand, kissing him, and without a sign of shame she said to him:

¹⁴I have a feast of peace-offerings, for today my oaths have been effected.

¹⁵So I came out in the hope of meeting you, looking for you with care, and now I have you.

¹⁶My bed is covered with cushions of needlework, with coloured cloths of the cotton thread of Egypt;

¹⁷I have made my bed sweet with perfumes and spices.

¹⁸Come, let us take our pleasure in love till the morning, having joy in love's delights.

¹⁹For the master of the house is away on a long journey:

²⁰He has taken a bag of money with him; he is coming back at the full moon.

²¹With her fair words she overcame him, forcing him with her smooth lips.

²²The simple man goes after her, like an ox going to its death, like a roe pulled by a cord;

²³Like a bird falling into a net; with no thought that his life is in danger, till an arrow goes into his side.

²⁴So now, my sons, give ear to me; give attention to the sayings of my mouth;

²⁵Let not your heart be turned to her ways, do not go wandering in her footsteps.

²⁶For those wounded and made low by her are great in number; and all those who have come to their death through her are a great army.

²⁷Her house is the way to the underworld, going down to the rooms of death.

8Is not wisdom crying out, and the voice of knowledge sounding?

²At the top of the highways, at the meeting of the roads, she takes her place;

³Where the roads go into the town her cry goes out, at the doorways her voice is loud:

⁴I am crying out to you, O men; my voice comes to the sons of men.

⁵Become expert in reason, O you simple ones; you foolish ones, take training to heart.

⁶Give ear, for my words are true, and my lips are open to give out what is upright.

⁷For good faith goes out of my mouth, and false lips are disgusting to me.

⁸All the words of my mouth are righteousness; there is nothing false or twisted in them.

⁹They are all true to him whose mind is awake, and straightforward to those who get knowledge.

¹⁰Take my teaching, and not silver; get knowledge in place of the best gold.

¹¹For wisdom is better than jewels, and all things which may be desired are nothing in comparison with her.

¹²I, wisdom, have made wise behaviour my near relation; I am seen to be the special friend of wise purposes.

¹³The fear of the Lord is seen in hating evil: pride, a high opinion of oneself, the evil way, and the false tongue, are unpleasing to me.

¹⁴Wise design and good sense are mine; reason and strength are mine.

¹⁵Through me kings have their power, and rulers give right decisions.

¹⁶Through me chiefs have authority, and the noble ones are judging in righteousness.

¹⁷Those who have given me their love are loved by me, and those who make search for me with care will get me.

¹⁸Wealth and honour are in my hands, even wealth without equal and righteousness.

¹⁹My fruit is better than gold, even than the best gold; and my increase is more to be desired than silver.

²⁰I go in the road of righteousness, in the way of right judging:

²¹So that I may give my lovers wealth for their heritage, making their store-houses full.

²²The Lord made me as the start of his way, the first of his works in the past.

²³From eternal days I was given my place, from the birth of time, before the earth was.

²⁴When there was no deep I was given birth, when there were no fountains flowing with water.

²⁵Before the mountains were put in their places, before the hills was my birth:

²⁶When he had not made the earth or the fields or the dust of the world.

²⁷When he made ready the heavens I was there: when he put an arch over the face of the deep:

²⁸When he made strong the skies overhead: when the fountains of the deep were fixed:

²⁹When he put a limit to the sea, so that the waters might not go against his word: when he put in position the bases of the earth:

³⁰Then I was by his side, as a master workman: and I was his delight from day to day, playing before him at all times;

³¹Playing in his earth; and my delight was with the sons of men.

³²Give ear to me then, my sons: for happy are those who keep my ways.

³³Take my teaching and be wise; do not let it go.

³⁴Happy is the man who gives ear to me, watching at my doors day by day, keeping his place by the pillars of my house.

³⁵For whoever gets me gets life, and grace from the Lord will come to him.

³⁶But he who does evil to me, does wrong to his soul: all my haters are in love with death.

9Wisdom has made her house, putting up her seven pillars.

²She has put her fat beasts to death; her wine is mixed, her table is ready.

³She has sent out her women-servants; her voice goes out to the highest places of the town, saying,

⁴Whoever is simple, let him come in here; and to him who has no sense, she says:

⁵Come, take of my bread, and of my wine which is mixed.

⁶Give up the simple ones and have life, and go in the way of knowledge.

⁷He who gives teaching to a man of pride gets shame for himself; he who says sharp words to a sinner gets a bad name.

⁸Do not say sharp words to a man of pride, or he will have hate for you; make them clear to a wise man, and you will be dear to him.

⁹Give teaching to a wise man, and he will become wiser; give training to an upright man, and his learning will be increased.

¹⁰The fear of the Lord is the start of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One gives a wise mind

¹¹For by me your days will be increased, and the years of your life will be long.

¹²If you are wise, you are wise for yourself; if your heart is full of pride, you only will have the pain of it.

¹³The foolish woman is full of noise; she has no sense at all.

¹⁴Seated at the door of her house, in the high places of the town,

¹⁵Crying out to those who go by, going straight on their way, she says:

¹⁶Whoever is simple, let him come in here: and to him who is without sense, she says:

¹⁷Drink taken without right is sweet, and food in secret is pleasing.

¹⁸But he does not see that the dead are there, that her guests are in the deep places of the underworld.

10A wise son makes a glad father, but a foolish son is a sorrow to his mother.

²Wealth which comes from sin is of no profit, but righteousness gives salvation from death.

³The Lord will not let the upright be in need of food, but he puts far from him the desire of the evil-doers.

⁴He who is slow in his work becomes poor, but the hand of the ready worker gets in wealth.

⁵He who in summer gets together his store is a son who does wisely; but he who takes his rest when the grain is being cut is a son causing shame.

⁶Blessings are on the head of the upright, but the face of sinners will be covered with sorrow.

⁷The memory of the upright is a blessing, but the name of the evil-doer will be turned to dust.

⁸The wise-hearted man will let himself be ruled, but the man whose talk is foolish will have a fall.

⁹He whose ways are upright will go safely, but he whose ways are twisted will be made low.

¹⁰He who makes signs with his eyes is a cause of trouble, but he who makes a man see his errors is a cause of peace.

¹¹The mouth of the upright man is a fountain of life, but the mouth of the evil-doer is a bitter cup.

¹²Hate is a cause of violent acts, but all errors are covered up by love.

¹³In the lips of him who has knowledge wisdom is seen; but a rod is ready for the back of him who is without sense.

¹⁴Knowledge is stored up by the wise, but the mouth of the foolish man is a destruction which is near.

¹⁵The property of the man of wealth is his strong town: the poor man's need is his destruction.

¹⁶The work of the upright gives life: the increase of the evil-doer is a cause of sin.

¹⁷He who takes note of teaching is a way of life, but he who gives up training is a cause of error.

¹⁸Hate is covered up by the lips of the upright man, but he who lets out evil about another is foolish.

¹⁹Where there is much talk there will be no end to sin, but he who keeps his mouth shut does wisely.

²⁰The tongue of the upright man is like tested silver: the heart of the evil-doer is of little value.

²¹The lips of the upright man give food to men, but the foolish come to death for need of sense.

²²The blessing of the Lord gives wealth: hard work makes it no greater.

²³It is sport to the foolish man to do evil, but the man of good sense takes delight in wisdom.

²⁴The thing feared by the evil-doer will come to him, but the upright man will get his desire.

²⁵When the storm-wind is past, the sinner is seen no longer, but the upright man is safe for ever.

²⁶Like acid drink to the teeth and as smoke to the eyes, so is the hater of work to those who send him.

²⁷The fear of the Lord gives long life, but the years of the evil-doer will be cut short.

²⁸The hope of the upright man will give joy, but the waiting of the evil-doer will have its end in sorrow.

²⁹The way of the Lord is a strong tower for the upright man, but destruction to the workers of evil.

³⁰The upright man will never be moved, but evil-doers will not have a safe resting-place in the land.

³¹The mouth of the upright man is budding with wisdom, but the twisted tongue will be cut off.

³²The lips of the upright man have knowledge of what is pleasing, but twisted are the mouths of evil-doers.

11Scales of deceit are hated by the Lord, but a true weight is his delight.

²When pride comes, there comes shame, but wisdom is with the quiet in spirit.

³The righteousness of the upright will be their guide, but the twisted ways of the false will be their destruction.

⁴Wealth is of no profit in the day of wrath, but righteousness keeps a man safe from death.

⁵The righteousness of the good man will make his way straight, but the sin of the evil-doer will be the cause of his fall.

⁶The righteousness of the upright will be their salvation, but the false will themselves be taken in their evil designs.

⁷At the death of an upright man his hope does not come to an end, but the hope of the evil-doer comes to destruction.

⁸The upright man is taken out of trouble, and in his place comes the sinner.

⁹With his mouth the evil man sends destruction on his neighbour; but through knowledge the upright are taken out of trouble.

¹⁰When things go well for the upright man, all the town is glad; at the death of sinners, there are cries of joy.

¹¹By the blessing of the upright man the town is made great, but it is overturned by the mouth of the evil-doer.

¹²He who has a poor opinion of his neighbour has no sense, but a wise man keeps quiet.

¹³He who goes about talking of others makes secrets public, but the true-hearted man keeps things covered.

¹⁴When there is no helping suggestion the people will have a fall, but with a number of wise guides they will be safe.

¹⁵He who makes himself responsible for a strange man will undergo much loss; but the hater of such undertakings will be safe.

¹⁶A woman who is full of grace is honoured, but a woman hating righteousness is a seat of shame: those hating work will undergo loss, but the strong keep their wealth.

¹⁷The man who has mercy will be rewarded, but the cruel man is the cause of trouble to himself.

¹⁸The sinner gets the payment of deceit; but his reward is certain who puts in the seed of righteousness.

¹⁹So righteousness gives life; but he who goes after evil gets death for himself.

²⁰The uncontrolled are hated by the Lord, but those whose ways are without error are his delight

²¹Certainly the evil-doer will not go free from punishment, but the seed of the upright man will be safe.

²²Like a ring of gold in the nose of a pig, is a beautiful woman who has no sense.

²³The desire of the upright man is only for good, but wrath is waiting for the evil-doer.

²⁴A man may give freely, and still his wealth will be increased; and another may keep back more than is right, but only comes to be in need.

²⁵He who gives blessing will be made fat, but the curser will himself be cursed.

²⁶He who keeps back grain will be cursed by the people; but a blessing will be on the head of him who lets them have it for a price.

²⁷He who, with all his heart, goes after what is good is searching for grace; but he who is looking for trouble will get it.

²⁸He who puts his faith in wealth will come to nothing; but the upright man will be full of growth like the green leaf.

²⁹The troubler of his house will have the wind for his heritage, and the foolish will be servant to the wise-hearted.

³⁰The fruit of righteousness is a tree of life, but violent behaviour takes away souls.

³¹If the upright man is rewarded on earth, how much more the evil-doer and the sinner!

12A lover of training is a lover of knowledge; but a hater of teaching is like a beast.

²A good man has grace in the eyes of the Lord; but the man of evil designs gets punishment from him.

³No man will make himself safe through evil-doing; but the root of upright men will never be moved.

⁴A woman of virtue is a crown to her husband; but she whose behaviour is a cause of shame is like a wasting disease in his bones.

⁵The purposes of upright men are right, but the designs of evil-doers are deceit.

⁶The words of sinners are destruction for the upright; but the mouth of upright men is their salvation.

⁷Evil-doers are overturned and never seen again, but the house of upright men will keep its place.

⁸A man will be praised in the measure of his wisdom, but a wrong-minded man will be looked down on.

⁹He who is of low position and has a servant, is better than one who has a high opinion of himself and is in need of bread.

¹⁰An upright man has thought for the life of his beast, but the hearts of evil-doers are cruel.

¹¹He who does work on his land will not be short of bread; but he who goes after foolish men is without sense.

¹²The resting-place of the sinner will come to destruction, but the root of upright men is for ever.

¹³In the sin of the lips is a net which takes the sinner, but the upright man will come out of trouble.

¹⁴From the fruit of his mouth will a man have good food in full measure, and the work of a man's hands will be rewarded.

¹⁵The way of the foolish man seems right to him? but the wise man gives ear to suggestions.

¹⁶A foolish man lets his trouble be openly seen, but a sharp man keeps shame secret.

¹⁷The breathing out of true words gives knowledge of righteousness; but a false witness gives out deceit.

¹⁸There are some whose uncontrolled talk is like the wounds of a sword, but the tongue of the wise makes one well again.

¹⁹True lips are certain for ever, but a false tongue is only for a minute.

²⁰Deceit is in the heart of those whose designs are evil, but for those purposing peace there is joy.

²¹No trouble will come to upright men, but sinners will be full of evil.

²²False lips are hated by the Lord, but those whose acts are true are his delight.

²³A sharp man keeps back his knowledge; but the heart of foolish men makes clear their foolish thoughts.

²⁴The hand of the ready worker will have authority, but he who is slow in his work will be put to forced work.

²⁵Care in the heart of a man makes it weighted down, but a good word makes it glad.

²⁶The upright man is a guide to his neighbour, but the way of evil-doers is a cause of error to them.

²⁷He who is slow in his work does not go in search of food; but the ready worker gets much wealth.

²⁸In the road of righteousness is life, but the way of the evil-doer goes to death.

13A wise son is a lover of teaching, but the ears of the haters of authority are shut to sharp words.

²A man will get good from the fruit of his lips, but the desire of the false is for violent acts.

³He who keeps a watch on his mouth keeps his life; but he whose lips are open wide will have destruction.

⁴The hater of work does not get his desires, but the soul of the hard workers will be made fat.

⁵The upright man is a hater of false words: the evil-doer gets a bad name and is put to shame.

⁶Righteousness keeps safe him whose way is without error, but evil-doers are overturned by sin.

⁷A man may be acting as if he had wealth, but have nothing; another may seem poor, but have great wealth.

⁸A man will give his wealth in exchange for his life; but the poor will not give ear to sharp words.

⁹There is a glad dawn for the upright man, but the light of the sinner will be put out.

¹⁰The only effect of pride is fighting; but wisdom is with the quiet in spirit.

¹¹Wealth quickly got will become less; but he who gets a store by the work of his hands will have it increased.

¹²Hope put off is a weariness to the heart; but when what is desired comes, it is a tree of life.

¹³He who makes sport of the word will come to destruction, but the respecter of the law will be rewarded.

¹⁴The teaching of the wise is a fountain of life, turning men away from the nets of death.

¹⁵Wise behaviour gets approval, but the way of the false is their destruction.

¹⁶A sharp man does everything with knowledge, but a foolish man makes clear his foolish thoughts.

¹⁷A man taking false news is a cause of trouble, but he who gives news rightly makes things well.

¹⁸Need and shame will be the fate of him who is uncontrolled by training; but he who takes note of teaching will be honoured.

¹⁹To get one's desire is sweet to the soul, but to give up evil is disgusting to the foolish.

²⁰Go with wise men and be wise: but he who keeps company with the foolish will be broken.

²¹Evil will overtake sinners, but the upright will be rewarded with good.

²²The heritage of the good man is handed down to his children's children; and the wealth of the sinner is stored up for the upright man.

²³There is much food in the ploughed land of the poor; but it is taken away by wrongdoing.

²⁴He who keeps back his rod is unkind to his son: the loving father gives punishment with care.

²⁵The upright man has food to the full measure of his desire, but there will be no food for the stomach of evil-doers.

14Wisdom is building her house, but the foolish woman is pulling it down with her hands.

²He who goes on his way in righteousness has before him the fear of the Lord; but he whose ways are twisted gives him no honour.

³In the mouth of the foolish man is a rod for his back, but the lips of the wise will keep them safe.

⁴Where there are no oxen, their food-place is clean; but much increase comes through the strength of the ox.

⁵A true witness does not say what is false, but a false witness is breathing out deceit.

⁶The hater of authority, searching for wisdom, does not get it; but knowledge comes readily to the open-minded man.

⁷Go away from the foolish man, for you will not see the lips of knowledge.

⁸The wisdom of the man of good sense makes his way clear; but the unwise behaviour of the foolish is deceit.

⁹In the tents of those hating authority there is error, but in the house of the upright man there is grace.

¹⁰No one has knowledge of a man's grief but himself; and a strange person has no part in his joy.

¹¹The house of the sinner will be overturned, but the tent of the upright man will do well.

¹²There is a way which seems straight before a man, but its end is the ways of death.

¹³Even while laughing the heart may be sad; and after joy comes sorrow.

¹⁴He whose heart is turned away will have the reward of his ways in full measure; but a good man will have the reward of his doings.

¹⁵The simple man has faith in every word, but the man of good sense gives thought to his footsteps.

¹⁶The wise man, fearing, keeps himself from evil; but the foolish man goes on in his pride, with no thought of danger.

¹⁷He who is quickly angry will do what is foolish, but the man of good sense will have quiet.

¹⁸Foolish behaviour is the heritage of the simple, but men of good sense are crowned with knowledge.

¹⁹The knees of the evil are bent before the good; and sinners go down in the dust at the doors of the upright.

²⁰The poor man is hated even by his neighbour, but the man of wealth has numbers of friends.

²¹He who has no respect for his neighbour is a sinner, but he who has pity for the poor is happy.

²²Will not the designers of evil come into error? But mercy and good faith are for the designers of good.

²³In all hard work there is profit, but talk only makes a man poor.

²⁴Their wisdom is a crown to the wise, but their foolish behaviour is round the head of the unwise.

²⁵A true witness is the saviour of lives; but he who says false things is a cause of deceit.

²⁶For him in whose heart is the fear of the Lord there is strong hope: and his children will have a safe place.

²⁷The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, by which one may be turned from the nets of death.

²⁸A king's glory is in the number of his people: and for need of people a ruler may come to destruction.

²⁹He who is slow to be angry has great good sense; but he whose spirit is over-quick gives support to what is foolish.

³⁰A quiet mind is the life of the body, but envy is a disease in the bones.

³¹He who is hard on the poor puts shame on his Maker; but he who has mercy on those who are in need gives him honour.

³²The sinner is overturned in his evil-doing, but the upright man has hope in his righteousness.

³³Wisdom has her resting-place in the mind of the wise, but she is not seen among the foolish.

³⁴By righteousness a nation is lifted up, but sin is a cause of shame to the peoples.

³⁵The king has pleasure in a servant who does wisely, but his wrath is against him who is a cause of shame.

15By a soft answer wrath is turned away, but a bitter word is a cause of angry feelings.

²Knowledge is dropping from the tongue of the wise; but from the mouth of the foolish comes a stream of foolish words.

³The eyes of the Lord are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good.

⁴A comforting tongue is a tree of life, but a twisted tongue is a crushing of the spirit.

⁵A foolish man puts no value on his father's training; but he who has respect for teaching has good sense.

⁶In the house of the upright man there is a great store of wealth; but in the profits of the sinner there is trouble.

⁷The lips of the wise keep knowledge, but the heart of the foolish man is not right.

⁸The offering of the evil-doer is disgusting to the Lord, but the prayer of the upright man is his delight.

⁹The way of the evil-doer is disgusting to the Lord, but he who goes after righteousness is dear to him.

¹⁰There is bitter punishment for him who is turned from the way; and death will be the fate of the hater of teaching.

¹¹Before the Lord are the underworld and destruction: how much more, then, the hearts of the children of men!

¹²The hater of authority has no love for teaching: he will not go to the wise.

¹³A glad heart makes a shining face, but by the sorrow of the heart the spirit is broken.

¹⁴The heart of the man of good sense goes in search of knowledge, but foolish things are the food of the unwise.

¹⁵All the days of the troubled are evil; but he whose heart is glad has an unending feast.

¹⁶Better is a little with the fear of the Lord, than great wealth together with trouble.

¹⁷Better is a simple meal where love is, than a fat ox and hate with it.

¹⁸An angry man makes men come to blows, but he who is slow to get angry puts an end to fighting.

¹⁹Thorns are round the way of the hater of work; but the road of the hard worker becomes a highway.

²⁰A wise son makes a glad father, but a foolish man has no respect for his mother.

²¹Foolish behaviour is joy to the unwise; but a man of good sense makes his way straight.

²²Where there are no wise suggestions, purposes come to nothing; but by a number of wise guides they are made certain.

²³A man has joy in the answer of his mouth: and a word at the right time, how good it is!

²⁴Acting wisely is the way of life, guiding a man away from the underworld.

²⁵The house of the man of pride will be uprooted by the Lord, but he will make safe the heritage of the widow.

²⁶Evil designs are disgusting to the Lord, but the words of the clean-hearted are pleasing.

²⁷He whose desires are fixed on profit is a cause of trouble to his family; but he who has no desire for offerings will have life.

²⁸The heart of the upright gives thought to his answer; but from the mouth of the evil-doer comes a stream of evil things.

²⁹The Lord is far from sinners, but his ear is open to the prayer of the upright.

³⁰The light of the eyes is a joy to the heart, and good news makes the bones fat.

³¹The man whose ear is open to the teaching of life will have his place among the wise.

³²He who will not be controlled by training has no respect for his soul, but he who gives ear to teaching will get wisdom.

³³The fear of the Lord is the teaching of wisdom; and a low opinion of oneself goes before honour.

16The designs of the heart are man's, but the answer of the tongue comes from the Lord.

²All a man's ways are clean to himself; but the Lord puts men's spirits into his scales.

³Put your works into the hands of the Lord, and your purposes will be made certain.

⁴The Lord has made everything for his purpose, even the sinner for the day of evil.

⁵Everyone who has pride in his heart is disgusting to the Lord: he will certainly not go free from punishment.

⁶By mercy and good faith evil-doing is taken away: and by the fear of the Lord men are turned away from evil.

⁷When a man's ways are pleasing to the Lord, he makes even his haters be at peace with him.

⁸Better is a little with righteousness, than great wealth with wrongdoing.

⁹A man may make designs for his way, but the Lord is the guide of his steps.

¹⁰Decision is in the lips of the king: his mouth will not go wrong in judging.

¹¹True measures and scales are the Lord's: all the weights of the bag are his work.

¹²Evil-doing is disgusting to kings: for the seat of the ruler is based on righteousness.

¹³Lips of righteousness are the delight of kings; and he who says what is upright is dear to him.

¹⁴The wrath of the king is like those who give news of death, but a wise man will put peace in place of it.

¹⁵In the light of the king's face there is life; and his approval is like a cloud of spring rain.

¹⁶How much better it is to get wisdom than gold! and to get knowledge is more to be desired than silver.

¹⁷The highway of the upright is to be turned away from evil: he who takes care of his way will keep his soul.

¹⁸Pride goes before destruction, and a stiff spirit before a fall.

¹⁹Better it is to have a gentle spirit with the poor, than to take part in the rewards of war with men of pride.

²⁰He who gives attention to the law of right will get good; and whoever puts his faith in the Lord is happy.

²¹The wise-hearted will be named men of good sense: and by pleasing words learning is increased.

²²Wisdom is a fountain of life to him who has it; but the punishment of the foolish is their foolish behaviour.

²³The heart of the wise man is the teacher of his mouth, and gives increased learning to his lips.

²⁴Pleasing words are like honey, sweet to the soul and new life to the bones.

²⁵There is a way which seems straight before a man, but its end is the ways of death.

²⁶The desire of the working man is working for him, for his need of food is driving him on.

²⁷A good-for-nothing man is a designer of evil, and in his lips there is a burning fire.

²⁸A man of twisted purposes is a cause of fighting everywhere: and he who says evil secretly makes trouble between friends.

²⁹A violent man puts desire of evil into his neighbour's mind, and makes him go in a way which is not good.

³⁰He whose eyes are shut is a man of twisted purposes, and he who keeps his lips shut tight makes evil come about.

³¹The grey head is a crown of glory, if it is seen in the way of righteousness.

³²He who is slow to be angry is better than a man of war, and he who has control over his spirit than he who takes a town.

³³A thing may be put to the decision of chance, but it comes about through the Lord.

17Better a bit of dry bread in peace, than a house full of feasting and violent behaviour.

²A servant who does wisely will have rule over a son causing shame, and will have his part in the heritage among brothers.

³The heating-pot is for silver and the oven-fire for gold, but the Lord is the tester of hearts.

⁴A wrongdoer gives attention to evil lips, and a man of deceit gives ear to a damaging tongue.

⁵Whoever makes sport of the poor puts shame on his Maker; and he who is glad because of trouble will not go free from punishment.

⁶Children's children are the crown of old men, and the glory of children is their fathers.

⁷Fair words are not to be looked for from a foolish man, much less are false lips in a ruler.

⁸An offering of money is like a stone of great price in the eyes of him who has it: wherever he goes, he does well.

⁹He who keeps a sin covered is looking for love; but he who keeps on talking of a thing makes division between friends.

¹⁰A word of protest goes deeper into one who has sense than a hundred blows into a foolish man.

¹¹An uncontrolled man is only looking for trouble, so a cruel servant will be sent against him.

¹²It is better to come face to face with a bear whose young ones have been taken away than with a foolish man acting foolishly.

¹³If anyone gives back evil for good, evil will never go away from his house.

¹⁴The start of fighting is like the letting out of water: so give up before it comes to blows.

¹⁵He who gives a decision for the evil-doer and he who gives a decision against the upright, are equally disgusting to the Lord.

¹⁶How will money in the hand of the foolish get him wisdom, seeing that he has no sense?

¹⁷A friend is loving at all times, and becomes a brother in times of trouble.

¹⁸A man without sense gives his hand in an agreement, and makes himself responsible before his neighbour.

¹⁹The lover of fighting is a lover of sin: he who makes high his doorway is looking for destruction.

²⁰Nothing good comes to him whose heart is fixed on evil purposes: and he who has an evil tongue will come to trouble.

²¹He who has an unwise son gets sorrow for himself, and the father of a foolish son has no joy.

²²A glad heart makes a healthy body, but a crushed spirit makes the bones dry.

²³A sinner takes an offering out of his robe, to get a decision for himself in a cause.

²⁴Wisdom is before the face of him who has sense; but the eyes of the foolish are on the ends of the earth.

²⁵A foolish son is a grief to his father, and bitter pain to her who gave him birth.

²⁶To give punishment to the upright is not good, or to give blows to the noble for their righteousness.

²⁷He who has knowledge says little: and he who has a calm spirit is a man of good sense.

²⁸Even the foolish man, when he keeps quiet, is taken to be wise: when his lips are shut he is credited with good sense.

18He who keeps himself separate for his private purpose goes against all good sense.

²A foolish man has no pleasure in good sense, but only to let what is in his heart come to light.

³When the evil-doer comes, a low opinion comes with him, and with the loss of honour comes shame.

⁴The words of a man's mouth are like deep waters: the fountain of wisdom is like a flowing stream.

⁵To have respect for the person of the evil-doer is not good, or to give a wrong decision against the upright.

⁶A foolish man's lips are a cause of fighting, and his mouth makes him open to blows.

⁷The mouth of a foolish man is his destruction, and his lips are a net for his soul.

⁸The words of one who says evil of his neighbour secretly are like sweet food, and go down into the inner parts of the stomach.

⁹He who does not give his mind to his work is brother to him who makes destruction.

¹⁰The name of the Lord is a strong tower: the upright man running into it is safe.

¹¹The property of a man of wealth is his strong town, and it is as a high wall in the thoughts of his heart.

¹²Before destruction the heart of man is full of pride, and before honour goes a gentle spirit.

¹³To give an answer before hearing is a foolish thing and a cause of shame.

¹⁴The spirit of a man will be his support when he is ill; but how may a broken spirit be lifted up?

¹⁵The heart of the man of good sense gets knowledge; the ear of the wise is searching for knowledge.

¹⁶A man's offering makes room for him, letting him come before great men.

¹⁷The man who first puts his cause before the judge seems to be in the right; but then his neighbour comes and puts his cause in its true light.

¹⁸The decision of chance puts an end to argument, parting the strong.

¹⁹A brother wounded is like a strong town, and violent acts are like a locked tower.

²⁰With the fruit of a man's mouth his stomach will be full; the produce of his lips will be his in full measure.

²¹Death and life are in the power of the tongue; and those to whom it is dear will have its fruit for their food.

²²Whoever gets a wife gets a good thing, and has the approval of the Lord.

²³The poor man makes requests for grace, but the man of wealth gives a rough answer.

²⁴There are friends who may be a man's destruction, but there is a lover who keeps nearer than a brother.

19Better is the poor man whose ways are upright, than the man of wealth whose ways are twisted.

²Further, without knowledge desire is not good; and he who is over-quick in acting goes out of the right way.

³By his foolish behaviour a man's ways are turned upside down, and his heart is bitter against the Lord.

⁴Wealth makes a great number of friends; but the poor man is parted from his friend.

⁵A false witness will not go without punishment, and the breather out of deceit will not go free.

⁶Great numbers will make attempts to get the approval of a ruler: and every man is the special friend of him who has something to give.

⁷All the brothers of the poor man are against him: how much more do his friends go far from him! ...

⁸He who gets wisdom has love for his soul: he who keeps good sense will get what is truly good.

⁹A false witness will not go without punishment, and the breather out of deceit will be cut off.

¹⁰Material comfort is not good for the foolish; much less for a servant to be put over rulers.

¹¹A man's good sense makes him slow to wrath, and the overlooking of wrongdoing is his glory.

¹²The king's wrath is like the loud cry of a lion, but his approval is like dew on the grass.

¹³A foolish son is the destruction of his father; and the bitter arguments of a wife are like drops of rain falling without end.

¹⁴House and wealth are a heritage from fathers, but a wife with good sense is from the Lord.

¹⁵Hate of work sends deep sleep on a man: and he who has no industry will go without food.

¹⁶He who keeps the law keeps his soul; but death will be the fate of him who takes no note of the word.

¹⁷He who has pity on the poor gives to the Lord, and the Lord will give him his reward.

¹⁸Give your son training while there is hope; let not your heart be purposing his death.

¹⁹A man of great wrath will have to take his punishment: for if you get him out of trouble you will have to do it again.

²⁰Let your ear be open to suggestion and take teaching, so that at the end you may be wise.

²¹A man's heart may be full of designs, but the purpose of the Lord is unchanging.

²²The ornament of a man is his mercy, and a poor man is better than one who is false.

²³The fear of the Lord gives life: and he who has it will have need of nothing; no evil will come his way.

²⁴The hater of work puts his hand deep into the basin, and will not even take it to his mouth again.

²⁵When blows overtake the man of pride, the simple will get sense; say sharp words to the wise, and knowledge will be made clear to him.

²⁶He who is violent to his father, driving away his mother, is a son causing shame and a bad name.

²⁷A son who no longer gives attention to teaching is turned away from the words of knowledge.

²⁸A good-for-nothing witness makes sport of the judge's decision: and the mouth of evil-doers sends out evil like a stream.

²⁹Rods are being made ready for the man of pride, and blows for the back of the foolish.

20Wine makes men foolish, and strong drink makes men come to blows; and whoever comes into error through these is not wise.

²The wrath of a king is like the loud cry of a lion: he who makes him angry does wrong against himself.

³It is an honour for a man to keep from fighting, but the foolish are ever at war.

⁴The hater of work will not do his ploughing because of the winter; so at the time of grain-cutting he will be requesting food and will get nothing.

⁵The purpose in the heart of a man is like deep water, but a man of good sense will get it out.

⁶Most men make no secret of their kind acts: but where is a man of good faith to be seen?

⁷An upright man goes on in his righteousness: happy are his children after him!

⁸A king on the seat of judging puts to flight all evil with his eyes.

⁹Who is able to say, I have made my heart clean, I am free from my sin?

¹⁰Unequal weights and unequal measures, they are all disgusting to the Lord.

¹¹Even a child may be judged by his doings, if his work is free from sin and if it is right.

¹²The hearing ear and the seeing eye are equally the Lord's work.

¹³Do not be a lover of sleep, or you will become poor: keep your eyes open, and you will have bread enough.

¹⁴A poor thing, a poor thing, says he who is giving money for goods: but when he has gone on his way, then he makes clear his pride in what he has got.

¹⁵There is gold and a store of corals: but the lips of knowledge are a jewel of great price.

¹⁶Take a man's clothing if he makes himself responsible for a strange man, and get an undertaking from him who gives his word for strange men.

¹⁷Bread of deceit is sweet to a man; but after, his mouth will be full of sand.

¹⁸Every purpose is put into effect by wise help: and by wise guiding make war.

¹⁹He who goes about talking of the business of others gives away secrets: so have nothing to do with him whose lips are open wide.

²⁰If anyone puts a curse on his father or his mother, his light will be put out in the blackest night.

²¹A heritage may be got quickly at first, but the end of it will not be a blessing.

²²Do not say, I will give punishment for evil: go on waiting for the Lord, and he will be your saviour.

²³Unequal weights are disgusting to the Lord, and false scales are not good.

²⁴A man's steps are of the Lord; how then may a man have knowledge of his way?

²⁵It is a danger to a man to say without thought, It is holy, and, after taking his oaths, to be questioning if it is necessary to keep them.

²⁶A wise king puts evil-doers to flight, and makes their evil-doing come back on them.

²⁷The Lord keeps watch over the spirit of man, searching all the deepest parts of the body.

²⁸Mercy and good faith keep the king safe, and the seat of his power is based on upright acts.

²⁹The glory of young men is their strength, and the honour of old men is their grey hairs.

³⁰By the wounds of the rod evil is taken away, and blows make clean the deepest parts of the body.

21The king's heart in the hands of the Lord is like the water streams, and by him it is turned in any direction at his pleasure.

²Every way of a man seems right to himself, but the Lord is the tester of hearts.

³To do what is right and true is more pleasing to the Lord than an offering.

⁴A high look and a heart of pride, *** of the evil-doer is sin.

⁵The purposes of the man of industry have their outcome only in wealth; but one who is over-quick in acting will only come to be in need.

⁶He who gets stores of wealth by a false tongue, is going after what is only breath, and searching for death.

⁷By their violent acts the evil-doers will be pulled away, because they have no desire to do what is right.

⁸Twisted is the way of him who is full of crime; but as for him whose heart is clean, his work is upright.

⁹It is better to be living in an angle of the house-top, than with a bitter-tongued woman in a wide house.

¹⁰The desire of the evil-doer is fixed on evil: he has no kind feeling for his neighbour.

¹¹When the man of pride undergoes punishment, the simple man gets wisdom; and by watching the wise he gets knowledge.

¹²The Upright One, looking on the house of the evil-doer, lets sinners be overturned to their destruction.

¹³He whose ears are stopped at the cry of the poor, will himself get no answer to his cry for help.

¹⁴By a secret offering wrath is turned away, and the heat of angry feelings by money in the folds of the robe.

¹⁵It is a joy to the good man to do right, but it is destruction to the workers of evil.

¹⁶The wanderer from the way of knowledge will have his resting-place among the shades.

¹⁷The lover of pleasure will be a poor man: the lover of wine and oil will not get wealth.

¹⁸The evil-doer will be given as a price for the life of the good man, and the worker of deceit in the place of the upright.

¹⁹It is better to be living in a waste land, than with a bitter-tongued and angry woman.

²⁰There is a store of great value in the house of the wise, but it is wasted by the foolish man.

²¹He who goes after righteousness and mercy will get life, righteousness, and honour.

²²A wise man goes up into the town of the strong ones, and overcomes its strength in which they put their faith.

²³He who keeps watch over his mouth and his tongue keeps his soul from troubles.

²⁴The man of pride, lifted up in soul, is named high-hearted; he is acting in an outburst of pride.

²⁵The desire of the hater of work is death to him, for his hands will do no work.

²⁶All the day the sinner goes after his desire: but the upright man gives freely, keeping nothing back.

²⁷The offering of evil-doers is disgusting: how much more when they give it with an evil purpose!

²⁸A false witness will be cut off, ...

²⁹The evil-doer makes his face hard, but as for the upright, he gives thought to his way.

³⁰Wisdom and knowledge and wise suggestions are of no use against the Lord.

³¹The horse is made ready for the day of war, but power to overcome is from the Lord.

22A good name is more to be desired than great wealth, and to be respected is better than silver and gold.

²The man of wealth and the poor man come face to face: the Lord is the maker of them all.

³The sharp man sees the evil and takes cover: the simple go straight on and get into trouble.

⁴The reward of a gentle spirit and the fear of the Lord is wealth and honour and life.

⁵Thorns and nets are in the way of the twisted: he who keeps watch over his soul will be far from them.

⁶If a child is trained up in the right way, even when he is old he will not be turned away from it.

⁷The man of wealth has rule over the poor, and he who gets into debt is a servant to his creditor.

⁸By planting the seed of evil a man will get in the grain of sorrow, and the rod of his wrath will be broken.

⁹He who is kind will have a blessing, for he gives of his bread to the poor.

¹⁰Send away the man of pride, and argument will go out; truly fighting and shame will come to an end.

¹¹He whose heart is clean is dear to the Lord; for the grace of his lips the king will be his friend.

¹²The eyes of the Lord keep knowledge, but by him the acts of the false man will be overturned.

¹³The hater of work says, There is a lion outside: I will be put to death in the streets.

¹⁴The mouth of strange women is a deep hole: he with whom the Lord is angry will go down into it.

¹⁵Foolish ways are deep-seated in the heart of a child, but the rod of punishment will send them far from him.

¹⁶He who is cruel to the poor for the purpose of increasing his profit, and he who gives to the man of wealth, will only come to be in need.

¹⁷Let your ear be bent down for hearing my words, and let your heart give thought to knowledge.

¹⁸For it is a delight to keep them in your heart, to have them ready on your lips.

¹⁹So that your faith may be in the Lord, I have made them clear to you this day, even to you.

²⁰Have I not put in writing for you thirty sayings, with wise suggestions and knowledge,

²¹To make you see how certain are true words, so that you may give a true answer to those who put questions to you?

²²Do not take away the property of the poor man because he is poor, or be cruel to the crushed ones when they come before the judge:

²³For the Lord will give support to their cause, and take the life of those who take their goods.

²⁴Do not be friends with a man who is given to wrath; do not go in the company of an angry man:

²⁵For fear of learning his ways and making a net ready for your soul.

²⁶Be not one of those who give their hands in an agreement, or of those who make themselves responsible for debts:

²⁷If you have nothing with which to make payment, he will take away your bed from under you.

²⁸Let not the old landmark be moved which your fathers have put in place.

²⁹Have you seen a man who is expert in his business? he will take his place before kings; his place will not be among low persons.

23When you take your seat at the feast with a ruler, give thought with care to what is before you;

²And put a knife to your throat, if you have a strong desire for food.

³Have no desire for his delicate food, for it is the bread of deceit.

⁴Take no care to get wealth; let there be an end to your desire for money.

⁵Are your eyes lifted up to it? it is gone: for wealth takes to itself wings, like an eagle in flight up to heaven.

⁶Do not take the food of him who has an evil eye, or have any desire for his delicate meat:

⁷For as the thoughts of his heart are, so is he: Take food and drink, he says to you; but his heart is not with you.

⁸The food which you have taken will come up again, and your pleasing words will be wasted.

⁹Say nothing in the hearing of a foolish man, for he will put no value on the wisdom of your words.

¹⁰Do not let the landmark of the widow be moved, and do not go into the fields of those who have no father;

¹¹For their saviour is strong, and he will take up their cause against you.

¹²Give your heart to teaching, and your ears to the words of knowledge.

¹³Do not keep back training from the child: for even if you give him blows with the rod, it will not be death to him.

¹⁴Give him blows with the rod, and keep his soul safe from the underworld.

¹⁵My son, if your heart becomes wise, I, even I, will be glad in heart;

¹⁶And my thoughts in me will be full of joy when your lips say right things.

¹⁷Have no envy of sinners in your heart, but keep in the fear of the Lord all through the day;

¹⁸For without doubt there is a future, and your hope will not be cut off.

¹⁹Give ear, my son, and be wise, guiding your heart in the right way.

²⁰Do not be among those who give themselves to wine-drinking, or among those who make themselves full with meat:

²¹For those who take delight in drink and feasting will come to be in need; and through love of sleep a man will be poorly clothed.

²²Give ear to your father whose child you are, and do not keep honour from your mother when she is old.

²³Get for yourself that which is true, and do not let it go for money; get wisdom and teaching and good sense.

²⁴The father of the upright man will be glad, and he who has a wise child will have joy because of him.

²⁵Let your father and your mother be glad, let her who gave you birth have joy.

²⁶My son, give me your heart, and let your eyes take delight in my ways.

²⁷For a loose woman is a deep hollow, and a strange woman is a narrow water-hole.

²⁸Yes, she is waiting secretly like a beast for its food, and deceit by her is increased among men.

²⁹Who says, Oh! who says, Ah! who has violent arguments, who has grief, who has wounds without cause, whose eyes are dark?

³⁰Those who are seated late over the wine: those who go looking for mixed wine.

³¹Keep your eyes from looking on the wine when it is red, when its colour is bright in the cup, when it goes smoothly down:

³²In the end, its bite is like that of a snake, its wound like the wound of a poison-snake.

³³Your eyes will see strange things, and you will say twisted things.

³⁴Yes, you will be like him who takes his rest on the sea, or on the top of a sail-support.

³⁵They have overcome me, you will say, and I have no pain; they gave me blows without my feeling them: when will I be awake from my wine? I will go after it again.

24Have no envy for evil men, or any desire to be with them:

²For the purposes of their hearts are destruction, and their lips are talking of trouble.

³The building of a house is by wisdom, and by reason it is made strong:

⁴And by knowledge its rooms are full of all dear and pleasing things.

⁵A wise man is strong; and a man of knowledge makes strength greater.

⁶For by wise guiding you will overcome in war: and in a number of wise guides there is salvation.

⁷Wisdom is outside the power of the foolish: he keeps his mouth shut in the public place.

⁸He whose purposes are bad will be named a man of evil designs.

⁹The purpose of the foolish is sin: and the hater of authority is disgusting to others.

¹⁰If you give way in the day of trouble, your strength is small.

¹¹Be the saviour of those who are given up to death, and do not keep back help from those who are slipping to destruction.

¹²If you say, See, we had no knowledge of this: does not the tester of hearts give thought to it? and he who keeps your soul, has he no knowledge of it? and will he not give to every man the reward of his work?

¹³My son, take honey, for it is good; and the flowing honey, which is sweet to your taste:

¹⁴So let your desire be for wisdom: if you have it, there will be a future, and your hope will not be cut off.

¹⁵Do not keep a secret watch, O evil-doer, against the fields of the upright man, or send destruction on his resting-place:

¹⁶For an upright man, after falling seven times, will get up again: but trouble is the downfall of the evil.

¹⁷Do not be glad at the fall of your hater, and let not your heart have joy at his downfall:

¹⁸For fear that the Lord may see it, and it may be evil in his eyes, and his wrath may be turned away from him.

¹⁹Do not be troubled because of evil-doers, or have envy of sinners:

²⁰For there will be no future for the evil man; the light of sinners will be put out.

²¹My son, go in fear of the Lord and the king: have nothing to do with those who are in high positions:

²²For their downfall will come suddenly; and who has knowledge of the destruction of those in high positions?

²³These are more sayings of the wise: To have respect for a person's position when judging is not good.

²⁴He who says to the evil-doer, You are upright, will be cursed by peoples and hated by nations.

²⁵But those who say sharp words to him will have delight, and a blessing of good will come on them.

²⁶He gives a kiss with his lips who gives a right answer.

²⁷Put your work in order outside, and make it ready in the field; and after that, see to the building of your house.

²⁸Do not be a violent witness against your neighbour, or let your lips say what is false.

²⁹Say not, I will do to him as he has done to me; I will give the man the reward of his work.

³⁰I went by the field of the hater of work, and by the vine-garden of the man without sense;

³¹And it was all full of thorns, and covered with waste plants, and its stone wall was broken down.

³²Then looking at it, I gave thought: I saw, and I got teaching from it.

³³A little sleep, a little rest, a little folding of the hands in sleep:

³⁴So loss will come on you like an outlaw, and your need like an armed man.

25These are more wise sayings of Solomon, copied out by the men of Hezekiah, king of Judah.

²It is the glory of God to keep a thing secret: but the glory of kings is to have it searched out.

³The heaven is high and the earth is deep, and the hearts of kings may not be searched out.

⁴Take away the waste from silver, and a vessel will come out for the silver-worker.

⁵Take away evil-doers from before the king, and the seat of his power will be made strong in righteousness.

⁶Do not take glory for yourself before the king, and do not put yourself in the place of the great:

⁷For it is better to have it said to you, Come up here; than for you to be put down in a lower place before the ruler.

⁸Do not be quick to go to law about what you have seen, for what will you do in the end, when your neighbour has put you to shame?

⁹Have a talk with your neighbour himself about your cause, but do not give away the secret of another:

¹⁰Or your hearer may say evil of you, and your shame will not be turned away.

¹¹A word at the right time is like apples of gold in a network of silver.

¹²Like a nose-ring of gold and an ornament of the best gold, is a wise man who says sharp words to an ear ready to give attention.

¹³As the cold of snow in the time of grain-cutting, so is a true servant to those who send him; for he gives new life to the soul of his master.

¹⁴As clouds and wind without rain, so is one who takes credit for an offering he has not given.

¹⁵A judge is moved by one who for a long time undergoes wrongs without protest, and by a soft tongue even bone is broken.

¹⁶If you have honey, take only as much as is enough for you; for fear that, being full of it, you may not be able to keep it down.

¹⁷Let not your foot be frequently in your neighbour's house, or he may get tired of you, and his feeling be turned to hate.

¹⁸One who gives false witness against his neighbour is a hammer and a sword and a sharp arrow.

¹⁹Putting one's faith in a false man in time of trouble is like a broken tooth and a shaking foot.

²⁰Like one who takes off clothing in cold weather and like acid on a wound, is he who makes melody to a sad heart.

²¹If your hater is in need of food, give him bread; and if he is in need of drink, give him water:

²²For so you will put coals of fire on his head, and the Lord will give you your reward.

²³As the north wind gives birth to rain, so is an angry face caused by a tongue saying evil secretly.

²⁴It is better to be living in an angle of the house-top, than with a bitter-tongued woman in a wide house.

²⁵As cold water to a tired soul, so is good news from a far country.

²⁶Like a troubled fountain and a dirty spring, is an upright man who has to give way before evil-doers.

²⁷It is not good to take much honey: so he who is not looking for honour will be honoured.

²⁸He whose spirit is uncontrolled is like an unwalled town which has been broken into.

26Like snow in summer and rain when the grain is being cut, so honour is not natural for the foolish.

²As the sparrow in her wandering and the swallow in her flight, so the curse does not come without a cause.

³A whip for the horse, a mouth-bit for the ass, and a rod for the back of the foolish.

⁴Do not give to the foolish man a foolish answer, or you will be like him.

⁵Give a foolish man a foolish answer, or he will seem wise to himself.

⁶He who sends news by the hand of a foolish man is cutting off his feet and drinking in damage.

⁷The legs of one who has no power of walking are hanging loose; so is a wise saying in the mouth of the foolish.

⁸Giving honour to a foolish man is like attempting to keep a stone fixed in a cord.

⁹Like a thorn which goes up into the hand of a man overcome by drink, so is a wise saying in the mouth of a foolish man.

¹⁰Like an archer wounding all who go by, is a foolish man overcome by drink.

¹¹Like a dog going back to the food which he has not been able to keep down, is the foolish man doing his foolish acts over again.

¹²Have you seen a man who seems to himself to be wise? There is more hope for the foolish than for him.

¹³The hater of work says, There is a lion in the way; a lion is in the streets.

¹⁴A door is turned on its pillar, and the hater of work on his bed.

¹⁵The hater of work puts his hand deep into the basin: lifting it again to his mouth is a weariness to him.

¹⁶The hater of work seems to himself wiser than seven men who are able to give an answer with good sense.

¹⁷He who gets mixed up in a fight which is not his business, is like one who takes a dog by the ears while it is going by.

¹⁸As one who is off his head sends about flaming sticks and arrows of death,

¹⁹So is the man who gets the better of his neighbour by deceit, and says, Am I not doing so in sport?

²⁰Without wood, the fire goes out; and where there is no secret talk, argument is ended.

²¹Like breath on coals and wood on fire, so a man given to argument gets a fight started.

²²The words of one who says evil of his neighbour secretly are like sweet food, they go down into the inner parts of the stomach.

²³Smooth lips and an evil heart are like a vessel of earth plated with silver waste.

²⁴With his lips the hater makes things seem what they are not, but deceit is stored up inside him;

²⁵When he says fair words, have no belief in him; for in his heart are seven evils:

²⁶Though his hate is covered with deceit, his sin will be seen openly before the meeting of the people.

²⁷He who makes a hole in the earth will himself go falling into it: and on him by whom a stone is rolled the stone will come back again.

²⁸A false tongue has hate for those who have clean hearts, and a smooth mouth is a cause of falling.

27Do not make a noise about tomorrow, for you are not certain what a day's outcome may be.

²Let another man give you praise, and not your mouth; one who is strange to you, and not your lips.

³A stone has great weight, and sand is crushing; but the wrath of the foolish is of greater weight than these.

⁴Wrath is cruel, and angry feeling an overflowing stream; but who does not give way before envy?

⁵Better is open protest than love kept secret.

⁶The wounds of a friend are given in good faith, but the kisses of a hater are false.

⁷The full man has no use for honey, but to the man in need of food every bitter thing is sweet.

⁸Like a bird wandering from the place of her eggs is a man wandering from his station.

⁹Oil and perfume make glad the heart, and the wise suggestion of a friend is sweet to the soul.

¹⁰Do not give up your friend and your father's friend; and do not go into your brother's house in the day of your trouble: better is a neighbour who is near than a brother far off.

¹¹My son, be wise and make my heart glad, so that I may give back an answer to him who puts me to shame.

¹²The sharp man sees the evil and takes cover: the simple go straight on and get into trouble.

¹³Take a man's clothing if he makes himself responsible for a strange man, and get an undertaking from him who gives his word for strange men.

¹⁴He who gives a blessing to his friend with a loud voice, getting up early in the morning, will have it put to his account as a curse.

¹⁵Like an unending dropping on a day of rain is a bitter-tongued woman.

¹⁶He who keeps secret the secret of his friend, will get himself a name for good faith.

¹⁷Iron makes iron sharp; so a man makes sharp his friend.

¹⁸Whoever keeps a fig-tree will have its fruit; and the servant waiting on his master will be honoured.

¹⁹Like face looking at face in water, so are the hearts of men to one another.

²⁰The underworld and Abaddon are never full, and the eyes of man have never enough.

²¹The heating-pot is for silver and the oven-fire for gold, and a man is measured by what he is praised for.

²²Even if a foolish man is crushed with a hammer in a vessel among crushed grain, still his foolish ways will not go from him.

²³Take care to have knowledge about the condition of your flocks, looking well after your herds;

²⁴For wealth is not for ever, and money does not go on for all generations.

²⁵The grass comes up and the young grass is seen, and the mountain plants are got in.

²⁶The lambs are for your clothing, and the he-goats make the value of a field:

²⁷There will be goats' milk enough for your food, and for the support of your servant-girls.

28The evil man goes running away when no man is after him, but the upright are without fear, like the lion.

²Because of the sin of the land, its troubles are increased; but by a man of wisdom and knowledge they will be put out like a fire.

³A man of wealth who is cruel to the poor is like a violent rain causing destruction of food.

⁴Those who have no respect for the law give praise to the evil-doer; but such as keep the law are against him.

⁵Evil men have no knowledge of what is right; but those who go after the Lord have knowledge of all things.

⁶Better is the poor man whose ways are upright, than the man of wealth whose ways are not straight.

⁷He who keeps the law is a wise son, but he who keeps company with feasters puts shame on his father.

⁸He who makes his wealth greater by taking interest, only gets it together for him who has pity on the poor.

⁹As for the man whose ear is turned away from hearing the law, even his prayer is disgusting.

¹⁰Anyone causing the upright to go wandering in an evil way, will himself go down into the hole he has made; but the upright will have good things for their heritage.

¹¹The man of wealth seems to himself to be wise, but the poor man who has sense has a low opinion of him.

¹²When the upright do well, there is great glory; but when evil-doers are lifted up, men do not let themselves be seen.

¹³He who keeps his sins secret will not do well; but one who is open about them, and gives them up, will get mercy.

¹⁴Happy is the man in whom is the fear of the Lord at all times; but he whose heart is hard will come into trouble.

¹⁵Like a loud-voiced lion and a wandering bear, is an evil ruler over a poor people.

¹⁶The prince who has no sense is a cruel ruler; but he who has no desire to get profit for himself will have long life.

¹⁷One who has been the cause of a man's death will go in flight to the underworld: let no man give him help.

¹⁸He whose ways are upright will be safe, but sudden will be the fall of him whose ways are twisted.

¹⁹By ploughing his land a man will have bread in full measure; but he who goes after good-for-nothing persons will be poor enough.

²⁰A man of good faith will have great blessing, but one attempting to get wealth quickly will not go free from punishment.

²¹It is not good to have respect for a man's position: for a man will do wrong for a bit of bread.

²²He who is ever desiring wealth goes running after money, and does not see that need will come on him.

²³He who says words of protest to a man will later have more approval than one who says smooth words with his tongue.

²⁴He who takes from his father or his mother what is theirs by right, and says, It is no sin; is the same as a taker of life.

²⁵He who is ever desiring profit is a cause of fighting; but he who puts his faith in the Lord will be made fat.

²⁶He whose faith is in himself is foolish; but everyone walking wisely will be kept safe.

²⁷He who gives to the poor will never be in need, but great curses will be on him who gives no attention to them.

²⁸When evil-doers are lifted up, men take cover; but when destruction overtakes them, the upright are increased.

29A man hating sharp words and making his heart hard, will suddenly be broken and will not be made well again.

²When the upright have power, the people are glad; when an evil man is ruler, grief comes on the people.

³A man who is a lover of wisdom is a joy to his father: but he who goes in the company of loose women is a waster of wealth.

⁴A king, by right rule, makes the land safe; but one full of desires makes it a waste.

⁵A man who says smooth things to his neighbour is stretching out a net for his steps.

⁶In the steps of an evil man there is a net for him, but the upright man gets away quickly and is glad.

⁷The upright man gives attention to the cause of the poor: the evil-doer gives no thought to it.

⁸Men of pride are the cause of violent acts in a town, but by wise men wrath is turned away.

⁹If a wise man goes to law with a foolish man, he may be angry or laughing, but there will be no rest.

¹⁰Men of blood are haters of the good man, and evil-doers go after his soul.

¹¹A foolish man lets out all his wrath, but a wise man keeps it back quietly.

¹²If a ruler gives attention to false words, all his servants are evil-doers.

¹³The poor man and his creditor come face to face: the Lord gives light to their eyes equally.

¹⁴The king who is a true judge in the cause of the poor, will be safe for ever on the seat of his power.

¹⁵The rod and sharp words give wisdom: but a child who is not guided is a cause of shame to his mother.

¹⁶When evil men are in power, wrongdoing is increased; but the upright will have pleasure when they see their downfall.

¹⁷Give your son training, and he will give you rest; he will give delight to your soul.

¹⁸Where there is no vision, the people are uncontrolled; but he who keeps the law will be happy.

¹⁹A servant will not be trained by words; for though the sense of the words is clear to him, he will not give attention.

²⁰Have you seen a man who is quick with his tongue? There is more hope for a foolish man than for him.

²¹If a servant is gently cared for from his early years, he will become a cause of sorrow in the end.

²²An angry man is the cause of fighting, and a man given to wrath does much wrong.

²³A man's pride will be the cause of his fall, but he who has a gentle spirit will get honour.

²⁴A man who takes part with a thief has hate for his soul; he is put under oath, but says nothing.

²⁵The fear of man is a cause of danger: but whoever puts his faith in the Lord will have a safe place on high.

²⁶The approval of a ruler is desired by great numbers: but the decision in a man's cause comes from the Lord.

²⁷An evil man is disgusting to the upright, and he who is upright is disgusting to evil-doers.

30The words of Agur, the son of Jakeh, from Massa. The man says: I am full of weariness, O God, I am full of weariness; O God, I have come to an end:

²For I am more like a beast than any man, I have no power of reasoning like a man:

³I have not got wisdom by teaching, so that I might have the knowledge of the Holy One.

⁴Who has gone up to heaven and come down? who has taken the winds in his hands, prisoning the waters in his robe? by whom have all the ends of the earth been fixed? what is his name, and what is his son's name, if you are able to say?

⁵Every word of God is tested: he is a breastplate to those who put their faith in him.

⁶Make no addition to his words, or he will make clear your error, and you will be seen to be false.

⁷I have made request to you for two things; do not keep them from me before my death:

⁸Put far from me all false and foolish things: do not give me great wealth or let me be in need, but give me only enough food:

⁹For fear that if I am full, I may be false to you and say, Who is the Lord? or if I am poor, I may become a thief, using the name of my God wrongly.

¹⁰Do not say evil of a servant to his master, or he will put a curse on you, and you will get into trouble.

¹¹There is a generation who put a curse on their father, and do not give a blessing to their mother.

¹²There is a generation who seem to themselves to be free from sin, but are not washed from their unclean ways.

¹³There is a generation, O how full of pride are their eyes! O how their brows are lifted up!

¹⁴There is a generation whose teeth are like swords, their strong teeth like knives, for the destruction of the poor from the earth, and of those who are in need from among men.

¹⁵The night-spirit has two daughters, Give, give. There are three things which are never full, even four which never say, Enough:

¹⁶The underworld, and the woman without a child; the earth which never has enough water, and the fire which never says, Enough.

¹⁷The eye which makes sport of a father, and sees no value in a mother when she is old will be rooted out by the ravens of the valley, and be food for the young eagles.

¹⁸There are three things, the wonder of which overcomes me, even four things outside my knowledge:

¹⁹The way of an eagle in the air; the way of a snake on a rock; the way of a ship in the heart of the sea; and the way of a man with a girl.

²⁰This is the way of a false wife; she takes food, and, cleaning her mouth, says, I have done no wrong.

²¹For three things the earth is moved, and there are four which it will not put up with:

²²A servant when he becomes a king; a man without sense when his wealth is increased;

²³A hated woman when she is married; and a servant-girl who takes the place of her master's wife.

²⁴There are four things which are little on the earth, but they are very wise:

²⁵The ants are a people not strong, but they put by a store of food in the summer;

²⁶The conies are only a feeble people, but they make their houses in the rocks;

²⁷The locusts have no king, but they all go out in bands;

²⁸You may take the lizard in your hands, but it is in kings' houses.

²⁹There are three things whose steps are good to see, even four whose goings are fair:

³⁰The lion, which is strongest among beasts, not turning from his way for any;

³¹The war-horse, and the he-goat, and the king when his army is with him.

³²If you have done foolishly in lifting yourself up, or if you have had evil designs, put your hand over your mouth.

³³The shaking of milk makes butter, and the twisting of the nose makes blood come: so the forcing of wrath is a cause of fighting.

31The words of Lemuel, king of Massa: the teaching which he had from his mother.

²What am I to say to you, O Lemuel, my oldest son? and what, O son of my body? and what, O son of my oaths?

³Do not give your strength to women, or your ways to that which is the destruction of kings.

⁴It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to take wine, or for rulers to say, Where is strong drink?

⁵For fear that through drinking they may come to have no respect for the law, wrongly judging the cause of those who are in trouble.

⁶Give strong drink to him who is near to destruction, and wine to him whose soul is bitter:

⁷Let him have drink, and his need will go from his mind, and the memory of his trouble will be gone.

⁸Let your mouth be open for those who have no voice, in the cause of those who are ready for death.

⁹Let your mouth be open, judging rightly, and give right decisions in the cause of the poor and those in need.

¹⁰Who may make discovery of a woman of virtue? For her price is much higher than jewels.

¹¹The heart of her husband has faith in her, and he will have profit in full measure.

¹²She does him good and not evil all the days of her life.

¹³She gets wool and linen, working at the business of her hands.

¹⁴She is like the trading-ships, getting food from far away.

¹⁵She gets up while it is still night, and gives meat to her family, and their food to her servant-girls.

¹⁶After looking at a field with care, she gets it for a price, planting a vine-garden with the profit of her work.

¹⁷She puts a band of strength round her, and makes her arms strong.

¹⁸She sees that her marketing is of profit to her: her light does not go out by night.

¹⁹She puts her hands to the cloth-working rod, and her fingers take the wheel.

²⁰Her hands are stretched out to the poor; yes, she is open-handed to those who are in need.

²¹She has no fear of the snow for her family, for all those in her house are clothed in red.

²²She makes for herself cushions of needlework; her clothing is fair linen and purple.

²³Her husband is a man of note in the public place, when he takes his seat among the responsible men of the land.

²⁴She makes linen robes and gets a price for them, and traders take her cloth bands for a price.

²⁵Strength and self-respect are her clothing; she is facing the future with a smile.

²⁶Her mouth is open to give out wisdom, and the law of mercy is on her tongue.

²⁷She gives attention to the ways of her family, she does not take her food without working for it.

²⁸Her children get up and give her honour, and her husband gives her praise, saying,

²⁹Unnumbered women have done well, but you are better than all of them.

³⁰Fair looks are a deceit, and a beautiful form is of no value; but a woman who has the fear of the Lord is to be praised.

³¹Give her credit for what her hands have made: let her be praised by her works in the public place.

1The vision of Isaiah, the son of Amoz, which he saw about Judah and Jerusalem, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.

²Give ear, O heavens, and you, O earth, to the word which the Lord has said: I have taken care of my children till they became men, but their hearts have been turned away from me.

³Even the ox has knowledge of its owner, and the ass of the place where its master puts its food: but Israel has no knowledge, my people give no thought to me.

⁴O nation full of sin, a people weighted down with crime, a generation of evil-doers, false-hearted children: they have gone away from the Lord, they have no respect for the Holy One of Israel, their hearts are turned back from him.

⁵Why will you have more and more punishment? why keep on in your evil ways? Every head is tired and every heart is feeble.

⁶The body, from head to foot, is all diseased; it is a mass of open wounds, marks of blows, and broken flesh: the flow of blood has not been stopped, and no oil has been put on the wounds.

⁷Your country has become waste; your towns are burned with fire; as for your land, it is overturned before your eyes, made waste and overcome by men from strange lands.

⁸And the daughter of Zion has become like a tent in a vine-garden, like a watchman's house in a field of fruit, like a town shut in by armies.

⁹If the Lord of armies had not kept some at least of us safe, we would have been like Sodom, and the fate of Gomorrah would have been ours.

¹⁰Give ear to the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom; let your hearts be turned to the law of our God, you people of Gomorrah.

¹¹What use to me is the number of the offerings which you give me? says the Lord; your burned offerings of sheep, and the best parts of fat cattle, are a weariness to me; I take no pleasure in the blood of oxen, or of lambs, or of he-goats.

¹²At whose request do you come before me, making my house unclean with your feet?

¹³Give me no more false offerings; the smoke of burning flesh is disgusting to me, so are your new moons and Sabbaths and your holy meetings.

¹⁴Your new moons and your regular feasts are a grief to my soul: they are a weight in my spirit; I am crushed under them.

¹⁵And when your hands are stretched out to me, my eyes will be turned away from you: even though you go on making prayers, I will not give ear: your hands are full of blood.

¹⁶Be washed, make yourselves clean; put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes; let there be an end of sinning;

¹⁷Take pleasure in well-doing; let your ways be upright, keep down the cruel, give a right decision for the child who has no father, see to the cause of the widow.

¹⁸Come now, and let us have an argument together, says the Lord: how may your sins which are red like blood be white as snow? how may their dark purple seem like wool?

¹⁹If you will give ear to my word and do it, the good things of the land will be yours;

²⁰But if your hearts are turned against me, I will send destruction on you by the sword; so the Lord has said.

²¹The upright town has become untrue; there was a time when her judges gave right decisions, when righteousness had a resting-place in her, but now she is full of those who take men's lives.

²²Your silver is no longer true metal, your wine is mixed with water.

²³Your chiefs have gone against the Lord, they have become friends of thieves; every one of them is looking for profit and going after rewards; they do not give right decisions for the child who has no father, and they do not let the cause of the widow come before them.

²⁴For this reason the Lord, the Lord of armies, the Strong One of Israel, has said, I will put an end to my haters, and send punishment on those who are against me;

²⁵And my hand will again be on you, washing away what is unclean as with soap, and taking away all your false metal;

²⁶And I will give you judges again as at the first, and wise guides as in the past; then you will be named, The Town of Righteousness, the true town.

²⁷Upright acts will be the price of Zion's forgiveness, and by righteousness will men be living there.

²⁸But a common destruction will overtake sinners and evil-doers together, and those who have gone away from the Lord will be cut off.

²⁹For you will be put to shame because of the trees of your desire, and because of the gardens of your pleasure.

³⁰For you will be like a tree whose leaves have become dry, and like a garden without water.

³¹And the strong will be as food for the fire, and his work as a flame; and they will be burned together, with no one to put out the fire.

2The word which Isaiah, the son of Amoz, saw about Judah and Jerusalem.

²And it will come about in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord will be placed on the top of the mountains, and be lifted up over the hills; and all nations will come to it.

³And the peoples will say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob: and he will give us knowledge of his ways, and we will be guided by his word; for out of Zion the law will go out, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

⁴And he will be the judge between the nations, and the peoples will be ruled by his decisions: and their swords will be turned into plough-blades, and their spears into vine-knives: no longer will the nations be turning their swords against one another, and the knowledge of war will be gone for ever.

⁵O family of Jacob, come, and let us go in the light of the Lord.

⁶For you, O Lord, have given up your people, the family of Jacob, because they are full of the evil ways of the east, and make use of secret arts like the Philistines, and are friends with the children of strange countries.

⁷And their land is full of silver and gold, and there is no end to their stores; their land is full of horses, and there is no end to their carriages.

⁸Their land is full of images; they give worship to the work of their hands, even to that which their fingers have made.

⁹And the poor man's head is bent, and the great man goes down on his face: for this cause there will be no forgiveness for their sin.

¹⁰Go into a hole in the rock, covering yourselves with dust, in fear of the Lord, before the glory of his power.

¹¹The high looks of man will be put to shame, and the pride of men will be made low, and only the Lord will be lifted up in that day.

¹²For the day of the Lord of armies is coming on all the pride of men, and on all who are high and lifted up;

¹³And on all the high trees of Lebanon, and on all the strong trees of Bashan;

¹⁴And on all the high mountains, and on all the hills which are lifted up;

¹⁵And on every high tower, and on every strong wall;

¹⁶And on all the ships of Tarshish, and on all the fair boats.

¹⁷And the high looks of man will be put to shame, and the pride of men will be made low: and only the Lord will be lifted up in that day.

¹⁸And the images will never be seen again.

¹⁹And men will go into cracks of the rocks, and into holes of the earth, for fear of the Lord, and before the glory of his power, when he comes out of his place, shaking the earth with his strength.

²⁰In that day men will put their images of silver and of gold, which they made for worship, in the keeping of the beasts of the dark places;

²¹To take cover in the cracks of the rocks, and in the holes of the hills, for fear of the Lord, and before the glory of his power, when he comes out of his place, shaking the earth with his strength.

²²Have no more to do with man, whose life is only a breath, for he is of no value.

3For the Lord, the Lord of armies, is about to take away from Jerusalem and from Judah all their support; their store of bread and of water;

²The strong man and the man of war; the judge and the prophet; the man who has knowledge of secret arts, and the man who is wise because of his years;

³The captain of fifty, and the man of high position, and the wise guide, and the wonder-worker, and he who makes use of secret powers.

⁴And I will make children their chiefs, and foolish ones will have rule over them.

⁵And the people will be crushed, every one by his neighbour; the young will be full of pride against the old, and those of low position will be lifted up against the noble.

⁶When one man puts his hand on another in his father's house, and says, You have clothing, be our ruler and be responsible for us in our sad condition:

⁷Then he will say with an oath, I will not be a helper, for in my house there is no bread or clothing: I will not let you make me a ruler of the people.

⁸For Jerusalem has become feeble, and destruction has come on Judah, because their words and their acts are against the Lord, moving the eyes of his glory to wrath.

⁹Their respect for a man's position is a witness against them; and their sin is open to the view of all; like that of Sodom, it is not covered. A curse on their soul! for the measure of their sin is full.

¹⁰Happy is the upright man! for he will have joy of the fruit of his ways.

¹¹Unhappy is the sinner! for the reward of his evil doings will come on him.

¹²As for my people, their ruler is acting like a child, and those who have authority over them are women. O my people, your guides are the cause of your wandering, turning your footsteps out of the right way.

¹³The Lord is ready to take up his cause against his people, and is about to come forward as their judge.

¹⁴The Lord comes to be the judge of their responsible men and of their rulers: it is you who have made waste the vine-garden, and in your houses is the property of the poor which you have taken by force.

¹⁵By what right are you crushing my people, and putting a bitter yoke on the necks of the poor? This is the word of the Lord, the Lord of armies.

¹⁶Again, the Lord has said, Because the daughters of Zion are full of pride, and go with outstretched necks and wandering eyes, with their foot-chains sounding when they go:

¹⁷The Lord will send disease on the heads of the daughters of Zion, and the Lord will let their secret parts be seen.

¹⁸In that day the Lord will take away the glory of their foot-rings, and their sun-jewels, and their moon-ornaments,

¹⁹The ear-rings, and the chains, and the delicate clothing,

²⁰The head-bands, and the arm-chains, and the worked bands, and the perfume-boxes, and the jewels with secret powers,

²¹The rings, and the nose-jewels,

²²The feast-day dresses, and the robes, and the wide skirts, and the handbags,

²³The looking-glasses, and the fair linen, and the high head-dresses, and the veils.

²⁴And in the place of sweet spices will be an evil smell, and for a fair band a thick cord; for a well-dressed head there will be the cutting-off of the hair, and for a beautiful robe there will be the clothing of sorrow; the mark of the prisoner in place of the ornaments of the free.

²⁵Your men will be put to the sword, and your men of war will come to destruction in the fight.

²⁶And in the public places of her towns will be sorrow and weeping; and she will be seated on the earth, waste and uncovered.

4And in that day seven women will put their hands on one man, saying, There will be no need for you to give us food or clothing, only let us go under your name, so that our shame may be taken away.

²In that day will the young growth of the Lord be beautiful in glory, and the fruit of the earth will be the pride of those who are still living in Israel.

³And it will come about that the rest of the living in Zion, and of those who have been kept from destruction in Jerusalem, will be named holy, even everyone who has been recorded for life in Jerusalem:

⁴When Zion has been washed from her sin by the Lord, and Jerusalem made clean from her blood by a judging and a burning wind.

⁵And over every living-place on Mount Zion, all over all her meetings, the Lord will make a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night, for over all, the glory of the Lord will be a cover and a tent;

⁶And a shade in the daytime from the heat, and a safe cover from storm and from rain.

5Let me make a song about my loved one, a song of love for his vine-garden. My loved one had a vine-garden on a fertile hill:

²And after working the earth of it with a spade, he took away its stones, and put in it a very special vine; and he put up a watchtower in the middle of it, hollowing out in the rock a place for the grape-crushing; and he was hoping that it would give the best grapes, but it gave common grapes.

³And now, you people of Jerusalem and you men of Judah, be the judges between me and my vine-garden.

⁴Is there anything which might have been done for my vine-garden which I have not done? why then, when I was hoping for the best grapes did it give me common grapes?

⁵And now, this is what I will do to my vine-garden: I will take away the circle of thorns round it, and it will be burned up; its wall will be broken down and the beasts of the field will go through it;

⁶And I will make it waste; its branches will not be touched with the knife, or the earth worked with the spade; but blackberries and thorns will come up in it: and I will give orders to the clouds not to send rain on it.

⁷For the vine-garden of the Lord of armies is the people of Israel, and the men of Judah are the plant of his delight: and he was looking for upright judging, and there was blood; for righteousness, and there was a cry for help.

⁸Cursed are those who are joining house to house, and putting field to field, till there is no more living-space for any but themselves in all the land!

⁹The Lord of armies has said to me secretly, Truly, numbers of great and fair houses will be waste, with no one living in them.

¹⁰For ten fields of vines will only give one measure of wine, and a great amount of seed will only give a small measure of grain.

¹¹Cursed are those who get up early in the morning to give themselves up to strong drink; who keep on drinking far into the night till they are heated with wine!

¹²And corded instruments and wind-instruments and wine are in their feasts: but they give no thought to the work of the Lord, and they are not interested in what his hands are doing.

¹³For this cause my people are taken away as prisoners into strange countries for need of knowledge: and their rulers are wasted for need of food, and their loud-voiced feasters are dry for need of water.

¹⁴For this cause the underworld has made wide its throat, opening its mouth without limit: and her glory, and the noise of her masses, and her loud-voiced feasters, will go down into it.

¹⁵And the poor man's head is bent, and the great man goes down on his face, and the eyes of pride are put to shame:

¹⁶But the Lord of armies is lifted up as judge, and the Holy God is seen to be holy in righteousness.

¹⁷Then the lambs will get food as in their grass-lands, and the fat cattle will be feasting in the waste places.

¹⁸Cursed are those who make use of ox-cords for pulling the evil thing, and the bands of a young ox for their sin!

¹⁹Who say, Let him do his work quickly, let him make it sudden, so that we may see it: let the design of the Holy One of Israel come near, so that it may be clear to us.

²⁰Cursed are those who give the name of good to evil, and of evil to what is good: who make light dark, and dark light: who make bitter sweet, and sweet bitter!

²¹Cursed are those who seem wise to themselves, and who take pride in their knowledge!

²²Cursed are those who are strong to take wine, and great in making mixed drinks!

²³Who for a reward give support to the cause of the sinner, and who take away the righteousness of the upright from him.

²⁴For this cause, as the waste of the grain is burned up by tongues of fire, and as the dry grass goes down before the flame, so their root will be like the dry stems of grain, and their flower will go up in dust: because they have gone against the law of the Lord of armies, and have given no honour to the word of the Holy One of Israel.

²⁵For this reason the wrath of the Lord has been burning against his people, and his hand has been stretched out against them in punishment, and the hills were shaking, and their dead bodies were like waste in the open places of the town.

²⁶And he will let a flag be lifted up as a sign to a far-off nation, whistling to them from the ends of the earth: and they will come quickly and suddenly.

²⁷There is no weariness among them, and no man is feeble-footed: they come without resting or sleeping, and the cord of their shoes is not broken.

²⁸Their arrows are sharp, and every bow is bent: the feet of their horses are like rock, and their wheels are like a rushing storm.

²⁹The sound of their armies will be like the voice of a lion, and their war-cry like the noise of young lions: with loud cries they will come down on their food and will take it away safely, and there will be no one to take it out of their hands.

³⁰And his voice will be loud over him in that day like the sounding of the sea: and if a man's eyes are turned to the earth, it is all dark and full of trouble; and the light is made dark by thick clouds.

6In the year of King Uzziah's death I saw the Lord seated in his place, high and lifted up, and the Temple was full of the wide skirts of his robe.

²Over him were the winged ones: every one had six wings; two for covering his face, two for covering his feed, and two for flight.

³And one said in a loud voice to another, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of armies: all the earth is full of his glory.

⁴And the bases of the door-pillars were shaking at the sound of his cry, and the house was full of smoke.

⁵Then I said, The curse is on me, and my fate is destruction; for I am a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of armies.

⁶Then a winged one came to me with a burning coal in his hand, which he had taken from off the altar with the fire-spoon.

⁷And after touching my mouth with it, he said, See, your lips have been touched with this; and your evil is taken away, and you are made clean from sin.

⁸And the voice of the Lord came to my ears, saying, Whom am I to send, and who will go for us? Then I said, Here am I, send me.

⁹And he said, Go, and say to this people, You will go on hearing, but learning nothing; you will go on seeing, but without getting wiser.

¹⁰Make the hearts of this people fat, and let their ears be stopped, and their eyes shut; for fear that they may see with their eyes, and be hearing with their ears, and their heart may become wise, and they may be turned to me and made well.

¹¹Then I said, Lord, how long? And he said in answer, Till the towns are waste and unpeopled, and the houses have no men, and the land becomes completely waste,

¹²And the Lord has taken men far away, and there are wide waste places in the land.

¹³And even if there is still a tenth part in it, it will again be burned, like a tree of the woods whose broken end is still in the earth after the tree has been cut down (the holy seed is the broken end).

7Now it came about in the days of Ahaz, the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that Rezin, the king of Aram, and Pekah, the son of Remaliah, the king of Israel, came up to Jerusalem to make war against it, but were not able to overcome it.

²And word came to the family of David that Aram had put up its tents in Ephraim. And the king's heart, and the hearts of his people, were moved, like the trees of the wood shaking in the wind.

³Then the Lord said to Isaiah, Go out now, you and Shear-jashub, your son, and you will come across Ahaz at the end of the stream flowing from the higher pool, in the highway of the washerman's field;

⁴And say to him, Take care and be quiet; have no fear, and do not let your heart be feeble, because of these two ends of smoking fire-wood, because of the bitter wrath of Rezin and Aram, and of the son of Remaliah.

⁵Because Aram has made evil designs against you, saying,

⁶Let us go up against Judah, troubling her, and forcing our way into her, and let us put up a king in her, even the son of Tabeel:

⁷This is the word of the Lord God: This design will not come about or be effected.

⁸For the head of Aram is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin (and in sixty-five years from now Ephraim will be broken, and will no longer be a people):

⁹And the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is Remaliah's son. If you will not have faith, your kingdom will be broken.

¹⁰And Isaiah said again to Ahaz,

¹¹Make a request to the Lord your God for a sign, a sign in the deep places of the underworld, or in the high heavens.

¹²But Ahaz said, I will not put the Lord to the test by making such a request.

¹³And he said, Give ear now, O family of David: is it not enough that you are driving men to disgust? will you do the same to my God?

¹⁴For this cause the Lord himself will give you a sign; a young woman is now with child, and she will give birth to a son, and she will give him the name Immanuel.

¹⁵Butter and honey will be his food, when he is old enough to make a decision between evil and good.

¹⁶For before the child is old enough to make a decision between evil and good, the land whose two kings you are now fearing will have become waste.

¹⁷The Lord is about to send on you, and on your people, and on your father's house, such a time of trouble as there has not been from the days of the separating of Ephraim from Judah; even the coming of the king of Assyria.

¹⁸And it will be in that day that the Lord will make a piping sound for the fly which is in the end of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee which is in the land of Assyria.

¹⁹And they will come, covering all the waste valleys, and the holes of the rocks, and the thorns, and all the watering-places.

²⁰In that day will the Lord take away the hair of the head and of the feet, as well as the hair of the face, with a blade got for a price from the other side of the River; even with the king of Assyria.

²¹And it will be in that day that a man will give food to a young cow and two sheep;

²²And they will give so much milk that he will be able to have butter for his food: for butter and honey will be the food of all who are still living in the land.

²³And it will be in that day that in every place where before there were a thousand vines valued at a thousand shekels of silver, there will be nothing but blackberries and thorns.

²⁴Men will come there with bows and arrows, because all the land will be full of blackberries and thorns.

²⁵And they will send out the oxen and the sheep on all the hills which before were worked with the spade, ... fear of blackberries and thorns.

8And the Lord said to me, Take a great writing-board, and on it put down in common letters, Maher-shalal-hash-baz;

²And take true witnesses to the writing, Uriah the priest, and Zechariah, the son of Jeberechiah.

³And I went in to my wife, and she became with child, and gave birth to a son. Then the Lord said to me, Give him the name Maher-shalal-hash-baz,

⁴For before the child is able to say, Father, or, Mother, the wealth of Damascus and the goods of Samaria will be taken away by the king of Assyria.

⁵And the Lord said again to me,

⁶Because this people will have nothing to do with the softly-flowing waters of Shiloah, and have fear of Rezin and Remaliah's son;

⁷For this cause the Lord is sending on them the waters of the River, deep and strong, even the king of Assyria and all his glory: and it will come up through all its streams, overflowing all its edges:

⁸And it will come on into Judah; rushing on and overflowing, till the waters are up to the neck; *** and his outstretched wings will be covering the land from side to side: for God is with us.

⁹Have knowledge, O peoples, and be in fear; give ear, all you far-off parts of the earth:

¹⁰Let your designs be formed, and they will come to nothing; give your orders, and they will not be effected: for God is with us.

¹¹For the Lord, controlling me with a strong hand, gave me orders not to go in the way of this people, saying,

¹²Do not say, It is holy, about everything of which this people says, It is holy; and do not be in fear of what they go in fear of.

¹³But let the Lord of armies be holy to you, and go in fear of him, giving honour to him.

¹⁴And he will be for a holy place: but for a stone of falling and a rock of trouble to the two houses of Israel, and to the men of Jerusalem, for a net in which they may be taken.

¹⁵And numbers of them, falling on the stone, will be broken, and will be taken in the net.

¹⁶Let my teaching be kept secret: and my words be given to my disciples only.

¹⁷And I will be waiting for the Lord, whose face is veiled from the house of Jacob, and I will be looking for him.

¹⁸See, I and the children whom the Lord has given me, are for signs and for wonders in Israel from the Lord of armies, whose resting-place is in Mount Zion.

¹⁹And when they say to you, Make request for us to those who have control of spirits, and to those wise in secret arts, who make hollow bird-like sounds; is it not right for a people to make request to their gods, to make request for the living to the dead?

²⁰Then say to them, Put your faith in the teaching and the witness. ... If they do not say such things. ... For him there is no dawn. ...

²¹And he will go through the land in bitter trouble and in need of food; and when he is unable to get food, he will become angry, cursing his king and his God, and his eyes will be turned to heaven on high;

²²And he will be looking down on the earth, and there will be trouble and dark clouds, black night where there is no seeing.

9In earlier times he made the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali of small value, but after that he gave it glory, by the way of the sea, on the other side of Jordan, Galilee of the nations.

²The people who went in the dark have seen a great light, and for those who were living in the land of the deepest night, the light is shining.

³You have made them very glad, increasing their joy. They are glad before you as men are glad in the time of getting in the grain, or when they make division of the goods taken in war.

⁴For by your hand the yoke on his neck and the rod on his back, even the rod of his cruel master, have been broken, as in the day of Midian.

⁵For every boot of the man of war with his sounding step, and the clothing rolled in blood, will be for burning, food for the fire.

⁶For to us a child has come, to us a son is given; and the government has been placed in his hands; and he has been named Wise Guide, Strong God, Father for ever, Prince of Peace.

⁷Of the increase of his rule and of peace there will be no end, on the seat of David, and in his kingdom; to make it strong, supporting it with wise decision and righteousness, now and for ever. By the fixed purpose of the Lord of armies this will be done.

⁸The Lord has sent a word to Jacob, and it has come on Israel;

⁹And all the people will have experience of it, even Ephraim and the men of Samaria, who say in the pride of their uplifted hearts,

¹⁰The bricks have come down, but we will put up buildings of cut stone in their place: the sycamores are cut down, but they will be changed to cedars.

¹¹For this cause the Lord has made strong the haters of Israel, driving them on to make war against him;

¹²Aram on the east, and the Philistines on the west, who have come against Israel with open mouths. For all this his wrath is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

¹³But the heart of the people was not turned to him who sent punishment on them, and they made no prayer to the Lord of armies.

¹⁴For this cause the Lord took away from Israel head and tail, high and low, in one day.

¹⁵The man who is honoured and responsible is the head, and the prophet who gives false teaching is the tail.

¹⁶For the guides of this people are the cause of their wandering from the right way, and those who are guided by them come to destruction.

¹⁷For this cause the Lord will have no pleasure in their young men, and no pity on their widows and the children without fathers: for they are all haters of God and evil-doers, and foolish words come from every mouth. For all this his wrath is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

¹⁸For evil was burning like a fire; the blackberries and thorns were burned up; the thick woods took fire, rolling up in dark clouds of smoke.

¹⁹The land was dark with the wrath of the Lord of armies: the people were like those who take men's flesh for food.

²⁰On the right a man was cutting off bits and was still in need; on the left a man took a meal but had not enough; no man had pity on his brother; every man was making a meal of the flesh of his neighbour.

²¹Manasseh was making a meal of Ephraim, and Ephraim of Manasseh; and together they were attacking Judah. For all this his wrath is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

10Cursed are those who make evil decisions, and the writers who make the records of their cruel acts:

²Who do wrong to the poor in their cause, and take away the right of the crushed among my people, so that they may have the property of widows, and get under their power those who have no father.

³And what will you do in the day of punishment, and in the destruction which is coming from far? to whom will you go for help, and what will become of your glory?

⁴... For all this his wrath is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

⁵Ho! Assyrian, the rod of my wrath, the instrument of my punishment!

⁶I will send him against a nation of wrongdoers, and against the people of my wrath I will give him orders, to take their wealth in war, crushing them down like the dust in the streets.

⁷But this is not what is in his mind, and this is not his design; but his purpose is destruction, and the cutting off of more and more nations.

⁸For he says, Are not all my captains kings?

⁹Will not the fate of Calno be like that of Carchemish? is not Hamath as Arpad? is not Samaria as Damascus?

¹⁰As my hand has come on the kingdoms of the images, whose pictured images were more in number than those of Jerusalem and Samaria;

¹¹So, as I have done to Samaria and her images, I will do to Jerusalem and her images.

¹²For this cause it will be that, when the purpose of the Lord against Mount Zion and Jerusalem is complete, I will send punishment on the pride of the heart of the king of Assyria, and on the glory of his uplifted eyes.

¹³For he has said, By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my knowledge, for I am wise: and I have taken away the limits of the peoples' lands, and the stores of their wealth have become mine; and I have made towns low in the dust, sending destruction on those living in them;

¹⁴And I have put my hands on the wealth of the peoples, as on the place where a bird has put her eggs; and as a man may take the eggs from which a bird has gone, so I have taken all the earth for myself: and not a wing was moved, and not a mouth gave out a sound.

¹⁵Will the axe say high-sounding words against him who is using it, or the blade be full of pride against him who is cutting with it? As if a rod had the power of shaking him who is using it, or as if a stick might take up him who is not wood.

¹⁶For this cause the Lord, the Lord of armies, will make his fat become wasted; and in his inner parts a fire will be lighted like a burning flame.

¹⁷And the light of Israel will be for a fire, and his Holy One for a flame: wasting and burning up his thorns in one day.

¹⁸And he will put an end to the glory of his woods and of his planted fields, soul and body together; and it will be as when a man is wasted by disease.

¹⁹And the rest of the trees of his wood will be small in number, so that a child may put them down in writing.

²⁰And it will be in that day that the rest of Israel, and those of Jacob who have come safely through these troubles, will no longer go for help to him whose rod was on their back, but their faith will be in the Lord, the Holy One of Israel.

²¹The rest, even the rest of Jacob, will come back to the Strong God.

²²For though your people, O Israel, are as the sand of the sea, only a small number will come back: for the destruction is fixed, overflowing in righteousness.

²³For the Lord, the Lord of armies, is about to make destruction complete in all the land.

²⁴For this cause the Lord, the Lord of armies, says, O my people living in Zion, have no fear of the Assyrian, even if his rod comes on your back, and his stick is lifted up as in Egypt.

²⁵For in a very short time my passion will be over, and my wrath will be turned to their destruction.

²⁶And the Lord of armies will be shaking a whip against him, as when he overcame Midian at the rock of Oreb: and his rod will be lifted up against them as it was against the Egyptians.

²⁷And in that day the weight which he put on your back will be taken away, and his yoke broken from off your neck.

²⁸He has gone up from Pene-Rimmon, he has come to Aiath; he has gone past Migron, at Michmash he puts his forces in order.

²⁹They have gone across the mountain; Geba will be our resting-place tonight, they say: Ramah is shaking with fear; Gibeah of Saul has gone in flight.

³⁰Give a loud cry, daughter of Gallim; let Laishah give ear; let Anathoth give answer to her.

³¹Madmenah has gone; the men of Gebim are putting their goods in a safe place.

³²This very day he is stopping at Nob; he is shaking his hand against the mountain of the daughter of Zion, the hill of Jerusalem.

³³See, the Lord, the Lord of armies, is cutting off his branches with a great noise, and his strong ones are falling and his high ones are coming down.

³⁴And he is cutting down the thick places of the wood with an axe, and Lebanon with its tall trees is coming down.

11And there will come a rod out of the broken tree of Jesse, and a branch out of his roots will give fruit.

²And the spirit of the Lord will be resting on him, the spirit of wisdom and good sense, the spirit of wise guiding and strength, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord;

³And he will not be guided in his judging by what he sees, or give decisions by the hearing of his ears:

⁴But he will do right in the cause of the poor, and give wise decisions for those in the land who are in need; and the rod of his mouth will come down on the cruel, and with the breath of his lips he will put an end to the evil-doer.

⁵And righteousness will be the cord of his robe, and good faith the band round his breast.

⁶And the wolf will be living with the lamb, and the leopard will take his rest with the young goat; and the lion will take grass for food like the ox; and the young lion will go with the young ones of the herd; and a little child will be their guide.

⁷And the cow and the bear will be friends while their young ones are sleeping together.

⁸And the child at the breast will be playing by the hole of the snake, and the older child will put his hand on the bright eye of the poison-snake.

⁹There will be no cause of pain or destruction in all my holy mountain: for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the sea is covered by the waters.

¹⁰And in that day, the eyes of the nations will be turned to the root of Jesse which will be lifted up as the flag of the peoples; and his resting-place will be glory.

¹¹And in that day the hand of the Lord will be stretched out the second time to get back the rest of his people, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the sea-lands.

¹²And he will put up a flag as a sign to the nations, and he will get together those of Israel who had been sent away, and the wandering ones of Judah, from the four ends of the earth.

¹³And the envy of Ephraim will be gone, and those who make trouble for Judah will come to an end: Ephraim will have no more envy of Judah, and there will be an end of Judah's hate for Ephraim.

¹⁴And they will be united in attacking the Philistines on the west, and together they will take the goods of the children of the east: their hand will be on Edom and Moab; and the children of Ammon will be under their rule.

¹⁵And the Lord will make the tongue of the Egyptian sea completely dry; and with his burning wind his hand will be stretched out over the River, and it will be parted into seven streams, so that men may go over it with dry feet.

¹⁶And there will be a highway for the rest of his people from Assyria; as there was for Israel in the day when he came up out of the land of Egypt.

12And in that day you will say I will give praise to you, O Lord; for though you were angry with me, your wrath is turned away, and I am comforted.

²See, God is my salvation; I will have faith in the Lord, without fear: for the Lord Jah is my strength and song; and he has become my salvation.

³So with joy will you get water out of the springs of salvation.

⁴And in that day you will say, Give praise to the Lord, let his name be honoured, give word of his doings among the peoples, say that his name is lifted up.

⁵Make a song to the Lord; for he has done noble things: give news of them through all the earth.

⁶Let your voice be sounding in a cry of joy, O daughter of Zion, for great is the Holy One of Israel among you.

13The word of the Lord about Babylon which Isaiah, the son of Amoz, saw.

²Put up a flag on a clear mountain-top, make a loud outcry to them, give directions with the hand, so that they may go into the doors of the great ones.

³I have given orders to my holy ones, I have sent out my men of war, those of mine who take pride in their power, to give effect to my wrath.

⁴The noise of great numbers in the mountains, like the noise of a strong people! The noise of the kingdoms of the nations meeting together! The Lord of armies is numbering his forces for war.

⁵They come from a far country, from the farthest part of heaven, even the Lord and the instruments of his wrath, with destruction for all the land.

⁶Send out a cry of grief; for the day of the Lord is near; it comes as destruction from the Most High.

⁷For this cause all hands will be feeble, and every heart of man be turned to water;

⁸Their hearts will be full of fear; pains and sorrows will overcome them; they will be in pain like a woman in childbirth; they will be shocked at one another; their faces will be like flames.

⁹See, the day of the Lord is coming, cruel, with wrath and burning passion: to make the land a waste, driving the sinners in it to destruction.

¹⁰For the stars of heaven and its bright armies will not give their light: the sun will be made dark in his journey through the heaven, and the moon will keep back her light.

¹¹And I will send punishment on the world for its evil, and on the sinners for their wrongdoing; and I will put an end to all pride, and will make low the power of the cruel.

¹²I will make men so small in number, that a man will be harder to get than gold, even the best gold of Ophir.

¹³For this cause the heavens will be shaking, and the earth will be moved out of its place, in the wrath of the Lord of armies, and in the day of his burning passion.

¹⁴And it will be that, like a roe in flight, and like wandering sheep, they will go every man to his people and to his land.

¹⁵Everyone who is overtaken will have a spear put through him, and everyone who goes in flight will be put to the sword.

¹⁶Their young children will be broken up before their eyes; their goods will be taken away, and their wives made the property of others.

¹⁷See, I am driving the Medes against them, who put no value on silver and have no pleasure in gold.

¹⁸In their hands are bows and spears; they are cruel, violently putting the young men to death, and crushing the young women; they have no pity for children, and no mercy for the fruit of the body.

¹⁹And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beautiful town which is the pride of the Chaldaeans, will be like God's destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.

²⁰People will never be living in it again, and it will have no more men from generation to generation: the Arab will not put up his tent there; and those who keep sheep will not make it a resting-place for their flocks.

²¹But the beasts of the waste land will have their holes there; and the houses will be full of crying jackals, and ostriches will have their place there, and evil spirits will be dancing there.

²²And wolves will be answering one another in their towers, and jackals in their houses of pleasure: her time is near, and her days of power will quickly be ended.

14For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob, and will again make Israel his special people, and will put them in their land; and the man from a strange country will take his place among them and be joined to the family of Jacob.

²And the people will take them with them to their place: and the children of Israel will give them a heritage in the Lord's land as men-servants and women-servants, making them prisoners whose prisoners they were; and they will be rulers over their masters.

³And it will be, in the day when the Lord gives you rest from your sorrow, and from your trouble, and from the hard yoke which they had put on you,

⁴That you will take up this bitter song against the king of Babylon, and say, How has the cruel overseer come to an end! He who was lifted up in pride is cut off;

⁵The stick of the evil-doers, the rod of the rulers, is broken by the Lord;

⁶He whose rod was on the peoples with an unending wrath, ruling the nations in passion, with an uncontrolled rule.

⁷All the earth is at rest and is quiet: they are bursting into song.

⁸Even the trees of the wood are glad over you, the trees of Lebanon, saying, From the time of your fall no wood-cutter has come up against us with an axe.

⁹The underworld is moved at your coming: the shades of the dead are awake before you, even the strong ones of the earth; all the kings of the world have got up from their seats.

¹⁰They all make answer and say to you, Have you become feeble like us? have you been made even as we are?

¹¹Your pride has gone down into the underworld, and the noise of your instruments of music; the worms are under you, and your body is covered with them.

¹²How great is your fall from heaven, O shining one, son of the morning! How are you cut down to the earth, low among the dead bodies!

¹³For you said in your heart, I will go up to heaven, I will make my seat higher than the stars of God; I will take my place on the mountain of the meeting-place of the gods, in the inmost parts of the north.

¹⁴I will go higher than the clouds; I will be like the Most High.

¹⁵But you will come down to the underworld, even to its inmost parts.

¹⁶Those who see you will be looking on you with care, they will be in deep thought, saying, Is this the troubler of the earth, the shaker of kingdoms?

¹⁷Who made the world a waste, overturning its towns; who did not let his prisoners loose from the prison-house.

¹⁸All the kings of the earth are at rest in glory, every man in his house,

¹⁹But you, like a birth before its time, are stretched out with no resting-place in the earth; clothed with the bodies of the dead who have been put to the sword, who go down to the lowest parts of the underworld; a dead body, crushed under foot.

²⁰As for your fathers, you will not be united with them in their resting-place, because you have been the cause of destruction to your land, and of death to your people; the seed of the evil-doer will have no place in the memory of man.

²¹Make ready a place of death for his children, because of the evil-doing of their father; so that they may not come up and take the earth for their heritage, covering the face of the world with waste places.

²²For I will come up against them, says the Lord of armies, cutting off from Babylon name and offspring, son and son's son, says the Lord.

²³And I will make you a heritage for the hedgehog, and pools of water: and I will go through it with the brush of destruction, says the Lord of armies.

²⁴The Lord has taken an oath, saying, My design will certainly come about, and my purpose will be effected:

²⁵To let the Assyrian be broken in my land, and crushed under foot on my mountains: there will his yoke be taken away from them, and his rule over them come to an end.

²⁶This is the purpose for all the earth: and this is the hand stretched out over all nations.

²⁷For it is the purpose of the Lord of armies, and who will make it of no effect? when his hand is stretched out, by whom may it be turned back?

²⁸In the year of the death of King Ahaz this word came to the prophet:

²⁹Be not glad, O Philistia, all of you, because the rod which was on you is broken: for out of the snake's root will come a poison-snake, and its fruit will be a winged poison-snake.

³⁰And the poorest of the land will have food, and those in need will be given a safe resting-place: but your seed will come to an end for need of food, and the rest of you will be put to the sword.

³¹Send out a cry, O door! Make sounds of sorrow, O town! All your land has come to nothing, O Philistia; for there comes a smoke out of the north, and everyone keeps his place in the line.

³²What answer, then, will my people give to the representatives of the nation? That the Lord is the builder of Zion, and she will be a safe place for the poor of his people.

15The word about Moab. For in a night Ar of Moab has become waste, and is seen no longer; for in a night Kir of Moab has become waste, and is seen no longer.

²The daughter of Dibon has gone up to the high places, weeping: Moab is sounding her cry of sorrow over Nebo, and over Medeba: everywhere the hair of the head and of the face is cut off.

³In their streets they are covering themselves with haircloth: on the tops of their houses, and in their public places, there is crying and bitter weeping.

⁴Heshbon is crying out, and Elealeh; their voice is sounding even to Jahaz: for this cause the heart of Moab is shaking; his soul is shaking with fear.

⁵My heart is crying out for Moab; her people go in flight to Zoar, and to Eglath-shelishiyah: for they go up with weeping by the slope of Luhith; on the way to Horonaim they send up a cry of destruction.

⁶The waters of Nimrim will become dry: for the grass is burned up, the young grass is coming to an end, every green thing is dead.

⁷For this cause they will take away their wealth, and the stores they have got together, over the stream of the water-plants.

⁸For the cry has gone round the limits of Moab; as far as to Eglaim and Beer-elim.

⁹For the waters of Dimon are full of blood: and I'm sending even more on Moab, a lion on those of Moab who go in flight, and on the rest of the land.

16And they will send ... to the mountain of the daughter of Zion.

²For the daughters of Moab will be like wandering birds, like a place from which the young birds have gone in flight, at the ways across the Arnon.

³Give wise directions, make a decision; let your shade be as night in full day: keep safe those who are in flight; do not give up the wandering ones.

⁴Let those who have been forced out of Moab have a resting-place with you; be a cover to them from him who is making waste their land: till the cruel ones are cut off, and wasting has come to an end, and those who take pleasure in crushing the poor are gone from the land.

⁵Then a king's seat will be based on mercy, and one will be seated on it in the tent of David for ever; judging uprightly, and quick to do righteousness.

⁶We have had word of the pride of Moab, how great it is; how he is lifted up in pride and passion: his high words about himself are false.

⁷For this cause everyone in Moab will give cries of grief for Moab: crushed to the earth, they will be weeping for the men of Kir-hareseth.

⁸For the fields of Heshbon are waste, the vine of Sibmah is dead; the lords of nations were overcome by the produce of her vines; her vine-plants went as far as Jazer, and came even to the waste land; her branches were stretched out to the sea.

⁹For this cause my sorrow for the vine of Sibmah will be like the weeping for Jazer: my eyes are dropping water on you, O Heshbon and Elealeh! For they are sounding the war-cry over your summer fruits and the getting in of your grain;

¹⁰And all joy is gone; no longer are they glad for the fertile field; and in the vine-gardens there are no songs or sounds of joy: the crushing of grapes has come to an end, and its glad cry has been stopped.

¹¹For this cause the cords of my heart are sounding for Moab, and I am full of sorrow for Kir-heres.

¹²And when Moab goes up to the high place, and makes prayer in the house of his god, it will have no effect.

¹³This is the word which the Lord said about Moab in the past.

¹⁴But now the Lord has said, In three years, the years of a servant working for payment, the glory of Moab, all that great people, will be turned to shame, and the rest of Moab will be very small and without honour.

17The word about Damascus. See, they have made Damascus a town no longer; it has become a waste place.

²Her towns are unpeopled for ever; there the flocks take their rest in peace, without fear.

³The strong tower has gone from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus: the rest of Aram will come to destruction, and be made like the glory of the children of Israel, says the Lord of armies.

⁴And it will be in that day that the glory of Jacob will be made small, and the strength of his body will become feeble.

⁵And it will be like a man cutting the growth of his grain, pulling together the heads of the grain with his arm; even as when they get in the grain in the valley of Rephaim.

⁶But it will be like a man shaking an olive-tree, something will still be there, two or three berries on the top of the highest branch, four or five on the outside branches of a fertile tree, says the Lord, the God of Israel.

⁷In that day a man's heart will be turned to his Maker, and his eyes to the Holy One of Israel.

⁸He will not be looking to the altars, the work of his hands, or to the wood pillars or to the sun-images which his fingers have made.

⁹In that day your towns will be like the waste places of the Hivites and the Amorites which the children of Israel took for a heritage, and they will come to destruction.

¹⁰For you have not given honour to the God of your salvation, and have not kept in mind the Rock of your strength; for this cause you made a garden of Adonis, and put in it the vine-cuttings of a strange god;

¹¹In the day of your planting you were watching its growth, and in the morning your seed was flowering: but its fruit is wasted away in the day of grief and bitter sorrow.

¹²Ah! the voice of peoples, like the loud sounding of the seas, and the thundering of great nations rushing on like the bursting out of waters!

¹³But he will put a stop to them, and make them go in flight far away, driving them like the waste of the grain on the tops of the mountains before the wind, and like the circling dust before the storm.

¹⁴In the evening there is fear, and in the morning they are gone. This is the fate of those who take our goods, and the reward of those who violently take our property for themselves.

18Ho! land of the sounding of wings, on the other side of the rivers of Ethiopia:

²Which sends its representatives by the sea, even in ships of papyrus on the waters. Go back quickly, O representatives, to a nation tall and smooth, to a people causing fear through all their history; a strong nation, crushing down its haters, whose land is cut through by rivers.

³All you peoples of the world, and you who are living on the earth, when a flag is lifted up on the mountains, give attention; and when the horn is sounded, give ear.

⁴For this is what the Lord has said to me: I will be quiet, watching from my place; like the clear heat when the sun is shining, like a mist of dew in the heat of summer.

⁵For before the time of getting in the grapes, after the opening of the bud, when the flower has become a grape ready for crushing, he will take away the small branches with knives, cutting down and taking away the wide-stretching branches.

⁶They will be for the birds of the mountains, and for the beasts of the earth: the birds will come down on them in the summer, and the beasts of the earth in the winter.

⁷In that time an offering will be made to the Lord of armies from a people tall and smooth, causing fear through all their history; a strong nation, crushing down its haters, whose land is cut through by rivers, an offering taken to the place of the name of the Lord of armies, even Mount Zion.

19The word about Egypt. See, the Lord is seated on a quick-moving cloud, and is coming to Egypt: and the false gods of Egypt will be troubled at his coming, and the heart of Egypt will be turned to water.

²And I will send the Egyptians against the Egyptians: and they will be fighting every one against his brother, and every one against his neighbour; town against town, and kingdom against kingdom.

³And the spirit of Egypt will be troubled in her, and I will make her decisions without effect: and they will be turning to the false gods, and to those who make hollow sounds, and to those who have control of spirits, and to those who are wise in secret arts.

⁴And I will give the Egyptians into the hand of a cruel lord; and a hard king will be their ruler, says the Lord, the Lord of armies.

⁵And the waters of the sea will be cut off, and the river will become dry and waste:

⁶And the rivers will have an evil smell; the stream of Egypt will become small and dry: all the water-plants will come to nothing.

⁷The grass-lands by the Nile, and everything planted by the Nile, will become dry, or taken away by the wind, and will come to an end.

⁸The fishermen will be sad, and all those who put fishing-lines into the Nile will be full of grief, and those whose nets are stretched out on the waters will have sorrow in their hearts.

⁹And all the workers in linen thread, and those who make cotton cloth, will be put to shame.

¹⁰And the makers of twisted thread will be crushed, and those who ... will be sad in heart.

¹¹The chiefs of Zoan are completely foolish; the wisest guides of Pharaoh have become like beasts: how do you say to Pharaoh, I am the son of the wise, the offspring of early kings?

¹²Where, then, are your wise men? let them make clear to you, let them give you knowledge of the purpose of the Lord of armies for Egypt.

¹³The chiefs of Zoan have become foolish, the chiefs of Noph are tricked, the heads of her tribes are the cause of Egypt's wandering out of the way.

¹⁴The Lord has sent among them a spirit of error: and by them Egypt is turned out of the right way in all her doings, as a man overcome by wine is uncertain in his steps.

¹⁵And in Egypt there will be no work for any man, head or tail, high or low, to do.

¹⁶In that day the Egyptians will be like women: and the land will be shaking with fear because of the waving of the Lord's hand stretched out over it.

¹⁷And the land of Judah will become a cause of great fear to Egypt; whenever its name comes to mind, Egypt will be in fear before the Lord of armies because of his purpose against it.

¹⁸In that day there will be five towns in the land of Egypt using the language of Canaan, and making oaths to the Lord of armies; and one of them will be named, The Town of the Sun.

¹⁹In that day there will be an altar to the Lord in the middle of the land of Egypt, and a pillar to the Lord at the edge of the land.

²⁰And it will be a sign and a witness to the Lord of armies in the land of Egypt: when they are crying out to the Lord because of their cruel masters, then he will send them a saviour and a strong one to make them free.

²¹And the Lord will give the knowledge of himself to Egypt, and the Egyptians will give honour to the Lord in that day; they will give him worship with offerings and meal offerings, and will take an oath to the Lord and give effect to it.

²²And the Lord will send punishment on Egypt, and will make them well again; and when they come back to the Lord he will give ear to their prayer and take away their disease.

²³In that day there will be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria, and Assyria will come into Egypt, and Egypt will come into Assyria; and the Egyptians will give worship to the Lord together with the Assyrians.

²⁴In that day Israel will be the third together with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the earth:

²⁵Because of the blessing of the Lord of armies which he has given them, saying, A blessing on Egypt my people, and on Assyria the work of my hands, and on Israel my heritage.

20In the year when the Tartan came to Ashdod, sent by Sargon, king of Assyria, and made war against it and took it;

²At that time the word of the Lord came to Isaiah, the son of Amoz, saying, Go, and take off your robe, and your shoes from your feet; and he did so, walking unclothed and without shoes on his feet.

³And the Lord said, As my servant Isaiah has gone unclothed and without shoes for three years as a sign and a wonder to Egypt and Ethiopia,

⁴So will the king of Assyria take away the prisoners of Egypt and those forced out of Ethiopia, young and old, unclothed and without shoes, and with backs uncovered, to the shame of Egypt.

⁵And they will be full of fear, and will no longer have faith in Ethiopia which was their hope, or in Egypt which was their glory.

⁶And those living by the sea will say in that day, See the fate of our hope to whom we went for help and salvation from the king of Assyria: what hope have we then of salvation?

21The word about the waste land. As storm-winds in the South go rushing through, it comes from the waste land, from the land greatly to be feared.

²A vision of fear comes before my eyes; the worker of deceit goes on in his false way, and the waster goes on making waste. Up! Elam; to the attack! Media; I have put an end to her sorrow.

³For this cause I am full of bitter grief; pains like the pains of a woman in childbirth have come on me: I am bent down with sorrow at what comes to my ears; I am shocked by what I see.

⁴My mind is wandering, fear has overcome me: the evening of my desire has been turned into shaking for me.

⁵They make ready the table, they put down the covers, they take food and drink. Up! you captains; put oil on your breastplates.

⁶For so has the Lord said to me, Go, let a watchman be placed; let him give word of what he sees:

⁷And when he sees war-carriages, horsemen by twos, war-carriages with asses, war-carriages with camels, let him give special attention.

⁸And the watchman gave a loud cry, O my lord, I am on the watchtower all day, and am placed in my watch every night:

⁹See, here come war-carriages with men, horsemen by twos: and in answer he said, Babylon is made low, is made low, and all her images are broken on the earth.

¹⁰O my crushed ones, the grain of my floor! I have given you the word which came to me from the Lord of armies, the God of Israel.

¹¹The word about Edom. A voice comes to me from Seir, Watchman, how far gone is the night? how far gone is the night?

¹²The watchman says, The morning has come, but night is still to come: if you have questions to put, put them, and come back again.

¹³The word about Arabia. In the thick woods of Arabia will be your night's resting-place, O travelling bands of Dedanites!

¹⁴Give water to him who is in need of water; give bread, O men of the land of Tema, to those in flight.

¹⁵For they are in flight from the sharp sword, and the bent bow, and from the trouble of war.

¹⁶For so has the Lord said to me, In a year, by the years of a servant working for payment, all the glory of Kedar will come to an end:

¹⁷And the rest of the bowmen, the men of war of the children of Kedar, will be small in number: for the Lord, the God of Israel, has said it.

22The word about the valley of vision. Why have all your people gone up to the house-tops?

²You, who are full of loud voices, a town of outcries, given up to joy; your dead men have not been put to the sword, or come to their death in war.

³All your rulers ... have gone in flight; all your strong ones have gone far away.

⁴For this cause I have said, Let your eyes be turned away from me in my bitter weeping; I will not be comforted for the wasting of the daughter of my people.

⁵For it is a day of trouble and of crushing down and of destruction from the Lord, the Lord of armies, in the valley of vision; ...

⁶And Elam was armed with arrows, and Aram came on horseback; and the breastplate of Kir was uncovered.

⁷And your most fertile valleys were full of war-carriages, and the horsemen took up their positions in front of the town.

⁸He took away the cover of Judah; and in that day you were looking with care at the store of arms in the house of the woods.

⁹And you saw all the broken places in the wall of the town of David: and you got together the waters of the lower pool.

¹⁰And you had the houses of Jerusalem numbered, pulling down the houses to make the wall stronger.

¹¹And you made a place between the two walls for storing the waters of the old pool: but you gave no thought to him who had done this, and were not looking to him by whom it had been purposed long before.

¹²And in that day the Lord, the Lord of armies, was looking for weeping, and cries of sorrow, cutting off of the hair, and putting on the clothing of grief:

¹³But in place of these there was joy and delight, oxen and sheep were being made ready for food, there was feasting and drinking: men said, Now is the time for food and wine, for tomorrow death comes.

¹⁴And the Lord of armies said to me secretly, Truly, this sin will not be taken from you till your death, says the Lord, the Lord of armies.

¹⁵The Lord, the Lord of armies, says, Go to this person in authority, this Shebna, who is over the house; who has made himself a resting-place on high, cutting out a place for himself in the rock, and say,

¹⁶Who are you, and by what right have you made for yourself a resting-place here?

¹⁷See, O strong man, the Lord will send you violently away, gripping you with force,

¹⁸Twisting you round and round like a ball he will send you out into a wide country: there you will come to your end, and there will be the carriages of your pride, O shame of your lord's house!

¹⁹And I will have you forced out of your place of authority, and pulled down from your position.

²⁰And in that day I will send for my servant, Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah:

²¹And I will put your robe on him, and put your band about him, and I will give your authority into his hand: and he will be a father to the men of Jerusalem, and to the family of Judah.

²²And I will give the key of the family of David into his care; and what he keeps open will be shut by no one, and what he keeps shut no one will make open.

²³And I will put him like a nail in a safe place; and he will be for a seat of glory to his father's family.

²⁴And all the glory of his father's family will be hanging on him, all their offspring, every small vessel, even the cups and the basins.

²⁵In that day, says the Lord of armies, will the nail fixed in a safe place give way; and it will be cut down, and in its fall the weight hanging on it will be cut off, for the Lord has said it.

23The word about Tyre. Let a cry of sorrow go up, O ships of Tarshish, because your strong place is made waste; on the way back from the land of Kittim the news is given to them.

²Send out a cry of grief, you men of the sea-land, traders of Zidon, who go over the sea, whose representatives are on great waters;

³Who get in the seed of Shihor, whose wealth is the trade of the nations.

⁴Be shamed, O Zidon: for the sea, the strong place of the sea has said, I have not been with child, or given birth; I have not taken care of young men, or kept watch over the growth of virgins.

⁵When the news comes to Egypt they will be bitterly pained at the fate of Tyre.

⁶Go over to Tarshish; give cries of sorrow, O men of the sea-land.

⁷Is this the town which was full of joy, whose start goes back to times long past, whose wanderings took her into far-off countries?

⁸By whom was this purposed against Tyre, the crowning town, whose traders are chiefs, whose business men are honoured in the land?

⁹It was the purpose of the Lord of armies to put pride to shame, to make sport of the glory of those who are honoured in the earth.

¹⁰Let your land be worked with the plough, O daughter of Tarshish; there is no longer any harbour.

¹¹His hand is stretched out over the sea, the kingdoms are shaking: the Lord has given orders about Canaan, to make waste its strong places.

¹²And he said, There is no more joy for you, O crushed virgin daughter of Zidon: up! go over to Kittim; even there you will have no rest.

¹³...

¹⁴Let a cry of sorrow go up, O ships of Tarshish: because your strong place is made waste.

¹⁵And it will be in that day that Tyre will go out of mind for seventy years, that is, the days of one king: after the end of seventy years it will be for Tyre as in the song of the loose woman.

¹⁶Take an instrument of music, go about the town, O loose woman who has gone out from the memory of man; make sweet melody with songs, so that you may come back to men's minds.

¹⁷And it will be after the end of seventy years, that the Lord will have mercy on Tyre, and she will go back to her trade, acting as a loose woman with all the kingdoms of the world on the face of the earth.

¹⁸And her goods and her trade will be holy to the Lord: they will not be kept back or stored up; for her produce will be for those living in the Lord's land, to give them food for their needs, and fair clothing.

24See, the Lord is making the earth waste and unpeopled, he is turning it upside down, and sending the people in all directions.

²And it will be the same for the people as for the priest; for the servant as for his master; and for the woman-servant as for her owner; the same for the one offering goods for a price as for him who takes them; the same for him who gives money at interest and for him who takes it; the same for him who lets others have the use of his property as for those who make use of it.

³The earth will be completely waste and without men; for this is the word of the Lord.

⁴The earth is sorrowing and wasting away, the world is full of grief and wasting away, the high ones of the earth come to nothing.

⁵The earth has been made unclean by those living in it; because the laws have not been kept by them, the orders have been changed, and the eternal agreement has been broken.

⁶For this cause the earth is given up to the curse, and those in it are judged as sinners: for this cause those living on the earth are burned up, and the rest are small in number.

⁷The new wine is thin, the vine is feeble, and all the glad-hearted make sounds of grief.

⁸The pleasing sound of all instruments of music has come to an end, and the voices of those who are glad.

⁹There is no more drinking of wine with a song; strong drink will be bitter to those who take it.

¹⁰The town is waste and broken down: every house is shut up, so that no man may come in.

¹¹There is a crying in the streets because of the wine; there is an end of all delight, the joy of the land is gone.

¹²In the town all is waste, and in the public place is destruction.

¹³For it will be in the heart of the earth among the peoples, like the shaking of an olive-tree, as the last of the grapes after the getting-in is done.

¹⁴But those will be making sounds of joy; they will be crying loudly from the sea for the glory of the Lord.

¹⁵Give praise to the Lord in the east, to the name of the Lord, the God of Israel, in the sea-lands.

¹⁶From the farthest part of the earth comes the sound of songs, glory to the upright. But I said, I am wasting away, wasting away, the curse is on me! The false ones go on in their false way, yes, they go on acting falsely.

¹⁷Fear, and death, and the net, are come on you, O people of the earth.

¹⁸And it will be that he who goes in flight from the sound of fear will be overtaken by death; and he who gets free from death will be taken in the net: for the windows on high are open, and the bases of the earth are shaking.

¹⁹The earth is completely broken, it is parted in two, it is violently moved.

²⁰The earth will be moving uncertainly, like a man overcome by drink; it will be shaking like a tent; and the weight of its sin will be on it, crushing it down so that it will not get up again.

²¹And in that day the Lord will send punishment on the army of the high ones on high, and on the kings of the earth on the earth.

²²And they will be got together, like prisoners in the prison-house; and after a long time they will have their punishment.

²³Then the moon will be veiled, and the sun put to shame; for the Lord of armies will be ruling in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and before his judges he will let his glory be seen.

25O Lord, you are my God; I will give praise to you, I will give honour to your name; for you have done great acts of power; your purposes in the past have been made true and certain in effect.

²For you have made a town a waste place: a strong town a mass of broken walls; the tower of the men of pride has come to an end; it will never be put up again.

³For this cause will the strong people give glory to you, the town of the cruel ones will be in fear of you.

⁴For you have been a strong place for the poor and the crushed in their trouble, a safe place from the storm, a shade from the heat, when the wrath of the cruel ones is like a winter storm.

⁵As heat by the shade of a cloud, the noise of the men of pride has been made quiet by you; as heat by the shade of a cloud, the song of the cruel ones has been stopped.

⁶And in this mountain will the Lord of armies make for all peoples a feast of good things, a feast of wines long stored, of good things sweet to the taste, of wines long kept and tested.

⁷And in this mountain he will put an end to the shade covering the face of all peoples, and the veil which is stretched over all nations.

⁸He has put an end to death for ever; and the Lord God will take away all weeping; and he will put an end to the shame of his people in all the earth: for the Lord has said it.

⁹And in that day it will be said, See, this is our God; we have been waiting for him, and he will be our saviour: this is the Lord in whom is our hope; we will be glad and have delight in his salvation.

¹⁰For in this mountain will the hand of the Lord come to rest, and Moab will be crushed down in his place, even as the dry stems of the grain are crushed under foot in the waste place.

¹¹And if he puts out his hands, like a man stretching out his hands in swimming, the Lord will make low his pride, however expert his designs.

¹²And the strong tower of your walls has been broken by him, made low, and crushed even to the dust.

26In that day will this song be made in the land of Judah: We have a strong town; he will make salvation our walls and towers.

²Let the doors be open, so that the upright nation which keeps faith may come in.

³The man whose heart is unmoved you will keep in peace, because his hope is in you.

⁴Let your hope be in the Lord for ever: for the Lord Jah is an unchanging Rock.

⁵For he has made low those who are lifted up, all the people of the town of pride: he makes it low, crushing it down to the earth; he makes it low in the dust.

⁶It will be crushed under the feet of the poor and the steps of those who are in need.

⁷The way of the good man is straight; the road of the upright is made smooth by you.

⁸We have been waiting for you, O Lord; the desire of our soul is for the memory of your name.

⁹In the night the desire of my soul has been for you; early will my spirit be searching for you; for when your punishments come on the earth, the people of the world will get the knowledge of righteousness.

¹⁰Even if you are kind to the evil-doer, he will not go after righteousness; even in the land of the upright he will still go on in his wrongdoing, and will not see the glory of the Lord.

¹¹Lord, your hand is lifted up, but they do not see: let them see ... yes, your haters will be burned up in the fire.

¹²Lord, you will give us peace: for all our works are the outcome of your purpose.

¹³O Lord, our God, other lords than you have had rule over us; but in you only is our salvation, and no other name will we take on our lips.

¹⁴The dead will not come back to life: their spirits will not come back to earth; for this cause you have sent destruction on them, so that the memory of them is dead.

¹⁵You have made the nation great, O Lord, you have made it great; glory is yours: you have made wide the limits of the land.

¹⁶Lord, in trouble our eyes have been turned to you, we sent up a prayer when your punishment was on us.

¹⁷As a woman with child, whose time is near, is troubled, crying out in her pain; so have we been before you, O Lord.

¹⁸We have been with child, we have been in pain, we have given birth to wind; no salvation has come to the earth through us, and no children have come into the world.

¹⁹Your dead will come back; their dead bodies will come to life again. Those in the dust, awaking from their sleep, will send out a song; for your dew is a dew of light, and the earth will give birth to the shades.

²⁰Come, my people, into your secret places, and let your doors be shut: keep yourself safe for a short time, till his wrath is over.

²¹For the Lord is coming out of his place to send punishment on the people of the earth for their evil-doing: the earth will let the blood drained out on her be seen, and will keep her dead covered no longer.

27In that day the Lord, with his great and strong and cruel sword, will send punishment on Leviathan, the quick-moving snake, and on Leviathan, the twisted snake; and he will put to death the dragon which is in the sea.

²In that day it will be said, A vine-garden of delight, make a song about it.

³I, the Lord, am watching it; I will give it water at all times: I will keep it night and day, for fear that any damage comes to it.

⁴My passion is over: if the thorns were fighting against me, I would make an attack on them, and they would be burned up together.

⁵Or let him put himself under my power, and make peace with me.

⁶In days to come Jacob will take root: Israel will put out buds and flowers; and the face of the world will be full of fruit.

⁷Is his punishment like the punishment of those who overcame him? or are his dead as great in number as those he put to the sword?

⁸Your anger against her has been made clear by driving her away; he has taken her away with his storm-wind in the day of his east wind.

⁹So by this will the sin of Jacob be covered, and this is all the fruit of taking away his punishment; when all the stones of the altar are crushed together, so that the wood pillars and the sun-images will not be put up again.

¹⁰For the strong town is without men, an unpeopled living-place; and she has become a waste land: there the young ox will take his rest, and its branches will be food for him.

¹¹When its branches are dry they will be broken off; the women will come and put fire to them: for it is a foolish people; for this cause he who made them will have no mercy on them, and he whose work they are will not have pity on them.

¹²And it will be in that day that the Lord will get together his grain, from the River to the stream of Egypt, and you will be got together with care, O children of Israel.

¹³And it will be in that day that a great horn will be sounded; and those who were wandering in the land of Assyria, and those who had been sent away into the land of Egypt, will come; and they will give worship to the Lord in the holy mountain at Jerusalem.

28Ho! crown of pride of those who are given up to wine in Ephraim, and the dead flower of his glory which is on the head of those who are overcome by strong drink!

²See, the Lord has a strong and cruel one; like a rain of ice, a storm of destruction, like the overflowing of a strong river, he will violently overcome them.

³The crown of pride of those who are given up to wine in Ephraim will be crushed under foot;

⁴And the dead flower of his glory, which is on the head of the fertile valley, will be like the first early fruit before the summer; which a man takes and puts in his mouth the minute he sees it.

⁵In that day will the Lord of armies be a crown of glory, and a fair ornament, to the rest of his people;

⁶And a spirit of wisdom to the judge, and strength to those who keep back the attackers at the door of the town.

⁷And further, these are uncertain through wine, and have gone out of the right way through strong drink: the priest and the prophet are uncertain through strong drink, they are overcome by wine, they have gone out of the way through strong drink; their vision is false, they go wrong in their decisions.

⁸For all the tables are covered with coughed-up food, so that there is not a clean place.

⁹To whom will he give knowledge? and to whom will he make clear the word? Will it be to those who have newly given up milk, and who have only now been taken from the breast?

¹⁰For it is one rule after another; one line after another; here a little, there a little.

¹¹No, but with broken talk, and with a strange tongue, he will give his word to this people:

¹²To whom he said, This is the rest, give rest to him who is tired; and by this you may get new strength; but they would not give ear.

¹³For this cause the word of the Lord will be to them rule after rule, line after line, here a little, there a little; so that they may go on their way, and falling back may be broken, and taken in the net.

¹⁴Give ear then to the word of the Lord, you men of pride, the rulers of this people in Jerusalem:

¹⁵Because you have said, We have made death our friend, and with the underworld we have made an agreement; when the overflowing waters come through they will not come near us; for we are looking to false words for help, taking cover in what is untrue:

¹⁶For this cause says the Lord God, See, I am placing in Zion as a base, a stone, a tested stone, an angle-stone which is certain and of great value: and he who has faith will not give way.

¹⁷And I will make right decision the measuring-line, and righteousness the weight: and the ice-storm will take away the safe place of false words, and the secret place will be covered by the flowing waters.

¹⁸And the help you were looking for from death will come to nothing, and your agreement with the underworld will be broken; when the overflowing waters come through, then you will be overcome by them.

¹⁹Whenever they come through they will overtake you; for they will come through morning after morning, by day and by night: and the news will be nothing but fear.

²⁰For the bed is not long enough for a man to be stretched out on: and the cover is not wide enough for him to be covered with.

²¹For the Lord will come up as on Mount Perazim, he will be moved to wrath as in the valley of Gibeon; so that he may do his work--strange is his work; and give effect to his act--unnatural is his act.

²²And now, take care that you do not make sport of him, or your bands will be made strong; for I have had word from the Lord, the Lord of armies, of an end, of a complete end, which is to come on all the land.

²³Let your ears be open to my voice; give attention to what I say.

²⁴Is the ploughman for ever ploughing? does he not get the earth ready and broken up for the seed?

²⁵When the face of the earth has been levelled, does he not put in the different sorts of seed, and the grain in lines, and the barley in its place, and the spelt at the edge?

²⁶For his God is his teacher, giving him the knowledge of these things.

²⁷For the fitches are not crushed with a sharp instrument, and a cart-wheel is not rolled over the cummin; but the grain of the fitches is hammered out with a stick, and of the cummin with a rod.

²⁸Is the grain for bread crushed? He does not go on crushing it for ever, but he lets his cart-wheels and his horses go over it without crushing it.

²⁹This comes from the Lord of armies, purposing wonders, and wise in all his acts.

29Ho! Ariel, Ariel, the town against which David made war; put year to year, let the feasts come round:

²And I will send trouble on Ariel, and there will be weeping and cries of grief; and she will be to me as Ariel.

³And I will make war on you like David, and you will be shut in by earthworks, and I will make towers round you.

⁴And you will be made low, and your voice will come out of the earth, and your words will be low out of the dust; and your voice will come out of the earth like that of a spirit, making bird-like noises out of the dust.

⁵And the army of your attackers will be like small dust, and all the cruel ones like dry stems gone before the wind; suddenly it will come about.

⁶The Lord of armies will come in with thunder and earth-shaking and great noise, with rushing wind and storm, and the flame of burning fire.

⁷And all the nations making war on Ariel, and all those who are fighting against her and shutting her in with their towers, will be like a dream, like a vision of the night.

⁸And it will be like a man desiring food, and dreaming that he is feasting; but when he is awake there is nothing in his mouth: or like a man in need of water, dreaming that he is drinking; but when he is awake he is feeble and his soul is full of desire: so will all the nations be which make war on Mount Zion.

⁹Be surprised and full of wonder; let your eyes be covered and be blind: be overcome, but not with wine; go with uncertain steps, but not because of strong drink.

¹⁰For the Lord has sent on you a spirit of deep sleep; and by him your eyes, the prophets, are shut, and your heads, the seers, are covered.

¹¹And the vision of all this has become to you like the words of a book which is shut, which men give to one who has knowledge of writing, saying, Make clear to us what is in the book: and he says, I am not able to, for the book is shut:

¹²And they give it to one without learning, saying, Make clear to us what is in the book: and he says, I have no knowledge of writing.

¹³And the Lord said, because this people come near to me with their mouths, and give honour to me with their lips, but their heart is far from me, and their fear of me is false, a rule given them by the teaching of men;

¹⁴For this cause I will again do a strange thing among this people, a thing to be wondered at: and the wisdom of their wise men will come to nothing, and the sense of their guides will no longer be seen.

¹⁵Cursed are those who go deep to keep their designs secret from the Lord, and whose works are in the dark, and who say, Who sees us? and who has knowledge of our acts?

¹⁶You are turning things upside down! Is the wet earth the same to you as the one who is forming it? will the thing made say of him who made it, He made me not: or the thing formed say of him who gave it form, He has no knowledge?

¹⁷In a very short time Lebanon will become a fertile field, and the fertile field will seem like a wood.

¹⁸And in that day those whose ears are stopped will be hearing the words of the book; and the eyes of the blind will see through the mist and the dark.

¹⁹And the poor will have their joy in the Lord increased, and those in need will be glad in the Holy One of Israel.

²⁰For the cruel one has come to nothing; and those who make sport of the Lord are gone; and those who are watching to do evil are cut off:

²¹Who give help to a man in a wrong cause, and who put a net for the feet of him who gives decisions in the public place, taking away a man's right without cause.

²²For this reason the Lord, the saviour of Abraham, says about the family of Jacob, Jacob will not now be put to shame, or his face be clouded with fear.

²³But when they, the children of Jacob, see the work of my hands among them, they will give honour to my name; yes, they will give honour to the Holy One of Jacob, and go in fear of the God of Israel.

²⁴Those whose hearts were turned away from him will get knowledge, and those who made an outcry against him will give attention to his teaching.

30Ho! uncontrolled children, says the Lord, who give effect to a purpose which is not mine, and who make an agreement, but not by my spirit, increasing their sin:

²Who make a move to go down into Egypt, without authority from me; who are looking to the strength of Pharaoh for help, and whose hope is in the shade of Egypt.

³And the strength of Pharaoh will be your shame, and your hope in the shade of Egypt will come to nothing.

⁴For his chiefs are at Zoan, and his representatives have come to Hanes.

⁵For they have all come with offerings to a people of no use to them, in whom is no help or profit, but only shame and a bad name.

⁶The word about the Beasts of the South. Through the land of trouble and grief, the land of the she-lion and the voice of the lion, of the snake and the burning winged snake, they take their wealth on the backs of young asses, and their stores on camels, to a people in whom is no profit.

⁷For there is no use or purpose in the help of Egypt: so I have said about her, She is Rahab, who has come to an end.

⁸Now go, put it in writing before them on a board, and make a record of it in a book, so that it may be for the future, a witness for all time to come.

⁹For they are an uncontrolled people, false-hearted, who will not give ear to the teaching of the Lord:

¹⁰Who say to the seers, See not; and to the prophets, Do not give us word of what is true, but say false things to give us pleasure:

¹¹Get out of the good way, turning from the right road; do not keep the Holy One of Israel before our minds.

¹²For this cause the Holy One of Israel says, Because you will not give ear to this word, and are looking for help in ways of deceit and evil, and are putting your hope in them:

¹³This sin will be to you like a crack in a high wall, causing its fall suddenly and in a minute.

¹⁴And he will let it be broken as a potter's vessel is broken: it will be smashed to bits without mercy; so that there will not be a bit in which one may take fire from the fireplace, or water from the spring.

¹⁵For the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, said, In quiet and rest is your salvation: peace and hope are your strength: but you would not have it so.

¹⁶Saying, No, for we will go in flight on horses; so you will certainly go in flight: and, We will go on the backs of quick-running beasts; so those who go after you will be quick-footed.

¹⁷A thousand will go in fear before one; even before five you will go in flight: till you are like a pillar by itself on the top of a mountain, and like a flag on a hill.

¹⁸For this cause the Lord will be waiting, so that he may be kind to you; and he will be lifted up, so that he may have mercy on you; for the Lord is a God of righteousness: there is a blessing on all whose hope is in him.

¹⁹O people, living in Zion, at Jerusalem, your weeping will be ended; he will certainly have mercy on you at the sound of your cry; when it comes to his ear, he will give you an answer.

²⁰And though the Lord will give you the bread of trouble and the water of grief, you will no longer put your teacher on one side, but you will see your teacher:

²¹And at your back, when you are turning to the right hand or to the left, a voice will be sounding in your ears, saying, This is the way in which you are to go.

²²And you will make unclean what is covering your pictured images of silver, and the plating of your images of gold: you will send them away as an unclean thing, saying, Be gone!

²³And he will give rain for your seed, so that you may put it in the earth; and you will have bread from the produce of the earth, good and more than enough for your needs: in that day the cattle will get their food in wide grass-lands.

²⁴And the oxen and the young asses which are used for ploughing, will have salted grain which has been made free from the waste with fork and basket.

²⁵And there will be rivers and streams of water on every tall mountain and on every high hill, in the day when great numbers are put to the sword, when the towers come down.

²⁶And the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be seven times greater, as the light of seven days, in the day when the Lord puts oil on the wounds of his people, and makes them well from the blows they have undergone.

²⁷See, the name of the Lord is coming from far, burning with his wrath, with thick smoke going up: his lips are full of passion, and his tongue is like a burning fire:

²⁸And his breath is as an overflowing stream, coming up even to the neck, shaking the nations for their destruction, like the shaking of grain in a basket: and he will put a cord in the mouths of the people, turning them out of their way.

²⁹You will have a song, as in the night when a holy feast is kept; and you will be glad in heart, as when they go with music of the pipe to the mountain of the Lord, the Rock of Israel.

³⁰And the Lord will send out the sound of his great voice, and they will see his arm stretched out, with the heat of his wrath, and the flame of a burning fire; with a cloud-burst, and storm, and a rain of ice.

³¹For through the voice of the Lord the Assyrian will be broken, and the Lord's rod will be lifted up against him.

³²And every blow of the rod of his punishment, which the Lord will send on him, will be with the sound of music: and with the waving of his sword the Lord will make war against him.

³³For a place of fire has long been ready; yes, it has been made ready for the king; he has made it deep and wide: it is massed with fire and much wood; the breath of the Lord, like a stream of fire, puts a light to it.

31Cursed are those who go down to Egypt for help, and who put their faith in horses; looking to war-carriages for salvation, because of their numbers; and to horsemen, because they are very strong; but they are not looking to the Holy One of Israel, or turning their hearts to the Lord;

²Though he is wise, and able to send evil, and his purpose will not be changed; but he will go against the house of the evil-doers, and against those to whom they are looking for help.

³For the Egyptians are men, and not God; and their horses are flesh, and not spirit: and when the Lord's hand is stretched out, the helper and he who is helped will come down together.

⁴For the Lord has said to me, As a lion, or a young lion, makes an angry noise over his food, and if a band of herdsmen come out against him, he will not be in fear of their voices, or give up his food for their noise: so the Lord of armies will come down to make war against Mount Zion and its hill.

⁵Like birds with outstretched wings, so will the Lord of armies be a cover to Jerusalem; he will be a cover and salvation for it, going over it he will keep it from danger.

⁶Come back to him who has been so deeply sinned against by the children of Israel.

⁷For in that day they will all give up their images of silver and of gold, the sin which they made for themselves.

⁸Then the Assyrian will come down by the sword, but not of man; the sword, not of men, will be the cause of his destruction: and he will go in flight from the sword, and his young men will be put to forced work.

⁹And his rock will come to nothing because of fear, and his chiefs will go in flight from the flag, says the Lord, whose fire is in Zion, and his altar in Jerusalem.

32See, a king will be ruling in righteousness, and chiefs will give right decisions.

²And a man will be as a safe place from the wind, and a cover from the storm; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shade of a great rock in a waste land.

³And the eyes of those who see will not be shut, and those who have hearing will give ear to the word.

⁴The man of sudden impulses will become wise in heart, and he whose tongue is slow will get the power of talking clearly.

⁵The foolish man will no longer be named noble, and they will not say of the false man that he is a man of honour.

⁶For the foolish man will say foolish things, having evil thoughts in his heart, working what is unclean, and talking falsely about the Lord, to keep food from him who is in need of it, and water from him whose soul is desiring it.

⁷The designs of the false are evil, purposing the destruction of the poor man by false words, even when he is in the right.

⁸But the noble-hearted man has noble purposes, and by these he will be guided.

⁹Give ear to my voice, you women who are living in comfort; give attention to my words, you daughters who have no fear of danger.

¹⁰In not much more than a year, you, who are not looking for evil, will be troubled: for the produce of the vine-gardens will be cut off, and there will be no getting in of the grapes.

¹¹Be shaking with fear, you women who are living in comfort; be troubled, you who have no fear of danger: take off your robes and put on clothing of grief.

¹²Have sorrow for the fields, the pleasing fields, the fertile vine;

¹³And for the land of my people, where thorns will come up; even for all the houses of joy in the glad town.

¹⁴For the fair houses will have no man living in them; the town which was full of noise will become a waste; the hill and the watchtower will be unpeopled for ever, a joy for the asses of the woods, a place of food for the flocks;

¹⁵Till the spirit comes on us from on high, and the waste land becomes a fertile field, and the fertile field is changed into a wood.

¹⁶Then in the waste land there will be an upright rule, and righteousness will have its place in the fertile field.

¹⁷And the work of righteousness will be peace; and the effect of an upright rule will be to take away fear for ever.

¹⁸And my people will be living in peace, in houses where there is no fear, and in quiet resting-places.

¹⁹But the tall trees will come down with a great fall, and the town will be low in a low place.

²⁰Happy are you who are planting seed by all the waters, and sending out the ox and the ass.

33Ho! you who make waste those who did not make you waste; acting falsely to those who were not false to you. When you have come to an end of wasting, you will be made waste, and after your false acts, they will do the same to you.

²O Lord, have mercy on us; for we have been waiting for your help: be our strength every morning, our salvation in time of trouble.

³At the loud noise the peoples have gone in flight; at your coming up the nations have gone in all directions.

⁴And the goods taken in war will be got together like the massing of young locusts; men will be rushing on them like the rushing of locusts.

⁵The Lord is lifted up; his place is on high: he has made Zion full of righteousness and true religion.

⁶And she will have no more fear of change, being full of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge: the fear of the Lord is her wealth.

⁷See, the men of war are sorrowing outside the town: those who came looking for peace are weeping bitterly.

⁸The highways are waste, no man is journeying there: the agreement is broken, he has made sport of the towns, he has no thought for man.

⁹The earth is sorrowing and wasting away; Lebanon is put to shame and has become waste; Sharon is like the Arabah; and in Bashan and Carmel the leaves are falling.

¹⁰Now will I come forward, says the Lord; now will I be lifted up; now will my power be seen.

¹¹Your designs will be without profit, and their effect will be nothing: you will be burned up by the fire of my breath.

¹²And the peoples will be like the burning of chalk: as thorns cut down, which are burned in the fire.

¹³Give ear, you who are far off, to what I have done: see my power, you who are near.

¹⁴The sinners in Zion are full of fear; the haters of God are shaking with wonder. Who among us may keep his place before the burning fire? who among us may see the eternal burnings?

¹⁵He whose ways are true, and whose words are upright; he who gives no thought to the profits of false acts, whose hands have not taken rewards, who will have no part in putting men to death, and whose eyes are shut against evil;

¹⁶He will have a place on high: he will be safely shut in by the high rocks: his bread will be given to him; his waters will be certain.

¹⁷Your eyes will see the king in his glory: they will be looking on a far-stretching land.

¹⁸Your heart will give thought to the cause of your fear: where is the scribe, where is he who made a record of the payments, where is he by whom the towers were numbered?

¹⁹Never again will you see the cruel people, a people whose tongue has no sense for you; whose language is strange to you.

²⁰Let your eyes be resting on Zion, the town of our holy feasts: you will see Jerusalem, a quiet resting-place, a tent which will not be moved, whose tent-pins will never be pulled up, and whose cords will never be broken.

²¹But there the Lord will be with us in his glory, ... wide rivers and streams; where no boat will go with blades, and no fair ship will be sailing.

²²For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our law-giver, the Lord is our king; he will be our saviour.

²³Your cords have become loose; they were not able to make strong the support of their sails, the sail was not stretched out: then the blind will take much property, the feeble-footed will make division of the goods of war.

²⁴And the men of Zion will not say, I am ill: for its people will have forgiveness for their sin.

34Come near, you nations, and give ear; take note, you peoples: let the earth and everything in it give ear; the world and all those living in it.

²For the Lord is angry with all the nations, and his wrath is burning against all their armies: he has put them to the curse, he has given them to destruction.

³Their dead bodies will be thick on the face of the earth, and their smell will come up, and the mountains will be flowing with their blood, and all the hills will come to nothing.

⁴And the heavens will be rolled together like the roll of a book: and all their army will be gone, like a dead leaf from the vine, or a dry fruit from the fig-tree.

⁵For my sword in heaven is full of wrath: see, it is coming down on Edom, in punishment on the people of my curse.

⁶The sword of the Lord is full of blood, it is fat with the best of the meat, with the blood of lambs and goats, with the best parts of the sheep: for the Lord has a feast in Bozrah, and much cattle will be put to death in the land of Edom.

⁷And the strong oxen will go down to death together with the smaller cattle.

⁸For it is the day of the Lord's punishment, when he gives payment for the wrongs done to Zion.

⁹And its streams will be turned into boiling oil, and its dust into burning stone, and all the land will be on fire.

¹⁰It will not be put out day or night; its smoke will go up for ever: it will be waste from generation to generation; no one will go through it for ever.

¹¹But the birds of the waste land will have their place there; it will be a heritage for the bittern and the raven: and it will be measured out with line and weight as a waste land.

¹²The jackals will be there, and her great ones will be gone; they will say, There is no longer a kingdom there, and all her chiefs will have come to an end.

¹³And thorns will come up in her fair houses, and waste plants in her strong towers: and foxes will make their holes there, and it will be a meeting-place for ostriches.

¹⁴And the beasts of the waste places will come together with the jackals, and the evil spirits will be crying to one another, even the night-spirit will come and make her resting-place there.

¹⁵The arrowsnake will make her hole and put her eggs there, and get her young together under her shade: there the hawks will come together by twos.

¹⁶See what is recorded in the book of the Lord: all these will be there, not one without the other: the mouth of the Lord has given the order, and his spirit has made them come together.

¹⁷And he has given them their heritage, and by his hand it has been measured out to them: it will be theirs for ever, their resting-place from generation to generation.

35The waste land and the dry places will be glad; the lowland will have joy and be full of flowers.

²It will be flowering like the rose; it will be full of delight and songs; the glory of Lebanon will be given to it; the pride of Carmel and Sharon: they will see the glory of the Lord, the power of our God.

³Make strong the feeble hands, give support to the shaking knees.

⁴Say to those who are full of fear, Be strong and take heart: see, your God will give punishment; the reward of God will come; he himself will come to be your saviour.

⁵Then the eyes of the blind will see, and the ears which are stopped will be open.

⁶Then will the feeble-footed be jumping like a roe, and the voice which was stopped will be loud in song: for in the waste land streams will be bursting out, and waters in the dry places.

⁷And the burning sand will become a pool, and the dry earth springs of waters: the fields where the sheep take their food will become wet land, and water-plants will take the place of grass.

⁸And a highway will be there; its name will be, The Holy Way; the unclean and the sinner may not go over it, and those who go on it will not be turned out of the way by the foolish.

⁹No lion will be there, or any cruel beast; they will not be seen there; but those for whom the Lord has given a price,

¹⁰Even those whom he has made free, will come back again; they will come with songs to Zion; on their heads will be eternal joy; delight and joy will be theirs, and sorrow and sounds of grief will be gone for ever.

36And it came about in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah that Sennacherib, king of Assyria, came up against all the walled towns of Judah and took them.

²And the king of Assyria sent the Rab-shakeh from Lachish to Jerusalem to King Hezekiah with a strong force, and he took up his position by the stream of the higher pool, by the highway of the washerman's

³And there came out to him Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, who was over the house, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah, the son of Asaph, the recorder.

⁴And the Rab-shakeh said to them, Say now to Hezekiah, These are the words of the great king, the king of Assyria: In what are you placing your hope?

⁵You say you have a design and strength for war, but these are only words: now to whom are you looking for support, that you have gone against my authority?

⁶See, you are basing your hope on that broken rod of Egypt, which will go into a man's hand if he makes use of it for a support; for so is Pharaoh, king of Egypt, to all who put their faith in him.

⁷And if you say to me, Our hope is in the Lord our God; is it not he whose high places and altars Hezekiah has taken away, saying to Judah and Jerusalem that worship may only be given before this altar?

⁸And now, take a chance with my master, the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able to put horsemen on them.

⁹How then may you put to shame the least of my master's servants? and you have put your hope in Egypt for war-carriages and horsemen:

¹⁰And have I now come to send destruction on this land without the Lord's authority? It was the Lord himself who said to me, Go up against this land and make it waste.

¹¹Then Eliakim and Shebna and Joah said to the Rab-shakeh, Please make use of the Aramaean language in talking to your servants, for we are used to it, and do not make use of the Jews' language in the hearing of the people on the wall.

¹²But the Rab-shakeh said, Is it to your master or to you that my master has sent me to say these words? has he not sent me to the men seated on the wall? for they are the people who will be short of food with you when the town is shut in.

¹³Then the Rab-shakeh got up and said with a loud voice in the Jews' language, Give ear to the words of the great king, the king of Assyria:

¹⁴This is what the king says: Do not be tricked by Hezekiah, for there is no salvation for you in him.

¹⁵And do not let Hezekiah make you put your faith in the Lord, saying, The Lord will certainly keep us safe, and this town will not be given into the hands of the king of Assyria.

¹⁶Do not give ear to Hezekiah, for this is what the king of Assyria says, Make peace with me, and come out to me; and everyone will be free to take the fruit of his vine and of his fig-tree, and the water of his spring;

¹⁷Till I come and take you away to a land like yours, a land of grain and wine, a land of bread and vine-gardens.

¹⁸Give no attention to Hezekiah when he says to you, The Lord will keep us safe. Has any one of the gods of the nations kept his land from falling into the hands of the king of Assyria?

¹⁹Where are the gods of Hamath and of Arpad? where are the gods of Sepharvaim? where are the gods of Samaria? and have they kept Samaria out of my hand?

²⁰Who among all the gods of these countries have kept their country from falling into my hand, to give cause for the thought that the Lord will keep Jerusalem from falling into my hand?

²¹But they kept quiet and gave him no answer: for the king's order was, Give him no answer.

²²Then Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, who was over the house, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah, the son of Asaph, the recorder, came to Hezekiah with their clothing parted as a sign of grief, and gave him an account of what the Rab-shakeh had said.

37And on hearing it Hezekiah took off his robe and put on haircloth and went into the house of the Lord.

²And he sent Eliakim, who was over the house, and Shebna the scribe, and the chief priests, dressed in haircloth, to Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz.

³And they said to him, Hezekiah says, This day is a day of trouble and punishment and shame: for the children are ready to come to birth, but there is no strength to give birth to them.

⁴It may be that the Lord your God will give ear to the words of the Rab-shakeh, whom the king of Assyria, his master, has sent to say evil things against the living God, and will make his words come to nothing: so make your prayer for the rest of the people.

⁵So the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah.

⁶And Isaiah said to them, This is what you are to say to your master: The Lord says, Be not troubled by the words which the servants of the king of Assyria have said against me in your hearing.

⁷See, I will put a spirit into him, and bad news will come to his ears, and he will go back to his land; and there I will have him put to death.

⁸So the Rab-shakeh went back, and when he got there the king of Assyria was making war against Libnah: for it had come to his ears that the king of Assyria had gone away from Lachish.

⁹And when news came to him that Tirhakah, king of Ethiopia, had made an attack on him, ... And he sent representatives to Hezekiah, king of Judah, saying,

¹⁰This is what you are to say to Hezekiah, king of Judah: Let not your God, in whom is your faith, give you a false hope, saying, Jerusalem will not be given into the hands of the king of Assyria.

¹¹No doubt the story has come to your ears of what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, putting them to the curse: and will you be kept safe from their fate?

¹²Did the gods of the nations keep safe those on whom my fathers sent destruction, Gozan and Haran and Rezeph, and the children of Eden who were in Telassar?

¹³Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad, and the king of the town of Sepharvaim, of Hena, and Ivva?

¹⁴And Hezekiah took the letter from the hands of those who had come with it; and after reading it, Hezekiah went up to the house of the Lord, opening the letter there before the Lord,

¹⁵And he made prayer to the Lord, saying,

¹⁶O Lord of armies, the God of Israel, seated between the winged ones, you only are the God of all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made heaven and earth.

¹⁷Let your ear be turned to us, O Lord; let your eyes be open, O Lord, and see: take note of all the words of Sennacherib who has sent men to say evil against the living God.

¹⁸Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have made waste all the nations and their lands,

¹⁹And have given their gods to the fire: for they were no gods, but wood and stone, the work of men's hands; so they have given them to destruction.

²⁰But now, O Lord our God, give us salvation from his hand, so that it may be clear to all the kingdoms of the earth that you, and you only, are the Lord.

²¹Then Isaiah, the son of Amoz, sent to Hezekiah, saying, The Lord, the God of Israel, says, The prayer you have made to me against Sennacherib, king of Assyria, has come to my ears.

²²This is the word which the Lord has said about him: In the eyes of the virgin daughter of Zion you are shamed and laughed at; the daughter of Jerusalem has made sport of you.

²³Against whom have you said evil and bitter things? and against whom has your voice been loud and your eyes lifted up? even against the Holy One of Israel.

²⁴You have sent your servants with evil words against the Lord, and have said, With all my war-carriages I have come up to the top of the mountains, to the inmost parts of Lebanon; and its tall cedars will be cut down, and the best trees of its woods: I will come up into his highest places, into his thick woods.

²⁵I have made water-holes and taken their waters, and with my foot I have made all the rivers of Egypt dry.

²⁶Has it not come to your ears how I did it long before, purposing it in times long past? Now I have given effect to my design, so that by you strong towns might be turned into masses of broken walls.

²⁷This is why their townsmen had no power, they were broken and put to shame; they were like the grass of the field, or a green plant; like the grass on the house-tops, which a cold wind makes waste.

²⁸But I have knowledge of your getting up and your resting, of your going out and your coming in.

²⁹Because your wrath against me and your pride have come to my ears, I will put my hook in your nose and my cord in your lips, and I will make you go back by the way you came.

³⁰And this will be the sign to you: you will get your food this year from what comes up of itself, and in the second year from the produce of the same; and in the third year you will put in your seed, and get in the grain, and make vine-gardens, and take of their fruit.

³¹And those of Judah who are still living will again take root in the earth, and give fruit.

³²For from Jerusalem those who have been kept safe will go out, and those who are still living will go out of Mount Zion: by the fixed purpose of the Lord of armies this will be done.

³³For this cause the Lord says about the king of Assyria, He will not come into this town, or send an arrow against it; he will not come before it with arms, or put up an earthwork against it.

³⁴By the way he came he will go back, and he will not get into this town.

³⁵For I will keep this town safe, for my honour, and for the honour of my servant David.

³⁶And the angel of the Lord went out and put to death in the army of the Assyrians a hundred and eighty-five thousand men: and when the people got up early in the morning, there was nothing to be seen but dead bodies.

³⁷Sennacherib, king of Assyria, went back to his place at Nineveh.

³⁸And it came about, when he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer put him to death with the sword, and they went in flight into the land of Ararat. And Esar-haddon, his son, became king in his place.

38In those days Hezekiah was ill and near death. And Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, came to him, and said to him, The Lord says, Put your house in order; for your death is near.

²And Hezekiah, turning his face to the wall, made his prayer to the Lord, saying,

³O Lord, keep in mind how I have been true to you with all my heart, and have done what is good in your eyes. And Hezekiah gave way to bitter weeping.

⁴Then the word of the Lord came to Isaiah, saying,

⁵Go to Hezekiah, and say, The Lord, the God of David, your father, says, Your prayer has come to my ears, and I have seen your weeping: see, I will give you fifteen more years of life.

⁶And I will keep you and this town safe from the hands of the king of Assyria: and I will keep watch over this town.

⁷And Isaiah said, This is the sign the Lord will give you, that he will do what he has said:

⁸See, I will make the shade which has gone down on the steps of Ahaz with the sun, go back ten steps. So the shade went back the ten steps by which it had gone down.

⁹The writing of Hezekiah, king of Judah, after he had been ill, and had got better from his disease.

¹⁰I said, In the quiet of my days I am going down into the underworld: the rest of my years are being taken away from me.

¹¹I said, I will not see the Lord, even the Lord in the land of the living: I will not see man again or those living in the world.

¹²My resting-place is pulled up and taken away from me like a herdsman's tent: my life is rolled up like a linen-worker's thread; I am cut off from the cloth on the frame: from day even to night you give me up to pain.

¹³I am crying out with pain till the morning; it is as if a lion was crushing all my bones.

¹⁴I make cries like a bird; I give out sounds of grief like a dove: my eyes are looking up with desire; O Lord, I am crushed, take up my cause.

¹⁵What am I to say? seeing that it is he who has done it: all my time of sleeping I am turning from side to side without rest.

¹⁶O Lord, for this cause I am waiting for you, give rest to my spirit: make me well again, and let me come back to life.

¹⁷See, in place of peace my soul had bitter sorrow. but you have kept back my soul from the underworld; for you have put all my sins out of your memory.

¹⁸For the underworld is not able to give you praise, death gives you no honour: for those who go down into the underworld there is no hope in your mercy.

¹⁹The living, the living man, he will give you praise, as I do this day: the father will give the story of your mercy to his children.

²⁰O Lord, quickly be my saviour; so we will make my songs to corded instruments all the days of our lives in the house of the Lord.

²¹And Isaiah said, Let them take a cake of figs, and put it on the diseased place, and he will get well.

²²And Hezekiah said, What is the sign that I will go up to the house of the Lord?

39At that time Merodach-baladan, the son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters with an offering to Hezekiah, because he had news that Hezekiah had been ill, and was well again.

²And Hezekiah was glad at their coming, and let them see all his store of wealth, the silver and the gold and the spices and the oil, and all the house of his arms, and everything there was in his stores: there was nothing in all his house or his kingdom which he did not let them see.

³Then Isaiah the prophet came to King Hezekiah, and said to him, What did these men say, and where did they come from? And Hezekiah said, They came from a far country, even from Babylon.

⁴And he said, What have they seen in your house? And Hezekiah said in answer, They saw everything in my house: there is nothing among my stores which I did not let them see.

⁵Then said Isaiah to Hezekiah, Give ear to the word of the Lord of armies:

⁶Truly, the days are coming when everything in your house, and whatever your fathers have put in store till this day, will be taken away to Babylon: all will be gone.

⁷And your sons, even your offspring, will they take away to be unsexed servants in the house of the king of Babylon.

⁸Then said Hezekiah to Isaiah, Good is the word of the Lord which you have said. And he said in his heart, There will be peace and quiet in my days.

40Give comfort, give comfort, to my people, says your God.

²Say kind words to the heart of Jerusalem, crying out to her that her time of trouble is ended, that her punishment is complete; that she has been rewarded by the Lord's hand twice over for all her sins.

³A voice of one crying, Make ready in the waste land the way of the Lord, make level in the lowland a highway for our God.

⁴Let every valley be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low, and let the rough places become level, and the hilltops become a valley,

⁵And the glory of the Lord will be made clear, and all flesh will see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has said it.

⁶A voice of one saying, Give a cry! And I said, What is my cry to be? All flesh is grass, and all its strength like the flower of the field.

⁷The grass becomes dry, the flower is dead; because the breath of the Lord goes over it: truly the people is grass.

⁸The grass is dry, the flower is dead; but the word of our God is eternal.

⁹You who give good news to Zion, get up into the high mountain; you who give good news to Jerusalem, let your voice be strong; let it be sounding without fear; say to the towns of Judah, See, your God!

¹⁰See, the Lord God will come as a strong one, ruling in power: see, those made free by him are with him, and those whom he has made safe go before him.

¹¹He will give food to his flock like a keeper of sheep; with his arm he will get it together, and will take up the lambs on his breast, gently guiding those which are with young.

¹²In the hollow of whose hand have the waters been measured? and who is able to take the heavens in his stretched-out fingers? who has got together the dust of the earth in a measure? who has taken the weight of the mountains, or put the hills into the scales?

¹³By whom has the spirit of the Lord been guided, or who has been his teacher?

¹⁴Who gave him suggestions, and made clear to him the right way? who gave him knowledge, guiding him in the way of wisdom?

¹⁵See, the nations are to him like a drop hanging from a bucket, and like the small dust in the scales: he takes up the islands like small dust.

¹⁶And Lebanon is not enough to make a fire with, or all its cattle enough for a burned offering.

¹⁷All the nations are as nothing before him; even less than nothing, a thing of no value.

¹⁸Whom then is God like, in your opinion? or what will you put forward as a comparison with him?

¹⁹The workman makes an image, and the gold-worker puts gold plates over it, and makes silver bands for it.

²⁰The wise workman makes selection of the mulberry-tree of the offering, a wood which will not become soft; so that the image may be fixed to it and not be moved.

²¹Have you no knowledge of it? has it not come to your ears? has not news of it been given to you from the first? has it not been clear to you from the time when the earth was placed on its base?

²²It is he who is seated over the arch of the earth, and the people in it are as small as locusts; by him the heavens are stretched out like an arch, and made ready like a tent for a living-place.

²³He makes rulers come to nothing; the judges of the earth are of no value.

²⁴They have only now been planted, and their seed put into the earth, and they have only now taken root, when he sends out his breath over them and they become dry, and the storm-wind takes them away like dry grass.

²⁵Who then seems to you to be my equal? says the Holy One.

²⁶Let your eyes be lifted up on high, and see: who has made these? He who sends out their numbered army: who has knowledge of all their names: by whose great strength, because he is strong in power, all of them are in their places.

²⁷Why do you say, O Jacob, such words as these, O Israel, The Lord's eyes are not on my way, and my God gives no attention to my cause?

²⁸Have you no knowledge of it? has it not come to your ears? The eternal God, the Lord, the Maker of the ends of the earth, is never feeble or tired; there is no searching out of his wisdom.

²⁹He gives power to the feeble, increasing the strength of him who has no force.

³⁰Even the young men will become feeble and tired, and the best of them will come to the end of his strength;

³¹But those who are waiting for the Lord will have new strength; they will get wings like eagles: running, they will not be tired, and walking, they will have no weariness.

41Come quietly before me, O sea-lands, and let the peoples get together their strength: let them come near; then let them say what they have to say: let us put forward our cause against one another.

²Who sent out from the east one who is right wherever he goes? he gives the nations into his hands, and makes him ruler over kings; he gives them as the dust to his sword, as dry stems before the wind to his bow.

³He goes after them safely, not touching the road with his feet.

⁴Whose purpose and work was it? His who sent out the generations from the start. I the Lord, the first, and with the last, I am he.

⁵The sea-lands saw it, and were in fear; the ends of the earth were shaking: they came near.

⁶They gave help everyone to his neighbour; and everyone said to his brother, Take heart!

⁷So the metal-worker put heart into the gold-worker, and he who was hammering the metal smooth said kind words to the iron-worker, saying of the plate, It is ready: and he put it together with nails, so that there might be no slipping.

⁸But as for you, Israel, my servant, and you, Jacob, whom I have taken for myself, the seed of Abraham my friend:

⁹You whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, and sent for from its farthest parts, saying to you, You are my servant, whom I have taken for myself, and whom I have not given up:

¹⁰Have no fear, for I am with you; do not be looking about in trouble, for I am your God; I will give you strength, yes, I will be your helper; yes, my true right hand will be your support.

¹¹Truly, all those who are angry with you will be made low and put to shame: those desiring to do you wrong will come to nothing and never again be seen.

¹²You will make search for your haters but they will not be there; those who make war against you will be as nothing and will come to destruction.

¹³For I, the Lord your God, have taken your right hand in mine, saying to you, Have no fear; I will be your helper.

¹⁴Have no fear, you worm Jacob, and you men of Israel; I will be your helper, says the Lord, even he who takes up your cause, the Holy One of Israel.

¹⁵See, I will make you like a new grain-crushing instrument with teeth, crushing the mountains small, and making the hills like dry stems.

¹⁶You will send the wind over them, and it will take them away; they will go in all directions before the storm-wind: you will have joy in the Lord, and be glad in the Holy One of Israel.

¹⁷The poor and crushed are looking for water where no water is, and their tongue is dry for need of it: I the Lord will give ear to their prayer, I the God of Israel will not give them up.

¹⁸I will make rivers on the dry mountain-tops, and fountains in the valleys: I will make the waste land a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water.

¹⁹I will put in the waste land the cedar, the acacia, the myrtle, and the olive-tree; and in the lowland will be planted the fir-tree, the plane, and the cypress together:

²⁰So that they may see and be wise and give their mind to it, and that it may be clear to them all that the hand of the Lord has done this, and that the Holy One of Israel has made it.

²¹Put forward your cause, says the Lord; let your strong argument come out, says the King of Jacob.

²²Let the future be made clear to us: give us news of the past things, so that we may give thought to them; or of the things to come, so that we may see if they are true.

²³Give us word of what will be after this, so that we may be certain that you are gods: yes, do good or do evil, so that we may all see it and be surprised.

²⁴But you are nothing, and your work is of no value: foolish is he who takes you for his gods.

²⁵I have sent for one from the north, and from the dawn he has come; in my name he will get rulers together and go against them; they will be like dust, even as the wet earth is stamped on by the feet of the potter.

²⁶Who has given knowledge of it from the first, so that we may be certain of it? and from the start, so that we may say, His word is true? There is no one who gives news, or says anything, or who gives ear to your words.

²⁷I was the first to give word of it to Zion, and I gave the good news to Jerusalem.

²⁸And I saw that there was no man, even no wise man among them, who might give an answer to my questions.

²⁹Truly they are all nothing, their works are nothing and of no value: their metal images are of no more use than wind.

42See my servant, whom I am supporting, my loved one, in whom I take delight: I have put my spirit on him; he will give the knowledge of the true God to the nations.

²He will make no cry, his voice will not be loud: his words will not come to men's ears in the streets.

³He will not let a crushed stem be quite broken, and he will not let a feebly burning light be put out: he will go on sending out the true word to the peoples.

⁴His light will not be put out, and he will not be crushed, till he has given the knowledge of the true God to the earth, and the sea-lands will be waiting for his teaching.

⁵God the Lord, even he who made the heavens, measuring them out on high; stretching out the earth, and giving its produce; he who gives breath to the people on it, and life to those who go about on it, says:

⁶I the Lord have made you the vessel of my purpose, I have taken you by the hand, and kept you safe, and I have given you to be an agreement to the people, and a light to the nations:

⁷To give eyes to the blind, to make free the prisoners from the prison, to let out those who are shut up in the dark.

⁸I am the Lord; that is my name: I will not give my glory to another, or my praise to pictured images.

⁹See, the things said before have come about, and now I give word of new things: before they come I give you news of them.

¹⁰Make a new song to the Lord, and let his praise be sounded from the end of the earth; you who go down to the sea, and everything in it, the sea-lands and their people.

¹¹Let the waste land and its flocks be glad, the tent-circles of Kedar; let the people of the rock give a glad cry, from the top of the mountains let them make a sound of joy.

¹²Let them give glory to the Lord, sounding his praise in the sea-lands.

¹³The Lord will go out as a man of war, he will be moved to wrath like a fighting-man: his voice will be strong, he will give a loud cry; he will go against his attackers like a man of war.

¹⁴I have long been quiet, I have kept myself in and done nothing: now I will make sounds of pain like a woman in childbirth, breathing hard and quickly.

¹⁵I will make waste mountains and hills, drying up all their plants; and I will make rivers dry, and pools dry land.

¹⁶And I will take the blind by a way of which they had no knowledge, guiding them by roads strange to them: I will make the dark places light before them, and the rough places level. These things will I do and will not give them up.

¹⁷They will be turned back and be greatly shamed who put their hope in pictured images, who say to metal images, You are our gods.

¹⁸Give ear, you whose ears are shut; and let your eyes be open, you blind, so that you may see.

¹⁹Who is blind, but my servant? who has his ears stopped, but he whom I send? who is blind as my true one, or who has his ears shut like the Lord's servant?

²⁰Seeing much, but keeping nothing in mind; his ears are open, but there is no hearing.

²¹It was the Lord's pleasure, because of his righteousness, to make the teaching great and give it honour.

²²But this is a people whose property has been taken away from them by force; they are all taken in holes, and shut up in prisons: they are made prisoners, and no one makes them free; they are taken by force and no one says, Give them back.

²³Who is there among you who will give ear to this? who will give attention to it for the time to come?

²⁴Who gave up Jacob to those who took away his goods, and Israel to his attackers? Did not the Lord? he against whom they did wrong, and in whose ways they would not go, turning away from his teaching.

²⁵For this reason he let loose on him the heat of his wrath, and his strength was like a flame; and it put fire round about him, but he did not see it; he was burned, but did not take it to heart.

43But now, says the Lord your Maker, O Jacob, and your life-giver, O Israel: have no fear, for I have taken up your cause; naming you by your name, I have made you mine.

²When you go through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they will not go over you: when you go through the fire, you will not be burned; and the flame will have no power over you.

³For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your saviour; I have given Egypt as a price for you, Ethiopia and Seba for you.

⁴Because of your value in my eyes, you have been honoured, and loved by me; so I will give men for you, and peoples for your life.

⁵Have no fear, for I am with you: I will take your seed from the east, and get you together from the west;

⁶I will say to the north, Give them up; and to the south, Do not keep them back; send back my sons from far, and my daughters from the end of the earth;

⁷Every one who is named by my name, and whom I have made for my glory, who has been formed and designed by me.

⁸Send out the blind people who have eyes, and those who have ears, but they are shut.

⁹Let all the nations come together, and let the peoples be present: who among them is able to make this clear, and give us word of earlier things? let their witnesses come forward, so that they may be seen to be true, and that they may give ear, and say, It is true.

¹⁰You are my witnesses, says the Lord, and my servant whom I have taken for myself: so that you may see and have faith in me, and that it may be clear to you that I am he; before me there was no God formed, and there will not be after me.

¹¹I, even I, am the Lord; and there is no saviour but me.

¹²I gave the word, and made it clear, and there was no strange god among you: for this reason you are my witnesses, says the Lord.

¹³From time long past I am God, and from this day I am he: there is no one who is able to take you out of my hand: when I undertake a thing, by whom will my purpose be changed?

¹⁴The Lord, who has taken up your cause, the Holy One of Israel, says, Because of you I have sent to Babylon, and made all their seers come south, and the Chaldaeans whose cry is in the ships.

¹⁵I am the Lord, your Holy One, the Maker of Israel, your King.

¹⁶This is the word of the Lord, who makes a way in the sea, and a road through the deep waters;

¹⁷Who sends out the war-carriages and the horses, the army with all its force; they have come down, they will not get up again; like a feebly burning light they are put out.

¹⁸Give no thought to the things which are past; let the early times go out of your minds.

¹⁹See, I am doing a new thing; now it is starting; will you not take note of it? I will even make a way in the waste land, and rivers in the dry country.

²⁰The beasts of the field will give me honour, the jackals and the ostriches: because I send out waters in the waste land, and rivers in the dry country, to give drink to the people whom I have taken for myself:

²¹Even the people whom I made to be the witnesses of my praise.

²²But you have made no prayer to me, O Jacob: and you have given no thought to me, O Israel.

²³You have not made me burned offerings of sheep, or given me honour with your offerings of beasts; I did not make you servants to give me an offering, and I did not make you tired with requests for perfumes.

²⁴You have not got me sweet-smelling plants with your money, or given me pleasure with the fat of your offerings: but you have made me a servant to your sins, and you have made me tired with your evil doings.

²⁵I, even I, am he who takes away your sins; and I will no longer keep your evil doings in mind.

²⁶Put me in mind of this; let us take up the cause between us: put forward your cause, so that you may be seen to be in the right.

²⁷Your first father was a sinner, and your guides have gone against my word.

²⁸Your chiefs have made my holy place unclean, so I have made Jacob a curse, and Israel a thing of shame.

44And now, give ear, O Jacob my servant, and Israel whom I have taken for myself:

²The Lord who made you, forming you in your mother's body, the Lord, your helper, says, Have no fear, O Jacob my servant, and you, Jeshurun, whom I have taken for myself.

³For I will send water on the land needing it, and streams on the dry earth: I will let my spirit come down on your seed, and my blessing on your offspring.

⁴And they will come up like grass in a well-watered field, like water-plants by the streams.

⁵One will say, I am the Lord's; and another will give himself the name, Jacob; another will put a mark on his hand, I am the Lord's, and another will take the name of Israel for himself.

⁶The Lord, the King of Israel, even the Lord of armies who has taken up his cause, says, I am the first and the last, and there is no God but me.

⁷If there is one like me, let him come forward and say it, let him make it clear and put it in order before me: who has made clear in the past the things to come? let him make clear the future to me.

⁸Have no fear, be strong in heart; have I not made it clear to you in the past, and let you see it? and you are my witnesses. Is there any God but me, or a Rock of whom I have no knowledge?

⁹Those who make a pictured image are all of them as nothing, and the things of their desire will be of no profit to them: and their servants see not, and have no knowledge; so they will be put to shame.

¹⁰Whoever makes a god, makes nothing but a metal image in which there is no profit.

¹¹Truly, all those who make use of secret arts will be put to shame, and their words of power are only words of men: let them all come forward together; they will all be in fear and be put to shame.

¹²The iron-worker is heating the metal in the fire, giving it form with his hammers, and working on it with his strong arm: then for need of food his strength gives way, and for need of water he becomes feeble.

¹³The woodworker is measuring out the wood with his line, marking it out with his pencil: after smoothing it with his plane, and making circles on it with his instrument, he gives it the form and glory of a man, so that it may be placed in the house.

¹⁴He has cedars cut down for himself, he takes an oak and lets it get strong among the trees of the wood; he has an ash-tree planted, and the rain gives it growth.

¹⁵Then it will be used to make a fire, so that a man may get warm; he has the oven heated with it and makes bread: he makes a god with it, to which he gives worship: he makes a pictured image out of it, and goes down on his face before it.

¹⁶With part of it he makes a fire, and on the fire he gets meat cooked and takes a full meal: he makes himself warm, and says, Aha! I am warm, I have seen the fire:

¹⁷And the rest of it he makes into a god, even his pictured image: he goes down on his face before it, giving worship to it, and making prayer to it, saying, Be my saviour; for you are my god.

¹⁸They have no knowledge or wisdom; for he has put a veil over their eyes, so that they may not see; and on their hearts, so that they may not give attention.

¹⁹And no one takes note, no one has enough knowledge or wisdom to say, I have put part of it in the fire, and made bread on it; I have had a meal of the flesh cooked with it: and am I now to make the rest of it into a false god? am I to go down on my face before a bit of wood?

²⁰As for him whose food is the dust of a dead fire, he has been turned from the way by a twisted mind, so that he is unable to keep himself safe by saying, What I have here in my hand is false.

²¹Keep these things in mind, O Jacob; and you Israel, for you are my servant: I have made you; you are my servant; O Israel, I will not let you go out of my memory.

²²I have put your evil doings out of my mind like a thick cloud, and your sins like a mist: come back to me; for I have taken up your cause.

²³Make a song, O heavens, for the Lord has done it: give a loud cry, you deep parts of the earth: let your voices be loud in song, you mountains, and you woods with all your trees: for the Lord has taken up the cause of Jacob, and will let his glory be seen in Israel.

²⁴The Lord, who has taken up your cause, and who gave you life in your mother's body, says, I am the Lord who makes all things; stretching out the heavens by myself, and giving the earth its limits; who was with me?

²⁵Who makes the signs of those who give word of the future come to nothing, so that those who have knowledge of secret arts go off their heads; turning the wise men back, and making their knowledge foolish:

²⁶Who makes the word of his servants certain, and gives effect to the purposes of his representatives; who says of Jerusalem, Her people will come back to her; and of the towns of Judah, I will give orders for their building, and will make her waste places fertile again:

²⁷Who says to the deep, Be dry, and I will make your rivers dry:

²⁸Who says of Cyrus, He will take care of my sheep, and will do all my pleasure: who says of Jerusalem, I will give the word for your building; and of the Temple, Your bases will be put in place.

45The Lord says to the man of his selection, to Cyrus, whom I have taken by the right hand, putting down nations before him, and taking away the arms of kings; making the doors open before him, so that the ways into the towns may not be shut;

²I will go before you, and make the rough places level: the doors of brass will be broken, and the iron rods cut in two:

³And I will give you the stores of the dark, and the wealth of secret places, so that you may be certain that I am the Lord, who gave you your name, even the God of Israel.

⁴Because of Jacob my servant, and Israel whom I have taken for myself, I have sent for you by name, giving you a name of honour, though you had no knowledge of me.

⁵I am the Lord, and there is no other; there is no God but me: I will make you ready for war, though you had no knowledge of me:

⁶So that they may see from the east and from the west that there is no God but me: I am the Lord, and there is no other.

⁷I am the giver of light and the maker of the dark; causing blessing, and sending troubles; I am the Lord, who does all these things.

⁸Let righteousness come down, O heavens, from on high, and let the sky send it down like rain: let the earth be open to give the fruit of salvation, causing righteousness to come up with it; I the Lord have made it come about.

⁹Cursed is he who has an argument with his Maker, the pot which has an argument with the Potter! Will the wet earth say to him who is working with it, What are you doing, that your work has nothing by which it may be gripped?

¹⁰Cursed is he who says to a father, To what are you giving life? or to a woman, What are you in birth-pains with?

¹¹The Lord, the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker, says, Will you put a question to me about the things which are to come, or will you give me orders about my sons, and the work of my hands?

¹²I have made the earth, forming man on it: by my hands the heavens have been stretched out, and all the stars put in their ordered places.

¹³I have sent him out to overcome the nations, and I will make all his ways straight: I will give him the work of building my town, and he will let my prisoners go free, without price or reward, says the Lord of armies.

¹⁴The Lord says, The workmen of Egypt, and the traders of Ethiopia, and the tall Sabaeans, will come over the sea to you, and they will be yours; they will go after you; in chains they will come over: and they will go down on their faces before you, and will make prayer to you, saying, Truly, God is among you; and there is no other God.

¹⁵Truly, you have a secret God, the God of Israel is a Saviour!

¹⁶All those who have gone against him will be put to shame; the makers of images will be made low.

¹⁷But the Lord will make Israel free with an eternal salvation: you will not be put to shame or made low for ever and ever.

¹⁸For this is the word of the Lord who made the heavens; he is God; the maker and designer of the earth; who made it not to be a waste, but as a living-place for man: I am the Lord, and there is no other.

¹⁹I have not given my word in secret, in a place in the underworld; I did not say to the seed of Jacob, Go into a waste land to make request of me: I the Lord say what is true, my word is righteousness.

²⁰Come together, even come near, you nations who are still living: they have no knowledge who take up their image of wood, and make prayer to a god in whom is no salvation.

²¹Give the word, put forward your cause, let us have a discussion together: who has given news of this in the past? who made it clear in early times? did not I, the Lord? and there is no God but me; a true God and a saviour; there is no other.

²²Let your hearts be turned to me, so that you may have salvation, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is no other.

²³By myself have I taken an oath, a true word has gone from my mouth, and will not be changed, that to me every knee will be bent, and every tongue will give honour.

²⁴Only in the Lord will Jacob overcome and be strong: together all those who were angry with him will be put to shame and come to destruction.

²⁵In the Lord will all the seed of Israel get their rights, and they will give glory to him.

46Bel is bent down, Nebo is falling; their images are on the beasts and on the cattle: the things which you took about have become a weight to the tired beast.

²They are bent down, they are falling together: they were not able to keep their images safe, but they themselves have been taken prisoner.

³Give ear to me, O family of Jacob, and all the rest of the people of Israel, who have been supported by me from their birth, and have been my care from their earliest days:

⁴Even when you are old I will be the same, and when you are grey-haired I will take care of you: I will still be responsible for what I made; yes, I will take you and keep you safe.

⁵Who in your eyes is my equal? or what comparison will you make with me?

⁶As for those who take gold out of a bag, and put silver in the scales, they give payment to a gold-worker, to make it into a god; they go down on their faces and give it worship.

⁷They put him on their backs, and take him up, and put him in his fixed place, from which he may not be moved; if a man gives a cry for help to him, he is unable to give an answer, or get him out of his trouble.

⁸Keep this in mind and be shamed; let it come back to your memory, you sinners.

⁹Let the things which are past come to your memory: for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like me;

¹⁰Making clear from the first what is to come, and from past times the things which have not so far come about; saying, My purpose is fixed, and I will do all my pleasure;

¹¹Sending for a bird of strong flight from the east, the man of my purpose from a far country; I have said it, and I will give effect to it; the thing designed by me will certainly be done.

¹²Give ear to me, you feeble-hearted, who have no faith in my righteousness:

¹³My righteousness is near, it is not far off; salvation will come quickly; and I will make Zion free, and give Israel my glory.

47Come and take your seat in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon; come down from your seat of power, and take your place on the earth, O daughter of the Chaldaeans: for you will never again seem soft and delicate.

²Take the crushing-stones and get the meal crushed: take off your veil, put away your robe, let your legs be uncovered, go through the rivers.

³The shame of your unclothed condition will be seen by all: I will give punishment without mercy,

⁴Says the Lord who takes up our cause; the Lord of armies is his name, the Holy One of Israel.

⁵Be seated in the dark without a word, O daughter of the Chaldaeans: for you will no longer be named, The Queen of Kingdoms.

⁶I was angry with my people, I put shame on my heritage, and gave them into your hands: you had no mercy on them; you put a cruel yoke on those who were old;

⁷And you said, I will be a queen for ever: you did not give attention to these things, and did not keep in mind what would come after.

⁸So now take note of this, you who are given up to pleasure, living without fear of evil, saying in your heart, I am, and there is no one like me; I will never be a widow, or have my children taken from me.

⁹But these two things will come on you suddenly in one day, the loss of children and of husband: in full measure they will come on you, for all your secret arts, and all your wonders.

¹⁰For you had faith in your evil-doing; you said, No one sees me; by your wisdom and knowledge you have been turned out of the way: and you have said in your heart, I am, and there is no other.

¹¹Because of this evil will come on you, which may not be turned away for any price: and trouble will overtake you, from which no money will give salvation: destruction will come on you suddenly, without your knowledge.

¹²Go on now with your secret arts, and all your wonder-working, to which you have given yourself up from your earliest days; it may be that they will be of profit to you, or by them you may put fear into your attackers.

¹³But your mind is troubled by the number of your guides: let them now come forward for your salvation: the measurers of the heavens, the watchers of the stars, and those who are able to say from month to month what things are coming on you.

¹⁴Truly, they have become like dry stems, they have been burned in the fire; they are not able to keep themselves safe from the power of the flame: it is not a coal for warming them, or a fire by which a man may be seated.

¹⁵Small profit have you had from those who, from your earliest days, got great profit out of you; they have gone in flight, every one straight before him, and you have no saviour.

48Give ear to this, O family of Jacob, you who are named by the name of Israel, and have come out of the body of Judah; who take oaths by the name of the Lord, and make use of the name of the God of Israel, but not truly and not in good faith.

²For they say that they are of the holy town, and put their faith in the God of Israel: the Lord of armies is his name.

³I gave word in the past of the things which came about; they came from my mouth, and I made them clear: suddenly I did them, and they came about.

⁴Because I saw that your heart was hard, and that your neck was an iron cord, and your brow brass;

⁵For this reason I made it clear to you in the past, before it came I gave you word of it: for fear that you might say, My god did these things, and my pictured and metal images made them come about.

⁶All this has come to your ears and you have seen it; will you not give witness to it? I am now making clear new things, even secret things, of which you had no knowledge.

⁷They have only now been effected, and not in the past: and before this day they had not come to your ears; for fear that you might say, I had knowledge of them.

⁸Truly you had no word of them, no knowledge of them; no news of them in the past had come to your ears; because I saw how false was your behaviour, and that your heart was turned against me from your earliest days.

⁹Because of my name I will put away my wrath, and for my praise I will keep myself from cutting you off.

¹⁰See, I have been testing you for myself like silver; I have put you through the fire of trouble.

¹¹For myself, even because of my name, I will do it; for I will not let my name be shamed; and my glory I will not give to another.

¹²Give ear to me, Jacob, and Israel, my loved one; I am he, I am the first and I am the last.

¹³Yes, by my hand was the earth placed on its base, and by my right hand the heavens were stretched out; at my word they take up their places.

¹⁴Come together, all of you, and give ear; who among you has given news of these things? the Lord's loved one will do his pleasure with Babylon, and with the seed of the Chaldaeans.

¹⁵I, even I, have given the word; I have sent for him: I have made him come, and have given effect to his undertakings.

¹⁶Come near to me, and give ear to this; from the start I did not keep it secret; from the time of its coming into existence I was there: and now the Lord God has sent me, and given me his spirit.

¹⁷The Lord who takes up your cause, the Holy One of Israel, says, I am the Lord your God, who is teaching you for your profit, guiding you by the way in which you are to go.

¹⁸If only you had given ear to my orders, then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness as the waves of the sea:

¹⁹Your seed would have been like the sand, and your offspring like the dust: your name would not be cut off or come to an end before me.

²⁰Go out of Babylon, go in flight from the Chaldaeans; with the sound of song make it clear, give the news, let the word go out even to the end of the earth: say, The Lord has taken up the cause of his servant Jacob.

²¹They had no need of water when he was guiding them through the waste lands: he made water come out of the rock for them: the rock was parted and the waters came flowing out.

²²There is no peace, says the Lord, for the evil-doers.

49Give ear, O sea-lands, to me; and take note, you peoples from far: I have been marked out by the Lord from the first; when I was still in my mother's body, he had my name in mind:

²And he has made my mouth like a sharp sword, in the shade of his hand he has kept me; and he has made me like a polished arrow, keeping me in his secret place;

³And he said to me, You are my servant, Israel, in whom my glory will be seen;

⁴And I said, I have undergone weariness for nothing, I have given my strength for no purpose or profit: but still the Lord will take up my cause, and my God will give me my reward.

⁵And now, says the Lord, who made me his servant when I was still in my mother's body, so that I might make Jacob come back to him, and so that Israel might come together to him: and I was honoured in the eyes of the Lord, and my God became my strength.

⁶It is not enough for one who is my servant to put the tribes of Jacob again in their place, and to get back those of Israel who have been sent away: my purpose is to give you as a light to the nations, so that you may be my salvation to the end of the earth.

⁷The Lord who takes up Israel's cause, even his Holy One, says to him whom men make sport of, who is hated by the nations, a servant of rulers: Kings will see and get up from their places, and chiefs will give worship: because of the Lord who keeps faith; even the Holy One of Israel who has taken you for himself.

⁸This is the word of the Lord: I have given ear to you at a good time, and I have been your helper in a day of salvation: and I will keep you safe, and will make you a glory for the people, putting the land in order, and giving them the heritages which now are waste;

⁹Saying to those who are in chains, Go free; to those who are in the dark, Come out into the light. They will get food by the way wherever they go, and have grass-lands on all the dry mountain-tops.

¹⁰They will not be in need of food or drink, or be troubled by the heat or the sun: for he who has mercy on them will be their guide, taking them by the springs of water.

¹¹And I will make all my mountains a way, and my highways will be lifted up.

¹²See, these are coming from far; and these from the north and the west; and these from the land of Sinim.

¹³Let your voice be loud in song, O heavens; and be glad, O earth; make sounds of joy, O mountains, for the Lord has given comfort to his people, and will have mercy on his crushed ones.

¹⁴But Zion said, The Lord has given me up, I have gone from his memory.

¹⁵Will a woman give up the child at her breast, will she be without pity for the fruit of her body? yes, these may, but I will not let you go out of my memory.

¹⁶See, your name is marked on my hands; your walls are ever before me.

¹⁷Your builders are coming quickly; your haters and those who made you waste will go out of you.

¹⁸Let your eyes be lifted up round about, and see: they are all coming together to you. By my life, says the Lord, truly you will put them all on you as an ornament, and be clothed with them like a bride.

¹⁹For though the waste places of your land have been given to destruction, now you will not be wide enough for your people, and those who made you waste will be far away.

²⁰The children to whom you gave birth in other lands will say in your ears, The place is not wide enough for me: make room for me to have a resting-place.

²¹Then you will say in your heart, Who has given me all these children? when my children had been taken from me, and I was no longer able to have others, who took care of these? when I was by myself, where then were these?

²²This is the word of the Lord God: See, I will make a sign with my hand to the nations, and put up my flag for the peoples; and they will take up your sons on their beasts, and your daughters on their backs.

²³And kings will take care of you, and queens will give you their milk: they will go down on their faces before you, kissing the dust of your feet; and you will be certain that I am the Lord, and that those who put their hope in me will not be shamed.

²⁴Will the goods of war be taken from the strong man, or the prisoners of the cruel one be let go?

²⁵But the Lord says, Even the prisoners of the strong will be taken from him, and the cruel made to let go his goods: for I will take up your cause against your haters, and I will keep your children safe.

²⁶And the flesh of your attackers will be taken by themselves for food; and they will take their blood for drink, as if it was sweet wine: and all men will see that I the Lord am your saviour, even he who takes up your cause, the Strong One of Jacob.

50This is the word of the Lord: Where is the statement which I gave your mother when I put her away? or to which of my creditors have I given you for money? It was for your sins that you were given into the hands of others, and for your evil-doing was your mother put away.

²Why, then, when I came, was there no man? and no one to give answer to my voice? has my hand become feeble, so that it is unable to take up your cause? or have I no power to make you free? See, at my word the sea becomes dry, I make the rivers a waste land: their fish are dead for need of water, and make an evil smell.

³By me the heavens are clothed with black, and I make haircloth their robe.

⁴The Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are experienced, so that I may be able to give the word a special sense for the feeble: every morning my ear is open to his teaching, like those who are experienced:

⁵And I have not put myself against him, or let my heart be turned back from him.

⁶I was offering my back to those who gave me blows, and my face to those who were pulling out my hair: I did not keep my face covered from marks of shame.

⁷For the Lord God is my helper; I will not be put to shame: so I have made my face like a rock, and I am certain that he will give me my right.

⁸He who takes up my cause is near; who will go to law with me? let us come together before the judge: who is against me? let him come near to me.

⁹See, the Lord God is my helper; who will give a decision against me? truly, all of them will become old like a robe; they will be food for the worm.

¹⁰Who among you has the fear of the Lord, giving ear to the voice of his servant who has been walking in the dark and has no light? Let him put his faith in the name of the Lord, looking to his God for support.

¹¹See, all you who make a fire, arming yourselves with burning branches: go in the flame of your fire, and among the branches you have put a light to. This will you have from my hand, you will make your bed in sorrow.

51Give ear to me, you who are searching for righteousness, who are looking for the Lord: see the rock from which you were cut out, and the hole out of which you were taken.

²Let your thoughts be turned to Abraham, your father, and to Sarah, who gave you birth: for when he was but one, my voice came to him, and I gave him my blessing, and made him a great people.

³For the Lord has given comfort to Zion: he has made glad all her broken walls; making her waste places like Eden, and changing her dry land into the garden of the Lord; joy and delight will be there, praise and the sound of melody.

⁴Give attention to me, O my people; and give ear to me, O my nation; for teaching will go out from me, and the knowledge of the true God will be a light to the peoples.

⁵Suddenly will my righteousness come near, and my salvation will be shining out like the light; the sea-lands will be waiting for me, and they will put their hope in my strong arm.

⁶Let your eyes be lifted up to the heavens, and turned to the earth which is under them: for the heavens will go in flight like smoke, and the earth will become old like a coat, and its people will come to destruction like insects: but my salvation will be for ever, and my righteousness will not come to an end.

⁷Give ear to me, you who have knowledge of righteousness, in whose heart is my law; have no fear of the evil words of men, and give no thought to their curses.

⁸For like a coat they will be food for the insect, the worm will make a meal of them like wool: but my righteousness will be for ever, and my salvation to all generations.

⁹Awake! awake! put on strength, O arm of the Lord, awake! as in the old days, in the generations long past. Was it not by you that Rahab was cut in two, and the dragon Wounded?

¹⁰Did you not make the sea dry, the waters of the great deep? did you not make the deep waters of the sea a way for the Lord's people to go through?

¹¹Those whom the Lord has made free will come back with songs to Zion; and on their heads will be eternal joy: delight and joy will be theirs, and sorrow and sounds of grief will be gone for ever.

¹²I, even I, am your comforter: are you so poor in heart as to be in fear of man who will come to an end, and of the son of man who will be like grass?

¹³And you have given no thought to the Lord your Maker, by whom the heavens were stretched out, and the earth placed on its base; and you went all day in fear of the wrath of the cruel one, when he was making ready for your destruction. And where is the wrath of the cruel one?

¹⁴The prisoner, bent under his chain, will quickly be made free, and will not go down into the underworld, and his bread will not come to an end.

¹⁵For I am the Lord your God, who makes the sea calm when its waves are thundering: the Lord of armies is his name.

¹⁶And I have put my words in your mouth, covering you with the shade of my hand, stretching out the heavens, and placing the earth on its base, and saying to Zion, You are my people.

¹⁷Awake! awake! up! O Jerusalem, you who have taken from the Lord's hand the cup of his wrath; tasting in full measure the wine which overcomes.

¹⁸She has no one among all her children to be her guide; not one of the sons she has taken care of takes her by the hand.

¹⁹These two things have come on you; who will be weeping for you? wasting and destruction; death from need of food, and from the sword; how may you be comforted?

²⁰Your sons are overcome, like a roe in a net; they are full of the wrath of the Lord, the punishment of your God.

²¹So now give ear to this, you who are troubled and overcome, but not with wine:

²²This is the word of the Lord your master, even your God who takes up the cause of his people: See, I have taken out of your hand the cup which overcomes, even the cup of my wrath; it will not again be given to you:

²³And I will put it into the hand of your cruel masters, and of those whose yoke has been hard on you; who have said to your soul, Down on your face! so that we may go over you: and you have given your backs like the earth, even like the street, for them to go over.

52Awake! awake! put on your strength, O Zion; put on your beautiful robes, O Jerusalem, the holy town: for from now there will never again come into you the unclean and those without circumcision.

²Make yourself clean from the dust; up! and take the seat of your power, O Jerusalem: the bands of your neck are loose, O prisoned daughter of Zion.

³For the Lord says, You were given for nothing, and you will be made free without price.

⁴For the Lord God says, My people went down at first into Egypt, to get a place for themselves there: and the Assyrian put a cruel yoke on them without cause.

⁵Now then, what have I here? says the Lord, for my people are taken away without cause; they are made waste and give cries of sorrow, says the Lord, and all the day the nations put shame on my name.

⁶For this cause I will make my name clear to my people; in that day they will be certain that it is my word which comes to them; see, here am I.

⁷How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of him who comes with good news, who gives word of peace, saying that salvation is near; who says to Zion, Your God is ruling!

⁸The voice of your watchmen! their voices are loud in song together; for they will see him, eye to eye, when the Lord comes back to Zion.

⁹Give sounds of joy, make melody together, waste places of Jerusalem: for the Lord has given comfort to his people, he has taken up the cause of Jerusalem.

¹⁰The Lord has let his holy arm be seen by the eyes of all nations; and all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God.

¹¹Away! away! go out from there, touching no unclean thing; go out from among her; be clean, you who take up the vessels of the Lord.

¹²For you will not go out suddenly, and you will not go in flight: for the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will come after you to keep you.

¹³See, my servant will do well in his undertakings, he will be honoured, and lifted up, and be very high.

¹⁴As peoples were surprised at him, And his face was not beautiful, so as to be desired: his face was so changed by disease as to be unlike that of a man, and his form was no longer that of the sons of men.

¹⁵So will nations give him honour; kings will keep quiet because of him: for what had not been made clear to them they will see; and they will give their minds to what had not come to their ears.

53Who would have had faith in the word which has come to our ears, and to whom had the arm of the Lord been unveiled?

²For his growth was like that of a delicate plant before him, and like a root out of a dry place: he had no grace of form, to give us pleasure;

³Men made sport of him, turning away from him; he was a man of sorrows, marked by disease; and like one from whom men's faces are turned away, he was looked down on, and we put no value on him.

⁴But it was our pain he took, and our diseases were put on him: while to us he seemed as one diseased, on whom God's punishment had come.

⁵But it was for our sins he was wounded, and for our evil doings he was crushed: he took the punishment by which we have peace, and by his wounds we are made well.

⁶We all went wandering like sheep; going every one of us after his desire; and the Lord put on him the punishment of us all.

⁷Men were cruel to him, but he was gentle and quiet; as a lamb taken to its death, and as a sheep before those who take her wool makes no sound, so he said not a word.

⁸They took away from him help and right, and who gave a thought to his fate? for he was cut off from the land of the living: he came to his death for the sin of my people.

⁹And they put his body into the earth with sinners, and his last resting-place was with the evil-doers, though he had done no wrong, and no deceit was in his mouth.

¹⁰And the Lord was pleased ... see a seed, long life, ... will do well in his hand. ...

¹¹... made clear his righteousness before men ... had taken their sins on himself.

¹²For this cause he will have a heritage with the great, and he will have a part in the goods of war with the strong, because he gave up his life, and was numbered with the evil-doers; taking on himself the sins of the people, and making prayer for the wrongdoers.

54Let your voice be loud in song, O woman without children; make melody and sounds of joy, you who did not give birth: for the children of her who had no husband are more than those of the married wife, says the Lord.

²Make wide the place of your tent, and let the curtains of your house be stretched out without limit: make your cords long, and your tent-pins strong.

³For I will make wide your limits on the right hand and on the left; and your seed will take the nations for a heritage, and make the waste towns full of people.

⁴Have no fear; for you will not be shamed or without hope: you will not be put to shame, for the shame of your earlier days will go out of your memory, and you will no longer keep in mind the sorrows of your widowed years.

⁵For your Maker is your husband; the Lord of armies is his name: and the Holy One of Israel is he who takes up your cause; he will be named the God of all the earth.

⁶For the Lord has made you come back to him, like a wife who has been sent away in grief of spirit; for one may not give up the wife of one's early days.

⁷For a short time I gave you up; but with great mercies I will take you back again.

⁸In overflowing wrath my face was veiled from you for a minute, but I will have pity on you for ever, says the Lord who takes up your cause.

⁹For this is like the days of Noah to me: for as I took an oath that the waters of Noah would never again go over the earth, so have I taken an oath that I will not again be angry with you, or say bitter words to you.

¹⁰For the mountains may be taken away, and the hills be moved out of their places, but my love will not be taken from you, or my agreement of peace broken, says the Lord, who has had mercy on you.

¹¹O troubled one, storm-crushed, uncomforted! see, your stones will be framed in fair colours, and your bases will be sapphires.

¹²I will make your towers of rubies, and your doors of carbuncles, and the wall round you will be of all sorts of beautiful stones.

¹³And all your builders will be made wise by the Lord; and great will be the peace of your children.

¹⁴All your rights will be made certain to you: have no fear of evil, and destruction will not come near you.

¹⁵See, they may be moved to war, but not by my authority: all those who come together to make an attack on you, will be broken against you.

¹⁶See, I have made the iron-worker, blowing on the burning coals, and making the instrument of war by his work; and I have made the waster for destruction.

¹⁷No instrument of war which is formed against you will be of any use; and every tongue which says evil against you will be judged false. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness comes from me, says the Lord.

55Ho! everyone in need, come to the waters, and he who has no strength, let him get food: come, get bread without money; wine and milk without price.

²Why do you give your money for what is not bread, and the fruit of your work for what will not give you pleasure? Give ear to me, so that your food may be good, and you may have the best in full measure.

³Give ear, and come to me, take note with care, so that your souls may have life: and I will make an eternal agreement with you, even the certain mercies of David.

⁴See, I have given him as a witness to the peoples, a ruler and a guide to the nations.

⁵See, you will send for a nation of which you had no knowledge, and those who had no knowledge of you will come running to you, because of the Lord your God, and because of the Holy One of Israel, for he has given you glory.

⁶Make search for the Lord while he is there, make prayer to him while he is near:

⁷Let the sinner give up his way, and the evil-doer his purpose: and let him come back to the Lord, and he will have mercy on him; and to our God, for there is full forgiveness with him.

⁸For my thoughts are not your thoughts, or your ways my ways, says the Lord.

⁹For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

¹⁰For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and does not go back again, but gives water to the earth, and makes it fertile, giving seed to the planter, and bread for food;

¹¹So will my word be which goes out of my mouth: it will not come back to me with nothing done, but it will give effect to my purpose, and do that for which I have sent it.

¹²For you will go out with joy, and be guided in peace: the mountains and the hills will make melody before you, and all the trees of the fields will make sounds of joy.

¹³In place of the thorn will come up the fir-tree, and in place of the blackberry the myrtle: and it will be to the Lord for a name, for an eternal sign which will not be cut off.

56The Lord says, Let your way of life be upright, and let your behaviour be rightly ordered: for my salvation is near, and my righteousness will quickly be seen.

²Happy is the man who does this, and the son of man whose behaviour is so ordered; who keeps the Sabbath holy, and his hand from doing any evil.

³And let not the man from a strange country, who has been joined to the Lord, say, The Lord will certainly put a division between me and his people: and let not the unsexed man say, See, I am a dry tree.

⁴For the Lord says, As for the unsexed who keep my Sabbaths, and give their hearts to pleasing me, and keep their agreement with me:

⁵I will give to them in my house, and inside my walls, a place and a name better than that of sons and daughters; I will give them an eternal name which will not be cut off.

⁶And as for those from a strange country, who are joined to the Lord, to give worship to him and honour to his name, to be his servants, even everyone who keeps the Sabbath holy, and keeps his agreement with me:

⁷I will make them come to my holy mountain, and will give them joy in my house of prayer; I will take pleasure in the burned offerings which they make on my altar: for my house will be named a house of prayer for all peoples.

⁸The Lord God, who gets together the wandering ones of Israel, says, I will get together others in addition to those of Israel who have come back.

⁹All you beasts of the field, come together for your meat, even all you beasts of the wood.

¹⁰His watchmen are blind, they are all without knowledge; they are all dogs without tongues, unable to make a sound; stretched out dreaming, loving sleep.

¹¹Yes, the dogs are for ever looking for food; while these, the keepers of the sheep, are without wisdom: they have all gone after their pleasure, every one looking for profit; they are all the same.

¹²Come, they say, I will get wine, and we will take strong drink in full measure; and tomorrow will be like today, full of pleasure.

57The upright man goes to his death, and no one gives a thought to it; and god-fearing men are taken away, and no one is troubled by it; for the upright man is taken away because of evil-doing, and goes into peace.

²They are at rest in their last resting-places, every one going straight before him.

³But come near, you sons of her who is wise in secret arts, the seed of her who is false to her husband, and of the loose woman.

⁴Of whom do you make sport? against whom is your mouth open wide and your tongue put out? are you not uncontrolled children, a false seed,

⁵You who are burning with evil desire among the oaks, under every green tree; putting children to death in the valleys, under the cracks of the rocks?

⁶Among the smooth stones of the valley is your heritage; they, even they, are your part: even to them have you made a drink offering and a meal offering. Is it possible for such things to be overlooked by me?

⁷You have put your bed on a high mountain: there you went up to make your offering.

⁸And on the back of the doors and on the pillars you have put your sign: for you have been false to me with another; you have made your bed wide, and made an agreement with them; you had a desire for their bed where you saw it

⁹And you went to Melech with oil and much perfume, and you sent your representatives far off, and went as low as the underworld.

¹⁰You were tired with your long journeys; but you did not say, There is no hope: you got new strength, and so you were not feeble.

¹¹And of whom were you in fear, so that you were false, and did not keep me in mind, or give thought to it? Have I not been quiet, keeping myself secret, and so you were not in fear of me?

¹²I will make clear what your righteousness is like and your works; you will have no profit in them.

¹³Your false gods will not keep you safe in answer to your cry; but the wind will take them, they will be gone like a breath: but he who puts his hope in me will take the land, and will have my holy mountain as his heritage.

¹⁴And I will say, Make it high, make it high, get ready the way, take the stones out of the way of my people.

¹⁵For this is the word of him who is high and lifted up, whose resting-place is eternal, whose name is Holy: my resting-place is in the high and holy place, and with him who is crushed and poor in spirit, to give life to the spirit of the poor, and to make strong the heart of the crushed.

¹⁶For I will not give punishment for ever, or be angry without end: for from me breath goes out; and I it was who made the souls.

¹⁷I was quickly angry with his evil ways, and sent punishment on him, veiling my face in wrath: and he went on, turning his heart from me.

¹⁸I have seen his ways, and I will make him well: I will give him rest, comforting him and his people who are sad.

¹⁹I will give the fruit of the lips: Peace, peace, to him who is near and to him who is far off, says the Lord; and I will make him well.

²⁰But the evil-doers are like the troubled sea, for which there is no rest, and its waters send up earth and waste.

²¹There is no peace, says my God, for the evil-doers.

58Make a loud cry, do not be quiet, let your voice be sounding like a horn, and make clear to my people their evil doings, and to the family of Jacob their sins.

²Though they make prayer to me every day, and take pleasure in the knowledge of my ways: like a nation which has done righteousness, and has not given up the rules of their God, they make requests to me for the right orders, it is their delight to come near to God.

³They say, Why have we kept ourselves from food, and you do not see it? why have we kept ourselves from pleasure, and you take no note of it? If, in the days when you keep from food, you take the chance to do your business, and get in your debts;

⁴If keeping from food makes you quickly angry, ready for fighting and giving blows with evil hands; your holy days are not such as to make your voice come to my ears on high.

⁵Have I given orders for such a day as this? a day for keeping yourselves from pleasure? is it only a question of the bent head, of putting on haircloth, and being seated in the dust? is this what seems to you a holy day, well-pleasing to the Lord?

⁶Is not this the holy day for which I have given orders: to let loose those who have wrongly been made prisoners, to undo the bands of the yoke, and to let the crushed go free, and every yoke be broken?

⁷Is it not to give your bread to those in need, and to let the poor who have no resting-place come into your house? to put a robe on the unclothed one when you see him, and not to keep your eyes shut for fear of seeing his flesh?

⁸Then will light be shining on you like the morning, and your wounds will quickly be well: and your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will come after you.

⁹Then at the sound of your voice, the Lord will give an answer; at your cry he will say, Here am I. If you take away from among you the yoke, the putting out of the finger of shame, and the evil word;

¹⁰And if you give your bread to those in need of it, so that the troubled one may have his desire; then you will have light in the dark, and your night will be as the full light of the sun:

¹¹And the Lord will be your guide at all times; in dry places he will give you water in full measure, and will make strong your bones; and you will be like a watered garden, and like an ever-flowing spring.

¹²And your sons will be building again the old waste places: you will make strong the bases of old generations: and you will be named, He who puts up the broken walls, and, He who makes ready the ways for use.

¹³If you keep the Sabbath with care, not doing your business on my holy day; and if the Sabbath seems to you a delight, and the new moon of the Lord a thing to be honoured; and if you give respect to him by not doing your business, or going after your pleasure, or saying unholy words;

¹⁴Then the Lord will be your delight; and I will put you on the high places of the earth; and I will give you the heritage of Jacob your father: for the mouth of the Lord has said it.

59Truly, the Lord's hand has not become short, so that he is unable to give salvation; and his ear is not shut from hearing:

²But your sins have come between you and your God, and by your evil doings his face has been veiled from you, so that he will give you no answer.

³For your hands are unclean with blood, and your fingers with sin; your lips have said false things, and your tongue gives out deceit.

⁴No one puts forward an upright cause, or gives a true decision: their hope is in deceit, and their words are false; they are with child with sin, and give birth to evil.

⁵They give birth to snake's eggs, and make spider's threads: whoever takes their eggs for food comes to his death, and the egg which is crushed becomes a poison-snake.

⁶Their twisted threads will not make clothing, and their works will give them nothing for covering themselves: their works are works of sin, and violent acts are in their hands.

⁷Their feet go quickly to evil, and they take delight in the death of the upright; their thoughts are thoughts of sin; wasting and destruction are in their ways.

⁸They have no knowledge of the way of peace, and there is no sense of what is right in their behaviour: they have made for themselves ways which are not straight; whoever goes in them has no knowledge of peace.

⁹For this cause our right is far from us, and righteousness does not overtake us: we are looking for light, but there is only the dark; for the shining of the sun, but our way is in the night.

¹⁰We go on our way, like blind men feeling for the wall, even like those who have no eyes: we are running against things in daylight as if it was evening; our place is in the dark like dead men.

¹¹We make noises of grief, like bears, and sad sounds like doves: we are looking for our right, but it is not there; for salvation, but it is far from us.

¹²For our evil doings are increased before you, and our sins give witness against us: for our evil doings are with us, and we have knowledge of our sins:

¹³We have gone against the Lord, and been false to him, turning away from our God, our words have been uncontrolled, and in our hearts are thoughts of deceit.

¹⁴And the right is turned back, and righteousness is far away: for good faith is not to be seen in the public places, and upright behaviour may not come into the town.

¹⁵Yes, faith is gone; and he whose heart is turned from evil comes into the power of the cruel: and the Lord saw it, and he was angry that there was no one to take up their cause.

¹⁶And he saw that there was no man, and was surprised that there was no one to take up their cause: so his arm gave salvation, and he made righteousness his support.

¹⁷Yes, he put on righteousness as a breastplate, and salvation as a head-dress; and he put on punishment as clothing, and wrath as a robe.

¹⁸He will give them the right reward of their doings, wrath to his attackers, punishment to his haters, and even on the sea-lands he will send punishment.

¹⁹So they will see the name of the Lord from the west, and his glory from the east: for he will come like a rushing stream, forced on by a wind of the Lord.

²⁰And as a saviour he will come to Zion, turning away sin from Jacob, says the Lord.

²¹And as for me, this is my agreement with them, says the Lord: my spirit which is on you, and my words which I have put in your mouth, will not go away from your mouth, or from the mouth of your seed, or from the mouth of your seed's seed, says the Lord, from now and for ever.

60Up! let your face be bright, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord is shining on you.

²For truly, the earth will be dark, and the peoples veiled in blackest night; but the Lord will be shining on you, and his glory will be seen among you.

³And nations will come to your light, and kings to your bright dawn.

⁴Let your eyes be lifted up, and see: they are all coming together to you: your sons will come from far, and your daughters taken with loving care.

⁵Then you will see, and be bright with joy, and your heart will be shaking with increase of delight: for the produce of the sea will be turned to you, the wealth of the nations will come to you.

⁶You will be full of camel-trains, even the young camels of Midian and Ephah; all from Sheba will come, with gold and spices, giving word of the great acts of the Lord.

⁷All the flocks of Kedar will come together to you, the sheep of Nebaioth will be ready for your need; they will be pleasing offerings on my altar, and my house of prayer will be beautiful.

⁸Who are these coming like a cloud, like a flight of doves to their windows?

⁹Vessels of the sea-lands are waiting for me, and the ships of Tarshish first, so that your sons may come from far, and their silver and gold with them, to the place of the name of the Lord your God, and to the Holy One of Israel, because he has made you beautiful.

¹⁰And men from strange countries will be building up your walls, and their kings will be your servants: for in my wrath I sent punishment on you, but in my grace I have had mercy on you.

¹¹Your doors will be open at all times; they will not be shut day or night; so that men may come into you with the wealth of the nations, with their kings at their head.

¹²For the nation or kingdom which will not be your servant will come to destruction; such nations will be completely waste.

¹³The glory of Lebanon will come to you, the cypress, the plane, and the sherbin-tree together, to make my holy place beautiful; and the resting-place of my feet will be full of glory.

¹⁴And the sons of those who were cruel to you will come before you with bent heads; and those who made sport of you will go down on their faces at your feet; and you will be named, The Town of the Lord, The Zion of the Holy One of Israel.

¹⁵And though you were turned away from, and hated, and had no helper, I will make you a pride for ever, a joy from generation to generation.

¹⁶And you will take the milk of the nations, flowing from the breast of kings; and you will see that I, the Lord, am your saviour, and he who takes up your cause, the Strong One of Jacob.

¹⁷In place of brass, I will give gold, and for iron silver, and for wood brass, and for stones iron: and I will make Peace your judge, and Righteousness your overseer.

¹⁸Violent acts will no longer be seen in your land, wasting or destruction in your limits; but your walls will be named, Salvation, and your doors Praise.

¹⁹The sun will not be your light by day, and the moon will no longer be bright for you by night: but the Lord will be to you an eternal light, and your God your glory.

²⁰Your sun will never again go down, or your moon keep back her light: for the Lord will be your eternal light, and the days of your sorrow will be ended.

²¹Your people will all be upright, the land will be their heritage for ever; the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, to be for my glory.

²²The smallest of their families will become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation: I, the Lord, will make it come quickly in its time.

61The spirit of the Lord is on me, because I am marked out by him to give good news to the poor; he has sent me to make the broken-hearted well, to say that the prisoners will be made free, and that those in chains will see the light again;

²To give knowledge that the year of the Lord's good pleasure has come, and the day of punishment from our God; to give comfort to all who are sad;

³To give them a fair head-dress in place of dust, the oil of joy in place of the clothing of grief, praise in place of sorrow; so that they may be named trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, and so that he may have glory.

⁴And they will be building again the old broken walls, and will make new the old waste places, and will put up again the towns which have been waste for long generations.

⁵And men from strange countries will be your herdsmen, and those who are not Israelites will be your ploughmen and vine-keepers.

⁶But you will be named the priests of the Lord, the servants of our God: you will have the wealth of the nations for your food, and you will be clothed with their glory.

⁷As they had twice as much grief, and marks of shame were their heritage, so in their land they will be rewarded twice over, and will have eternal joy.

⁸For I, the Lord, take pleasure in upright judging; I will not put up with the violent taking away of right; and I will certainly give them their reward, and I will make an eternal agreement with them.

⁹And their seed will be noted among the nations, and their offspring among the peoples: it will be clear to all who see them that they are the seed to which the Lord has given his blessing.

¹⁰I will be full of joy in the Lord, my soul will be glad in my God; for he has put on me the clothing of salvation, covering me with the robe of righteousness, as the husband puts on a fair head-dress, and the bride makes herself beautiful with jewels.

¹¹For as the earth puts out buds, and as the garden gives growth to the seeds which are planted in it, so the Lord will make righteousness and praise to be flowering before all the nations.

62Because of Zion I will not keep quiet, and because of Jerusalem I will take no rest, till her righteousness goes out like the shining of the sun, and her salvation like a burning light.

²And the nations will see your righteousness, and all kings your glory: and you will have a new name, given by the mouth of the Lord.

³And you will be a fair crown in the hand of the Lord, and a king's head-dress in the hand of your God.

⁴You will not now be named, She who is given up; and your land will no longer be named, The waste land: but you will have the name, My pleasure is in her, and your land will be named, Married: for the Lord has pleasure in you, and your land will be married.

⁵For as a young man takes a virgin for his wife, so will your maker be married to you: and as a husband has joy in his bride, so will the Lord your God be glad over you.

⁶I have put watchmen on your walls, O Jerusalem; they will not keep quiet day or night: you who are the Lord's recorders, take no rest,

⁷And give him no rest, till he puts Jerusalem in her place to be praised in the earth.

⁸The Lord has taken an oath by his right hand, and by the arm of his strength, Truly, I will no longer give your grain to be food for your haters; and men of strange countries will not take the wine for which your work has been done:

⁹But those who have got in the grain will have it for their food, and will give praise to the Lord; and those who have got in the grapes will take the wine of them in the open places of my holy house.

¹⁰Go through, go through the doors; make ready the way of the people; let the highway be lifted up; let the stones be taken away; let a flag be lifted up over the peoples.

¹¹The Lord has sent out word to the end of the earth, Say to the daughter of Zion, See, your saviour comes; those whom he has made free are with him, and those to whom he has given salvation go before him.

¹²And they will be named, The holy people, Those whose cause has been taken up by the Lord: and you will be named, Desired, A town not given up.

63Who is this who comes from Edom, with blood-red robes from Bozrah? he whose clothing is fair, stepping with pride in his great strength? I whose glory is in the right, strong for salvation.

²Why is your clothing red, and why are your robes like those of one who is crushing the grapes?

³I have been crushing the grapes by myself, and of the peoples there was no man with me: in my wrath and in my passion, they were crushed under my feet; and my robes are marked with their life-blood, and all my clothing is red.

⁴For the day of punishment is in my heart, and the year for the payment of the price for my people has come.

⁵And I saw that there was no helper, and I was wondering that no one gave them support: so my arm did the work of salvation, and my wrath was my support.

⁶And in my passion the peoples were crushed under my feet, and broken in my wrath, and I put down their strength to the earth.

⁷I will give news of the mercies of the Lord, and his great acts, even all the things the Lord has done for us, in his great grace to the house of Israel; even all he has done for us in his unnumbered mercies.

⁸For he said, Truly they are my people, children who will not be false: so he was their saviour out of all their trouble.

⁹It was no sent one or angel, but he himself who was their saviour: in his love and in his pity he took up their cause, and he took them in his arms, caring for them all through the years.

¹⁰But they went against him, causing grief to his holy spirit: so he was turned against them, and made war on them.

¹¹Then the early days came to their minds, the days of Moses his servant: and they said, Where is he who made the keeper of his flock come up from the sea? where is he who put his holy spirit among them,

¹²He who made the arm of his glory go at the right hand of Moses, by whom the waters were parted before them, to make himself an eternal name;

¹³He who made them go through the deep waters, like a horse in the waste land?

¹⁴Like the cattle which go down into the valley, they went without falling, the spirit of the Lord guiding them: so you went before your people, to make yourself a great name.

¹⁵Let your eyes be looking down from heaven, from your holy and beautiful house: where is your deep feeling, the working of your power? do not keep back the moving of your pity and your mercies:

¹⁶For you are our father, though Abraham has no knowledge of us, and Israel gives no thought to us: you, O Lord, are our father; from the earliest days you have taken up our cause.

¹⁷O Lord, why do you send us wandering from your ways, making our hearts hard, so that we have no fear of you? Come back, because of your servants, the tribes of your heritage.

¹⁸Why have evil men gone over your holy place, so that it has been crushed under the feet of our haters?

¹⁹We have become as those who were never ruled by you, on whom your name was not named.

64O let the heavens be broken open and come down, so that the mountains may be shaking before you,

²As when fire puts the brushwood in flames, or as when water is boiling from the heat of the fire: to make your name feared by your haters, so that the nations may be shaking before you;

³While you do acts of power for which we are not looking, and which have not come to the ears of men in the past.

⁴The ear has not had news of, or the eye seen, ... any God but you, working for the man who is waiting for him.

⁵Will you not have mercy on him who takes pleasure in doing righteousness, even on those who keep in mind your ways? Truly you were angry, and we went on doing evil, and sinning against you in the past.

⁶For we have all become like an unclean person, and all our good acts are like a dirty robe: and we have all become old like a dead leaf, and our sins, like the wind, take us away.

⁷And there is no one who makes prayer to your name, or who is moved to keep true to you: for your face is veiled from us, and you have given us into the power of our sins.

⁸But now, O Lord, you are our father; we are the earth, and you are our maker; and we are all the work of your hand.

⁹Be not very angry, O Lord, and do not keep our sins in mind for ever: give ear to our prayer, for we are all your people.

¹⁰Your holy towns have become a waste, Zion has become a waste, Jerusalem is a mass of broken walls.

¹¹Our holy and beautiful house, where our fathers gave praise to you, is burned with fire; and all the things of our desire have come to destruction.

¹²In view of all this, will you still do nothing, O Lord? will you keep quiet, and go on increasing our punishment?

65I have been ready to give an answer to those who did not make prayer to me; I have been offering myself to those who were not searching for me; I said, Here am I, here am I, to a nation which gave no respect to my name.

²All day my hands have been stretched out to an uncontrolled people, who go in an evil way, after the purposes of their hearts;

³A people who make me angry every day, making offerings in gardens, and burning perfumes on bricks.

⁴Who are seated in the resting-places of the dead, and by night are in the secret places; who take pig's flesh for food, and have the liquid of disgusting things in their vessels.

⁵Who say, Keep away, do not come near me, for fear that I make you holy: these are a smoke in my nose, a fire burning all day.

⁶See, it is recorded before me, says the Lord: I will not keep back my hand, till I have sent punishment,

⁷For their sins and the sins of their fathers, who were burning perfumes on the mountains, and saying evil things against me on the hills: so I will take the measure of their sins, and will send the punishment for them into their breast.

⁸This is the word of the Lord: As the new wine is seen in the grapes, and they say, Do not send destruction on it, for a blessing is in it: so will I do for my servants, in order that I may not put an end to them all.

⁹And I will take a seed out of Jacob, and out of Judah one who will have my mountains for a heritage: and the people I have taken to be mine will have it for themselves, and my servants will have their resting-place there.

¹⁰And Sharon will be a grass-land for the flocks, and the valley of Achor a resting-place for the herds: for my people whose hearts have been turned back to me.

¹¹But as for you who have given up the Lord, who have no care for my holy mountain, who get ready a table for Chance, and make offerings of mixed wine to Fate;

¹²Your fate will be the sword, and you will all go down to death: because when my voice came to you, you made no answer; you did not give ear to my word; but you did what was evil in my eyes, desiring what was not pleasing to me.

¹³For this cause says the Lord God, My servants will have food, but you will be in need of food: my servants will have drink, but you will be dry: my servants will have joy, but you will be shamed:

¹⁴My servants will make songs in the joy of their hearts, but you will be crying for sorrow, and making sounds of grief from a broken spirit.

¹⁵And your name will become a curse to my people, and the Lord God will put you to death, and give his servants another name:

¹⁶So that he who is requesting a blessing will make use of the name of the true God, and he who takes an oath will do so by the true God; because the past troubles are gone out of mind, and because they are covered from my eyes.

¹⁷For see, I am making a new heaven and a new earth: and the past things will be gone completely out of mind.

¹⁸But men will be glad and have joy for ever in what I am making; for I am making Jerusalem a delight, and her people a joy.

¹⁹And I will be glad over Jerusalem, and have joy in my people: and the voice of weeping will no longer be sounding in her, or the voice of grief.

²⁰No longer will there be there a child whose days are cut short, or an old man whose days have not come to their full measure: for the young man at his death will be a hundred years old, and he whose life is shorter than a hundred years will seem as one cursed.

²¹And they will be building houses and living in them; planting vine-gardens and getting the fruit of them.

²²They will no longer be building for the use of others, or planting for others to have the fruit: for the days of my people will be like the days of a tree, and my loved ones will have joy in full measure in the work of their hands.

²³Their work will not be for nothing, and they will not give birth to children for destruction; for they are a seed to whom the Lord has given his blessing, and their offspring will be with them.

²⁴And before they make their request I will give an answer, and while they are still making prayer to me, I will give ear.

²⁵The wolf and the lamb will take their food together, and the lion will make a meal of grass like the ox: but dust will be the snake's food. There will be no cause of pain or destruction in all my holy mountain, says the Lord.

66The Lord says, Heaven is the seat of my power, and earth is the resting-place for my feet: what sort of house will you make for me, and what place will be my resting-place?

²For all these things my hand has made, and they are mine, says the Lord; but to this man only will I give attention, to him who is poor and broken in spirit, fearing my word.

³He who puts an ox to death puts a man to death; he who makes an offering of a lamb puts a dog to death; he who makes a meal offering makes an offering of pig's blood; he who makes an offering of perfumes for a sign gives worship to an image: as they have gone after their desires, and their soul takes pleasure in their disgusting things;

⁴So I will go after trouble for them, and will send on them what they are fearing: because no one made answer to my voice, or gave ear to my word; but they did what was evil in my eyes, going after that in which I took no pleasure.

⁵Give ear to the word of the Lord, you who are in fear at his word: your countrymen, hating you, and driving you out because of my name, have said, Let the Lord's glory be made clear, so that we may see your joy; but they will be put to shame.

⁶There is a noise of war from the town, a sound from the Temple, the voice of the Lord giving punishment to his haters.

⁷Before her pains came, she gave birth; before her pains, she gave birth to a man-child.

⁸When has such a story come to men's ears? who has seen such things? will a land come to birth in one day? will a nation be given birth in a minute? For when Zion's pains came on her, she gave birth to her children straight away.

⁹Will I by whom the birth was started, not make it complete? says the Lord. Will I who make children come to birth, let them be kept back? says your God.

¹⁰Have joy with Jerusalem, and be glad with her, all you her lovers: take part in her joy, all you who are sorrowing for her:

¹¹So that you may take of the comfort flowing from her breasts, and be delighted with the full measure of her glory.

¹²For the Lord says, See, I will make her peace like a river, and the glory of the nations like an overflowing stream, and she will take her children in her arms, gently caring for them on her knees.

¹³As to one who is comforted by his mother, so will I give you comfort: and you will be comforted in Jerusalem.

¹⁴And you will see it and your heart will be glad, and your bones will get new strength, like young grass: and the hand of the Lord will be seen at work for his servants, and his wrath against his haters.

¹⁵For the Lord is coming with fire, and his war-carriages will be like the storm-wind; to give punishment in the heat of his wrath, and his passion is like flames of fire.

¹⁶For with fire and sword will the Lord come, judging all the earth, and his sword will be on all flesh: and great numbers will be put to death by him.

¹⁷As for those who keep themselves separate, and make themselves clean in the gardens, going after one in the middle, taking pig's flesh for food, and other disgusting things, such as the mouse: their works and their thoughts will come to an end together, says the Lord.

¹⁸And I am coming to get together all nations and tongues: and they will come and will see my glory.

¹⁹And I will put a sign among them, and I will send those who are still living to the nations, to Tarshish, Put, and Lud, Meshech and Rosh, Tubal and Javan, to the sea-lands far away, who have not had word of me, or seen my glory; and they will give the knowledge of my glory to the nations.

²⁰And they will take your countrymen out of all the nations for an offering to the Lord, on horses, and in carriages, and in carts, and on asses, and on camels, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, says the Lord, as the children of Israel take their offering in a clean vessel into the house of the Lord.

²¹And some of them will I take for priests and Levites, says the Lord.

²²For as the new heaven and the new earth which I will make will be for ever before me, says the Lord, so will your seed and your name be for ever.

²³And it will be, that from new moon to new moon, and from Sabbath to Sabbath, all flesh will come to give worship before me, says the Lord.

²⁴And they will go out to see the dead bodies of the men who have done evil against me: for their worm will ever be living, and their fire will never be put out, and they will be a thing of fear to all flesh.

1The words of Jeremiah, the son of Hilkiah, of the priests who were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin:

²To whom the word of the Lord came in the days of Josiah, the son of Amon, king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his rule.

³And it came again in the days of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, up to the eleventh year of Zedekiah, the son of Josiah, king of Judah; till Jerusalem was taken away in the fifth month.

⁴Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

⁵Before you were formed in the body of your mother I had knowledge of you, and before your birth I made you holy; I have given you the work of being a prophet to the nations.

⁶Then said I, O Lord God! see, I have no power of words, for I am a child.

⁷But the Lord said to me, Do not say, I am a child: for wherever I send you, you are to go, and whatever I give you orders to say, you are to say.

⁸Have no fear because of them: for I am with you, to keep you safe, says the Lord.

⁹Then the Lord put out his hand, touching my mouth; and the Lord said to me, See, I have put my words in your mouth:

¹⁰See, this day I have put you over the nations and over the kingdoms, for uprooting and smashing down, for destruction and overturning, for building up and planting.

¹¹Again the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Jeremiah, what do you see? And I said, I see a branch of an almond-tree.

¹²Then the Lord said to me, You have seen well: for I keep watch over my word to give effect to it.

¹³And the word of the Lord came to me a second time, saying, What do you see? And I said, I see a boiling pot, and its face is from the north.

¹⁴Then the Lord said to me, Out of the north evil will come, bursting out on all the people of the land.

¹⁵For see, I will send for all the families of the kingdoms of the north, says the Lord; and they will come, everyone placing his high seat at the way into Jerusalem, and against its walls on every side, and against all the towns of Judah.

¹⁶And I will give my decision against them on account of all their evil-doing; because they have given me up, burning perfumes to other gods and worshipping the works of their hands.

¹⁷So make yourself ready, and go and say to them everything I give you orders to say: do not be overcome by fear of them, or I will send fear on you before them.

¹⁸For see, this day have I made you a walled town, and an iron pillar, and walls of brass, against all the land, against the kings of Judah, against its captains, against its priests, and against the people of the land.

¹⁹They will be fighting against you, but they will not overcome you: for I am with you, says the Lord, to give you salvation.

2And the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

²Go and say in the ears of Jerusalem, The Lord says, I still keep the memory of your kind heart when you were young, and your love when you became my bride; how you went after me in the waste of sand, in an unplanted land.

³Israel was holy to the Lord, the first-fruits of his increase: all who made attacks on him were judged as wrongdoers, evil came on them, says the Lord.

⁴Give ear to the words of the Lord, O sons of Jacob and all the families of Israel:

⁵These are the words of the Lord: What evil have your fathers seen in me that they have gone far from me, and, walking after what is false, have become false?

⁶And they never said, Where is the Lord, who took us up out of the land of Egypt; who was our guide through the waste of sand, through an unplanted land full of deep holes, through a dry land of deep shade, which no one went through and where no man was living?

⁷And I took you into a fertile land, where you were living on its fruit and its wealth; but when you came in, you made my land unclean, and made my heritage a disgusting thing.

⁸The priests did not say, Where is the Lord? and those who were expert in the law had no knowledge of me: and the rulers did evil against me, and the prophets became prophets of the Baal, going after things without value.

⁹For this reason, I will again put forward my cause against you, says the Lord, even against you and against your children's children.

¹⁰For go over to the sea-lands of Kittim and see; send to Kedar and give deep thought to it; and see if there has ever been such a thing.

¹¹Has any nation ever made a change in their gods, though they are no gods? but my people have given up their glory in exchange for what is of no profit.

¹²Be full of wonder, O heavens, at this; be overcome with fear, be completely waste, says the Lord.

¹³For my people have done two evils; they have given up me, the fountain of living waters, and have made for themselves water-holes, cut out from the rock, broken water-holes, of no use for storing water.

¹⁴Is Israel a servant? has he been a house-servant from birth? why has he been made waste?

¹⁵The young lions have made an outcry against him with a loud voice: they have made his land waste; his towns are burned up, with no one living in them.

¹⁶Even the children of Noph and Tahpanhes have put shame on you.

¹⁷Has not this come on you because you have given up the Lord your God, who was your guide by the way?

¹⁸And now, what have you to do on the way to Egypt, to get your drink from the waters of the Nile? or what have you to do on the way to Assyria, to get your drink from the waters of the River?

¹⁹The evil you yourselves have done will be your punishment, your errors will be your judge: be certain then, and see that it is an evil and a bitter thing to give up the Lord your God, and no longer to be moved by fear of me, says the Lord, the Lord of armies.

²⁰For in the past, your yoke was broken by your hands and your cords parted; and you said, I will not be your servant; for on every high hill and under every branching tree, your behaviour was like that of a loose woman

²¹But when you were planted by me, you were a noble vine, in every way a true seed: how then have you been changed into the branching plant of a strange vine?

²²For even if you are washed with soda and take much soap, still your evil-doing is marked before me, says the Lord God.

²³How are you able to say, I am not unclean, I have not gone after the Baals? see your way in the valley, be clear about what you have done: you are a quick-footed camel twisting her way in and out;

²⁴An untrained ass, used to the waste land, breathing up the wind in her desire; at her time, who is able to send her away? all those who are looking for her will have no need to make themselves tired; in her month they will get her.

²⁵Do not let your foot be without shoes, or your throat dry from need of water: but you said, There is no hope: no, for I have been a lover of strange gods, and after them I will go.

²⁶As the thief is shamed when he is taken, so is Israel shamed; they, their kings and their rulers, their priests and their prophets;

²⁷Who say to a tree, You are my father; and to a stone, You have given me life: for their backs have been turned to me, not their faces: but in the time of their trouble they will say, Up! and be our saviour.

²⁸But where are the gods you have made for yourselves? let them come, if they are able to give you salvation in the time of your trouble: for the number of your gods is as the number of your towns, O Judah.

²⁹Why will you put forward your cause against me? You have all done evil against me, says the Lord.

³⁰I gave your children blows to no purpose; they got no good from training: your sword has been the destruction of your prophets, like a death-giving lion.

³¹O generation, see the word of the Lord. Have I been a waste land to Israel? or a land of dark night? why do my people say, We have got loose, we will not come to you again?

³²Is it possible for a virgin to put out of her memory her ornaments, or a bride her robes? but my people have put me out of their memories for unnumbered days.

³³With what care are your ways ordered when you are looking for love! so ... your ways.

³⁴And in the skirts of your robe may be seen the life-blood of those who have done no wrong: ...

³⁵And still you said, I have done no wrong; truly, his wrath is turned away from me. See, I will take up the cause against you, because you say, I have done no wrong.

³⁶Why do you go about so much for the purpose of changing your way? you will be shamed on account of Egypt, as you were shamed on account of Assyria.

³⁷Truly, you will go out from him with your hands on your head: for the Lord has given up those in whom you have put your faith, and they will be of no help to you.

3They say, If a man puts away his wife and she goes from him and becomes another man's, will he go back to her again? will not that land have been made unclean? but though you have been acting like a loose woman with a number of lovers, will you now come back to me? says the Lord.

²Let your eyes be lifted up to the open hilltops, and see; where have you not been taken by your lovers? You have been seated waiting for them by the wayside like an Arabian in the waste land; you have made the land unclean with your loose ways and your evil-doing.

³So the showers have been kept back, and there has been no spring rain; still your brow is the brow of a loose woman, you will not let yourself be shamed.

⁴Will you not, from this time, make your prayer to me, crying, My father, you are the friend of my early years?

⁵Will he be angry for ever? will he keep his wrath to the end? These things you have said, and have done evil and have had your way.

⁶And the Lord said to me in the days of Josiah the king, Have you seen what Israel, turning away from me, has done? She has gone up on every high mountain and under every branching tree, acting like a loose woman there.

⁷And I said, After she has done all these things she will come back to me; but she did not. And her false sister Judah saw it.

⁸And though she saw that, because Israel, turning away from me, had been untrue to me, I had put her away and given her a statement in writing ending the relation between us, still Judah, her false sister, had no fear, but went and did the same.

⁹So that through all her loose behaviour the land became unclean, and she was untrue, giving herself to stones and trees.

¹⁰But for all this, her false sister Judah has not come back to me with all her heart, but with deceit, says the Lord.

¹¹And the Lord said to me, Israel in her turning away is seen to be more upright than false Judah.

¹²Go, and give out these words to the north, and say, Come back, O Israel, though you have been turned away from me, says the Lord; my face will not be against you in wrath: for I am full of mercy, says the Lord, I will not be angry for ever.

¹³Only be conscious of your sin, the evil you have done against the Lord your God; you have gone with strange men under every branching tree, giving no attention to my voice, says the Lord.

¹⁴Come back, O children who are turned away, says the Lord; for I am a husband to you, and I will take you, one from a town and two from a family, and will make you come to Zion;

¹⁵And I will give you keepers, pleasing to my heart, who will give you your food with knowledge and wisdom.

¹⁶And it will come about, when your numbers are increased in the land, in those days, says the Lord, that they will no longer say, The ark of the agreement of the Lord: it will not come into their minds, they will not have any memory of it, or be conscious of the loss of it, and it will not be made again.

¹⁷At that time Jerusalem will be named the seat of the Lord's kingdom; and all the nations will come together to it, to the name of the Lord, to Jerusalem: and no longer will their steps be guided by the purposes of their evil hearts.

¹⁸In those days the family of Judah will go with the family of Israel, and they will come together out of the land of the north into the land which I gave for a heritage to your fathers.

¹⁹But I said, How am I to put you among the children, and give you a desired land, a heritage of glory among the armies of the nations? and I said, You are to say to me, My father; and not be turned away from me.

²⁰Truly, as a wife is false to her husband, so have you been false to me, O Israel, says the Lord.

²¹A voice is sounding on the open hilltops, the weeping and the prayers of the children of Israel; because their way is twisted, they have not kept the Lord their God in mind.

²²Come back, you children who have been turned away, and I will take away your desire for wandering. See, we have come to you, for you are the Lord our God.

²³Truly, the hills, and the noise of an army on the mountains, are a false hope: truly, in the Lord our God is the salvation of Israel.

²⁴But the Baal has taken all the work of our fathers from our earliest days; their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters.

²⁵Let us be stretched on the earth in our downfall, covering ourselves with our shame: for we have been sinners against the Lord our God, we and our fathers, from our earliest years even till this day: and we have not given ear to the voice of the Lord our God.

4If you will come back, O Israel, says the Lord, you will come back to me: and if you will put away your disgusting ways, you will not be sent away from before me.

²And you will take your oath, By the living Lord, in good faith and wisdom and righteousness; and the nations will make use of you as a blessing, and in you will they take a pride.

³For this is what the Lord says to the men of Judah and to Jerusalem: Get your unworked land ploughed up, do not put in your seeds among thorns.

⁴Undergo a circumcision of the heart, you men of Judah and people of Jerusalem: or my wrath may come out like fire, burning so that no one is able to put it out, because of the evil of your doings.

⁵Say openly in Judah, give it out in Jerusalem, and say, Let the horn be sounded in the land: crying out in a loud voice, Come together, and let us go into the walled towns.

⁶Put up a flag for a sign to Zion: go in flight so that you may be safe, waiting no longer: for I will send evil from the north, and a great destruction.

⁷A lion has gone up from his secret place in the woods, and one who makes waste the nations is on his way; he has gone out from his place, to make your land unpeopled, so that your towns will be made waste, with no man living in them.

⁸For this put on haircloth, with weeping and loud crying: for the burning wrath of the Lord is not turned back from us.

⁹And it will come about in that day, says the Lord, that the heart of the king will be dead in him, and the hearts of the rulers; and the priests will be overcome with fear, and the prophets with wonder.

¹⁰Then said I, Ah, Lord God! your words were not true when you said to this people and to Jerusalem, You will have peace; when the sword has come even to the soul.

¹¹At that time it will be said to this people and to Jerusalem, A burning wind from the open hilltops in the waste land is blowing on the daughter of my people, not for separating or cleaning the grain;

¹²A full wind will come for me: and now I will give my decision against them.

¹³See, he will come up like the clouds, and his war-carriages like the storm-wind: his horses are quicker than eagles. Sorrow is ours, for destruction has come on us.

¹⁴O Jerusalem, make your heart clean from evil, so that you may have salvation. How long are evil purposes to have a resting-place in you?

¹⁵For a voice is sounding from Dan, giving out evil from the hills of Ephraim:

¹⁶Make this come to the minds of the nations, make a statement openly against Jerusalem, that attackers are coming from a far country and their voices will be loud against the towns of Judah.

¹⁷Like keepers of a field they are against her on every side; because she has been fighting against me, says the Lord.

¹⁸Your ways and your doings have made these things come on you; this is your sin; truly it is bitter, going deep into your heart.

¹⁹My soul, my soul! I am pained to my inmost heart; my heart is troubled in me; I am not able to be quiet, because the sound of the horn, the note of war, has come to my ears.

²⁰News is given of destruction on destruction; all the land is made waste: suddenly my tents, straight away my curtains, are made waste.

²¹How long will I go on seeing the flag and hearing the sound of the war-horn?

²²For my people are foolish, they have no knowledge of me; they are evil-minded children, without sense, all of them: they are wise in evil-doing, but have no knowledge of doing good.

²³Looking at the earth, I saw that it was waste and without form; and to the heavens, that they had no light.

²⁴Looking at the mountains, I saw them shaking, and all the hills were moved about.

²⁵Looking, I saw that there was no man, and all the birds of heaven had gone in flight.

²⁶Looking, I saw that the fertile field was a waste, and all its towns were broken down before the Lord and before his burning wrath.

²⁷For this is what the Lord has said: All the land will become a waste; I will make destruction complete.

²⁸The earth will be weeping for this, and the heavens on high will be black: because I have said it, and I will not go back from it; it is my purpose, and it will not be changed.

²⁹All the land is in flight because of the noise of the horsemen and the bowmen; they have taken cover in the woodland and up on the rocks: every town has been given up, not a man is living in them.

³⁰And you, when you are made waste, what will you do? Though you are clothed in red, though you make yourself beautiful with ornaments of gold, though you make your eyes wide with paint, it is for nothing that you make yourself fair; your lovers have no more desire for you, they have designs on your life.

³¹A voice has come to my ears like the voice of a woman in birth-pains, the pain of one giving birth to her first child, the voice of the daughter of Zion, fighting for breath, stretching out her hands, saying, Now sorrow is mine! for my strength is gone from me before the takers of life.

5Go quickly through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and get knowledge, and make a search in her wide places if there is a man, if there is one in her who is upright, who keeps faith; and she will have my forgiveness.

²And though they say, By the living Lord; truly their oaths are false.

³O Lord, do not your eyes see good faith? you have given them punishment, but they were not troubled; you have sent destruction on them, but they did not take your teaching to heart: they have made their faces harder than a rock; they would not come back.

⁴Then I said, But these are the poor: they are foolish, for they have no knowledge of the way of the Lord or of the behaviour desired by their God.

⁵I will go to the great men and have talk with them; for they have knowledge of the way of the Lord and of the behaviour desired by their God. But as for these, their one purpose is a broken yoke and burst bands.

⁶And so a lion from the woods will put them to death, a wolf of the waste land will make them waste, a leopard will keep watch on their towns, and everyone who goes out from them will be food for the beasts; because of the great number of their sins and the increase of their wrongdoing.

⁷How is it possible for you to have my forgiveness for this? your children have given me up, taking their oaths by those who are no gods: when I had given them food in full measure, they were false to their wives, taking their pleasure in the houses of loose women.

⁸They were full of desire, like horses after a meal of grain: everyone went after his neighbour's wife.

⁹Am I not to give punishment for these things? says the Lord: will not my soul take payment from such a nation as this?

¹⁰Go up against her vines and make waste; let the destruction be complete: take away her branches, for they are not the Lord's.

¹¹For the people of Israel and the people of Judah have been very false to me, says the Lord.

¹²They would have nothing to do with the Lord, saying, He will do nothing, and no evil will come to us; we will not see the sword or be short of food:

¹³And the prophets will become wind, and the word is not in them; so it will be done to them.

¹⁴For this reason the Lord, the God of armies, has said: Because you have said this, I will make my words in your mouth a fire, and this people wood, and they will be burned up by it.

¹⁵See, I will send you a nation from far away, O people of Israel, says the Lord; a strong nation and an old nation, a nation whose language is strange to you, so that you may not get the sense of their words.

¹⁶Their arrows give certain death, they are all men of war.

¹⁷They will take all the produce of your fields, which would have been food for your sons and your daughters: they will take your flocks and your herds: they will take all your vines and your fig-trees: and with the sword they will make waste your walled towns in which you put your faith.

¹⁸But even in those days, says the Lord, I will not let your destruction be complete.

¹⁹And it will come about, when you say, Why has the Lord our God done all these things to us? that you will say to them, As you gave me up, making yourselves servants to strange gods in your land, so will you be servants to strange men in a land which is not yours.

²⁰Say this openly in Jacob and give it out in Judah, saying,

²¹Give ear now to this, O foolish people without sense; who have eyes but see nothing, and ears without the power of hearing:

²²Have you no fear of me? says the Lord; will you not be shaking with fear before me, who have put the sand as a limit for the sea, by an eternal order, so that it may not go past it? and though it is ever in motion, it is not able to have its way; though the sound of its waves is loud, they are not able to go past it.

²³But the heart of this people is uncontrolled and turned away from me; they are broken loose and gone.

²⁴And they do not say in their hearts, Now let us give worship to our God, who gives the rain, the winter and the spring rain, at the right time; who keeps for us the ordered weeks of the grain-cutting.

²⁵Through your evil-doing these things have been turned away, and your sins have kept back good from you.

²⁶For there are sinners among my people: they keep watch, like men watching for birds; they put a net and take men in it.

²⁷As the fowl-house is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit: for this reason they have become great and have got wealth.

²⁸They have become fat and strong: they have gone far in works of evil: they give no support to the cause of the child without a father, so that they may do well; they do not see that the poor man gets his rights.

²⁹Am I not to give punishment for these things? says the Lord: will not my soul take payment from such a nation as this?

³⁰A thing of wonder and fear has come about in the land;

³¹The prophets give false words and the priests give decisions by their direction; and my people are glad to have it so: and what will you do in the end?

6Go in flight out of Jerusalem, so that you may be safe, you children of Benjamin, and let the horn be sounded in Tekoa, and the flag be lifted up on Beth-haccherem: for evil is looking out from the north, and a great destruction.

²The fair and delicate one, the daughter of Zion, will be cut off by my hand.

³Keepers of sheep with their flocks will come to her; they will put up their tents round her; everyone will get food in his place.

⁴Make war ready against her; up! let us go up when the sun is high. Sorrow is ours! for the day is turned and the shades of evening are stretched out.

⁵Up! let us go up by night, and send destruction on her great houses.

⁶For this is what the Lord of armies has said: Let trees be cut down and an earthwork be placed against Jerusalem: sorrow on the false town! inside her there is nothing but cruel ways.

⁷As the spring keeps its waters cold, so she keeps her evil in her: the sound of cruel and violent behaviour is in her; before me at all times are disease and wounds.

⁸Undergo teaching, O Jerusalem, or my soul will be turned away from you, and I will make you a waste, an unpeopled land.

⁹This is what the Lord of armies has said: Everything will be taken from the rest of Israel as the last grapes are taken from the vine; let your hand be turned to the small branches, like one pulling off grapes.

¹⁰To whom am I to give word, witnessing so that they may take note? see, their ears are stopped, and they are not able to give attention: see, the word of the Lord has been a cause of shame to them, they have no delight in it.

¹¹For this reason I am full of the wrath of the Lord, I am tired of keeping it in: may it be let loose on the children in the street, and on the band of the young men together: for even the husband with his wife will be taken, the old man with him who is full of days.

¹²And their houses will be handed over to others, their fields and their wives together: for my hand will be stretched out against the people of the land, says the Lord.

¹³For from the least of them even to the greatest, everyone is given up to getting money; from the prophet even to the priest, everyone is working deceit.

¹⁴And they have made little of the wounds of my people, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.

¹⁵Let them be put to shame because they have done disgusting things. They had no shame, they were not able to become red with shame: so they will come down with those who are falling: when my punishment comes on them, they will be made low, says the Lord.

¹⁶This is what the Lord has said: Take your place looking out on the ways; make search for the old roads, saying, Where is the good way? and go in it that you may have rest for your souls. But they said, We will not go in it.

¹⁷And I put watchmen over you, saying, Give attention to the sound of the horn; but they said, We will not give attention.

¹⁸So then, give ear, you nations, and ...

¹⁹Give ear, O earth: see, I will make evil come on this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not given attention to my words, and they would have nothing to do with my law.

²⁰To what purpose does sweet perfume come to me from Sheba, and spices from a far country? your burned offerings give me no pleasure, your offerings of beasts are not pleasing to me.

²¹For this reason the Lord has said, See, I will put stones in the way of this people: and the fathers and the sons together will go falling over them; the neighbour and his friend will come to destruction.

²²The Lord has said, See, a people is coming from the north country, a great nation will be put in motion from the inmost parts of the earth.

²³Bows and spears are in their hands; they are cruel and have no mercy; their voice is like the thunder of the sea, and they go on horses; everyone in his place like men going to the fight, against you, O daughter of Zion.

²⁴The news of it has come to our ears; our hands have become feeble: trouble has come on us and pain, like the pain of a woman in childbirth.

²⁵Go not out into the field or by the way; for there is the sword of the attacker, and fear on every side.

²⁶O daughter of my people, put on haircloth, rolling yourself in the dust: give yourself to sorrow, as for an only son, with most bitter cries of grief; for he who makes waste will come on us suddenly.

²⁷I have made you a tester among my people, so that you may have knowledge of their way and put it to the test.

²⁸All of them are turned away, going about with false stories; they are brass and iron: they are all workers of deceit.

²⁹The blower is blowing strongly, the lead is burned away in the fire: they go on heating the metal to no purpose, for the evil-doers are not taken away.

³⁰They will be named waste silver, because the Lord has given them up.

7The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying,

²Take your place in the doorway of the Lord's house, and give out this word there, and say, Give ear to the word of the Lord, all you of Judah who come inside these doors to give worship to the Lord.

³The Lord of armies, the God of Israel, says, Let your ways and your doings be changed for the better and I will let you go on living in this place.

⁴Put no faith in false words, saying, The Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord, are these.

⁵For if your ways and your doings are truly changed for the better; if you truly give right decisions between a man and his neighbour;

⁶If you are not cruel to the man from a strange country, and to the child without a father, and to the widow, and do not put the upright to death in this place, or go after other gods, causing damage to yourselves:

⁷Then I will let you go on living in this place, in the land which I gave to your fathers in the past and for ever.

⁸See, you put your faith in false words which are of no profit.

⁹Will you take the goods of others, put men to death, and be untrue to your wives, and take false oaths, and have perfumes burned to the Baal, and go after other gods which are strange to you;

¹⁰And come and take your place before me in this house, which is named by my name, and say, We have been made safe; so that you may do all these disgusting things?

¹¹Has this house, which is named by my name, become a hole of thieves to you? Truly I, even I, have seen it, says the Lord.

¹²But go now to my place which was in Shiloh, where I put my name at first, and see what I did to it because of the evil-doing of my people Israel.

¹³And now, because you have done all these works, says the Lord, and I sent my word to you, getting up early and sending, but you did not give ear; and my voice came to you, but you gave no answer:

¹⁴For this reason I will do to the house which is named by my name, and in which you have put your faith, and to the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh.

¹⁵And I will send you away from before my face, as I have sent away all your brothers, even all the seed of Ephraim.

¹⁶And as for you (Jeremiah), make no prayers for this people, send up no cry or prayer for them, make no request for them to me: for I will not give ear.

¹⁷Do you not see what they are doing in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?

¹⁸The children go for wood, the fathers get the fire burning, the women are working the paste to make cakes for the queen of heaven, and drink offerings are drained out to other gods, moving me to wrath.

¹⁹Are they moving me to wrath? says the Lord; are they not moving themselves to their shame?

²⁰So this is what the Lord God has said: See, my wrath and my passion will be let loose on this place, on man and beast, and on the trees of the field, and on the produce of the earth; it will be burning and will not be put out.

²¹These are the words of the Lord of armies, the God of Israel: Put your burned offerings with your offerings of beasts, and take flesh for your food.

²²For I said nothing to your fathers, and gave them no orders, on the day when I took them out of Egypt, about burned offerings or offerings of beasts:

²³But this was the order I gave them, saying, Give ear to my voice, and I will be your God, and you will be my people: go in all the way ordered by me, so that all may be well for you.

²⁴But they took no note and did not give ear, but were guided by the thoughts and the pride of their evil hearts, going back and not forward.

²⁵From the day when your fathers came out of Egypt till this day, I have sent my servants the prophets to you, getting up early every day and sending them:

²⁶But still they took no note and would not give ear, but they made their necks stiff, doing worse than their fathers.

²⁷And you are to say all these words to them, but they will not give ear to you: you will send out your voice to them, but they will give no answer.

²⁸And you are to say to them, This is the nation which has not given ear to the voice of their God, or taken his teaching to heart: good faith is dead and is cut off from their mouths.

²⁹Let your hair be cut off, O Jerusalem, and let it go, and let a song of grief go up on the open hilltops; for the Lord is turned away from the generation of his wrath and has given them up.

³⁰For the children of Judah have done what is evil in my eyes, says the Lord: they have put their disgusting images in the house which is named by my name, making it unclean.

³¹And they have put up the high place of Topheth in the valley of the son of Hinnom, burning their sons and their daughters there in the fire; a thing which was not ordered by me and never came into my mind.

³²For this cause, the days are coming, says the Lord, when it will no longer be named Topheth, or, The valley of the son of Hinnom, but, The valley of Death: for they will put the dead into the earth in Topheth till there is no more room.

³³And the bodies of this people will be food for the birds of heaven and for the beasts of the earth; and there will be no one to send them away.

³⁴And in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, I will put an end to the laughing voices, the voice of joy and the voice of the newly-married man and the voice of the bride: for the land will become a waste.

8At that time, says the Lord, they will take the bones of the kings of Judah, and the bones of his rulers, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the people of Jerusalem out of their resting-places:

²And they will put them out before the sun and the moon and all the stars of heaven, whose lovers and servants they have been, after whom they have gone, to whom they have made prayers, and to whom they have given worship: they will not be put together or placed in the earth; they will be waste on the face of the earth.

³And death will be desired more than life by the rest of this evil family who are still living in all the places where I have sent them away, says the Lord of armies.

⁴Further, you are to say to them, This is what the Lord has said: Will those who are falling not be lifted up again? will he who has gone away not come back?

⁵Why do these people of Jerusalem go back, for ever turning away? they will not give up their deceit, they will not come back.

⁶I took note and gave ear, but no one said what is right: no man had regret for his evil-doing, saying, What have I done? everyone goes off on his way like a horse rushing to the fight.

⁷Truly, the stork in the heavens is conscious of her fixed times; the dove and the swallow and the crane keep to the times of their coming; but my people have no knowledge of the law of the Lord.

⁸How is it that you say, We are wise and the law of the Lord is with us? But see, the false pen of the scribes has made it false.

⁹The wise men are shamed, they are overcome with fear and taken: see, they have given up the word of the Lord; and what use is their wisdom to them?

¹⁰So I will give their wives to others, and their fields to those who will take them for themselves: for everyone, from the least to the greatest, is given up to getting money; from the priest even to the prophet, everyone is false.

¹¹And they have made little of the wounds of the daughter of Zion, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.

¹²Let them be put to shame because they have done disgusting things. They had no shame, they were not able to become red with shame: so they will come down with those who are falling: in the time of their punishment they will be made low, says the Lord.

¹³I will put an end to them completely, says the Lord: there are no grapes on the vine and no figs on the fig-tree, and the leaf is dry.

¹⁴Why are we seated doing nothing? come together, and let us go to the walled towns, and let destruction overtake us there, for the Lord our God has sent destruction on us, and given us bitter water for our drink, because we have done evil against the Lord.

¹⁵We were looking for peace, but no good came; and for a time of well-being, but there is only a great fear.

¹⁶The loud breathing of the horses comes to our ears from Dan: at the sound of the outcry of his war-horses, all the land is shaking with fear; for they have come, and have made a meal of the land and everything in it; the town and the people living in it.

¹⁷See, I will send snakes and poison-snakes among you, against which the wonder-worker has no power; and they will give you wounds which may not be made well, says the Lord.

¹⁸Sorrow has come on me! my heart in me is feeble.

¹⁹The voice of the cry of the daughter of my people comes from a far land: Is the Lord not in Zion? is not her King in her? Why have they made me angry with their images and their strange gods which are no gods?

²⁰The grain-cutting is past, the summer is ended, and no salvation has come to us.

²¹For the destruction of the daughter of my people I am broken: I am dressed in the clothing of grief; fear has taken me in its grip.

²²Is there no life-giving oil in Gilead? is there no expert in medical arts? why then have my people not been made well?

9If only my head was a stream of waters and my eyes fountains of weeping, so that I might go on weeping day and night for the dead of the daughter of my people!

²If only I had in the waste land a night's resting-place for travellers, so that I might go away, far from my people! for they are all untrue, a band of false men.

³Their tongues are bent like a bow to send out false words: they have become strong in the land, but not for good faith: they go on from evil to evil, and they have no knowledge of me, says the Lord.

⁴Let everyone keep watch on his neighbour, and put no faith in any brother: for every brother will certainly be tricking his brother, and every neighbour will go about saying evil.

⁵Everyone will make sport of his neighbour with deceit, not saying what is true: their tongues have been trained to say false words; they are twisted, hating to come back.

⁶There is wrong on wrong, deceit on deceit; they have given up the knowledge of me, says the Lord.

⁷So the Lord of armies has said, See, I will make them soft in the fire and put them to the test; this I will do because of their evil-doing.

⁸His tongue is an arrow causing death; the words of his mouth are deceit: he says words of peace to his neighbour, but in his heart he is waiting secretly for him.

⁹Am I not to send punishment for these things? says the Lord: will not my soul take payment from such a nation as this?

¹⁰Give yourselves to weeping, crying out in sorrow for the mountains; and for the fields of the waste land send up a song of grief, because they are burned up, so that no one goes through; there is no sound of cattle; the bird of the heavens and the beast are in flight and are gone.

¹¹And I will make Jerusalem a mass of broken stones, the living-place of jackals; and I will make the towns of Judah a waste, with no man living there.

¹²Who is the wise man able to see this? who is he to whom the word of the Lord has come, so that he may make it clear? why is the land given to destruction and burned up like a waste place, so that no one goes through?

¹³And the Lord said, Because they have given up my law which I put before them, giving no attention to my voice and not being guided by it;

¹⁴But they have been walking in the pride of their hearts, going after the Baals, as their fathers gave them teaching.

¹⁵So the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said, I will give them, even this people, bitter plants for food and bitter water for drink.

¹⁶And I will send them wandering among the nations, among people strange to them and to their fathers: and I will send the sword after them till I have put an end to them.

¹⁷This is what the Lord of armies has said: Take thought and send for the weeping women, so that they may come; and send for the wise women, so that they may come:

¹⁸Let them quickly make cries of sorrow for us, so that drops may be flowing from our eyes till they are streaming with water.

¹⁹For a sound of weeping goes up from Zion, a cry, How has destruction come on us? we are overcome with shame because we have gone away from our land; he has sent us out from our house.

²⁰But even now, give ear to the word of the Lord, O you women; let your ears be open to the word of his mouth, training your daughters to give cries of sorrow, everyone teaching her neighbour a song of grief.

²¹For death has come up into our windows, forcing its way into our great houses; cutting off the children in the streets and the young men in the wide places.

²²The bodies of men will be falling like waste on the open fields, and like grain dropped by the grain-cutter, and no one will take them up.

²³This is the word of the Lord: Let not the wise man take pride in his wisdom, or the strong man in his strength, or the man of wealth in his wealth:

²⁴But if any man has pride, let it be in this, that he has the wisdom to have knowledge of me, that I am the Lord, working mercy, giving true decisions, and doing righteousness in the earth: for in these things I have delight, says the Lord.

²⁵See, the day is coming, says the Lord, when I will send punishment on all those who have circumcision in the flesh;

²⁶On Egypt and on Judah and on Edom and on the children of Ammon and on Moab and on all who have the ends of their hair cut, who are living in the waste land: for all these nations and all the people of Israel are without circumcision in their hearts.

10Give ear to the word which the Lord says to you, O people of Israel:

²This is what the Lord has said: Do not go in the way of the nations; have no fear of the signs of heaven, for the nations go in fear of them.

³For that which is feared by the people is foolish: it is the work of the hands of the workman; for a tree is cut down by him out of the woods with his axe.

⁴They make it beautiful with silver and gold; they make it strong with nails and hammers, so that it may not be moved.

⁵It is like a pillar in a garden of plants, and has no voice: it has to be lifted, for it has no power of walking. Have no fear of it; for it has no power of doing evil and it is not able to do any good.

⁶There is no one like you, O Lord; you are great and your name is great in power.

⁷Who would not have fear of you, O King of the nations? for it is your right: for among all the wise men of the nations, and in all their kingdoms, there is no one like you.

⁸But they are together like beasts and foolish: the teaching of false gods is wood.

⁹Silver hammered into plates is sent from Tarshish, and gold from Uphaz, the work of the expert workman and of the hands of the gold-worker; blue and purple is their clothing, all the work of expert men.

¹⁰But the Lord is the true God; he is the living God and an eternal king: when he is angry, the earth is shaking with fear, and the nations give way before his wrath.

¹¹This is what you are to say to them: The gods who have not made the heavens and the earth will be cut off from the earth and from under the heavens.

¹²He has made the earth by his power, he has made the world strong in its place by his wisdom, and by his wise design the heavens have been stretched out.

¹³At the sound of his voice there is a massing of waters in the heavens, and he makes the mists go up from the ends of the earth; he makes the thunder-flames for the rain, and sends out the wind from his store-houses.

¹⁴Then every man becomes like a beast without knowledge; every gold-worker is put to shame by the image he has made: for his metal image is deceit, and there is no breath in them.

¹⁵They are nothing, a work of error: in the time of their punishment, destruction will overtake them.

¹⁶The heritage of Jacob is not like these; for the maker of all things is his heritage: the Lord of armies is his name.

¹⁷Get your goods together and go out of the land, O you who are shut up in the walled town.

¹⁸For the Lord has said, I will send the people in flight like a stone from the land at this time, troubling them so that they will be conscious of it.

¹⁹Sorrow is mine for I am wounded! my wound may not be made well; and I said, Cruel is my disease, I may not be free from it.

²⁰My tent is pulled down and all my cords are broken: my children have gone from me, and they are not: no longer is there anyone to give help in stretching out my tent and hanging up my curtains.

²¹For the keepers of the sheep have become like beasts, not looking to the Lord for directions: so they have not done wisely and all their flocks have been put to flight.

²²News is going about, see, it is coming, a great shaking is coming from the north country, so that the towns of Judah may be made waste and become the living-place of jackals.

²³O Lord, I am conscious that a man's way is not in himself: man has no power of guiding his steps.

²⁴O Lord, put me right, but with wise purpose; not in your wrath, or you will make me small.

²⁵Let your wrath be let loose on the nations which have no knowledge of you, and on the families who give no worship to your name: for they have made a meal of Jacob, truly they have made a meal of him and put an end to him and made his fields a waste.

11The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying,

²Give ear to the words of this agreement, and say to the men of Judah and to the people of Jerusalem,

³The Lord, the God of Israel, has said, Let that man be cursed who does not give ear to the words of this agreement,

⁴To the order which I gave your fathers on the day when I took them out of the land of Egypt, out of the oven of iron, saying, Give ear to my voice, and do all the orders I have given you: so you will be my people, and I will be your God:

⁵So that I may give effect to the oath which I made to your fathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey as at this day. And I said in answer, So be it, O Lord.

⁶And the Lord said to me, Give out these words in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, saying, Give ear to the words of this agreement and do them.

⁷For I gave certain witness to your fathers on the day when I took them up out of the land of Egypt, and even to this day, getting up early and witnessing and saying, Give ear to my voice.

⁸But they gave no attention and did not give ear, but they went on, every man in the pride of his evil heart: so I sent on them all the curses in this agreement, which I gave them orders to keep, but they did not.

⁹And the Lord said to me, There is an evil design at work among the men of Judah and the people of Jerusalem.

¹⁰They are turned back to the sins of their fathers, who would not give ear to my words; they have gone after other gods and become their servants: the people of Israel and the people of Judah have not kept the agreement which I made with their fathers.

¹¹So the Lord has said, I will send evil on them, which they will not be able to get away from; and they will send up a cry for help to me, but I will not give ear to them.

¹²Then the towns of Judah and the people of Jerusalem will go crying for help to the gods to whom they have been burning perfumes: but they will give them no salvation in the time of their trouble.

¹³For the number of your gods is as the number of your towns, O Judah; and for every street in Jerusalem you have put up altars to the Baal for burning perfumes to the Baal.

¹⁴And as for you, make no prayers for this people, send up no cry or prayer for them: for I will not give ear to their cry in the time of their trouble.

¹⁵About Judah. What have you to do in my house? is it your thought that oaths and holy flesh will get you out of your trouble? will you make yourself safe in this way?

¹⁶You had been named by the Lord, A branching olive-tree, fair with beautiful fruit: with the noise of a great rushing he has put it on fire and its branches are broken.

¹⁷For the Lord of armies, by whom you were planted, has given his decision for evil against you, because of the evil which the people of Israel and the people of Judah have done, In moving me to wrath by offering perfumes to the Baal.

¹⁸And the Lord gave me knowledge of it and I saw it: then you made clear to me their doings.

¹⁹But I was like a gentle lamb taken to be put to death; I had no thought that they were designing evil against me, saying, Come and let us make trouble his food, cutting him off from the land of the living, so that there may be no more memory of his name.

²⁰But, O Lord of armies, judging in righteousness, testing the thoughts and the heart, let me see your punishment come on them: for I have put my cause before you.

²¹So this is what the Lord of armies has said about the men of Anathoth who have made designs against your life, saying, You are not to be a prophet in the name of the Lord, or death will overtake you by our hands:

²²So the Lord of armies has said, See, I will send punishment on them: the young men will be put to the sword; their sons and their daughters will come to death through need of food:

²³Not one of them will keep his life, for I will send evil on the men of Anathoth in the year of their punishment.

12You are in the right, O Lord, when I put my cause before you: still let me take up with you the question of your decisions: why does the evil-doer do well? why are the workers of deceit living in comfort?

²They have been planted by you, they have taken root; they go on and give fruit: you are near in their mouths but far from their thoughts.

³But you, O Lord, have knowledge of me; you see me, searching and testing how my heart is with you: let them be pulled out like sheep to be put to death, make them ready for the day of death.

⁴How long will the land have grief, and the plants of all the land be dry? because of the sins of the people living in it, destruction has overtaken the beasts and the birds; because they said, God does not see our ways.

⁵If running with the fighting-men has made you tired, how will you be able to keep up with horses? and if in a land of peace you go in flight, what will become of you in the thick growth of Jordan?

⁶For even your brothers, your father's family, even they have been untrue to you, crying loudly after you: have no faith in them, though they say fair words to you.

⁷I have given up my house, I have let my heritage go; I have given the loved one of my soul into the hands of her haters.

⁸My heritage has become like a lion in the woodland to me; her voice has been loud against me; so I have hate for her.

⁹My heritage is like a brightly coloured bird to me; the cruel birds are attacking her on every side: go, get together all the beasts of the field, make them come for destruction.

¹⁰The keepers of sheep have been the destruction of my vine-garden, crushing my heritage under their feet; they have made my fair heritage an unplanted waste;

¹¹They have made it waste; it is weeping to me, being wasted; all the land is made waste, because no man takes it to heart.

¹²Those who make waste have come on all the open hilltops in the waste land; for the sword of the Lord sends destruction from one end of the land to the other end of the land: no flesh has peace.

¹³Though good grain was planted, they have got in thorns: they have given themselves pain without profit: they will be shamed on account of their produce, because of the burning wrath of the Lord.

¹⁴This is what the Lord has said against all my evil neighbours, who put their hands on the heritage which I gave my people Israel: See, I will have them uprooted from their land, uprooting the people of Judah from among them.

¹⁵And it will come about that, after they have been uprooted, I will again have pity on them; and I will take them back, every man to his heritage and every man to his land.

¹⁶And it will be that, if they give their minds to learning the ways of my people, using my name in their oaths, By the living Lord; as they have been teaching my people to take oaths by the Baal; then their place will be made certain among my people.

¹⁷But if they will not give ear, then I will have that nation uprooted, and given to destruction, says the Lord.

13This is what the Lord said to me: Go and get yourself a linen band and put it round you and do not put it in water.

²So, as the Lord said, I got a band for a price and put it round my body.

³And the word of the Lord came to me a second time, saying,

⁴Take the band which you got for a price, which is round your body, and go to Parah and put it in a secret place there in a hole of the rock.

⁵So I went and put it in a secret place by Parah, as the Lord had said to me.

⁶Then after a long time, the Lord said to me, Up! go to Parah and get the band which I gave you orders to put there.

⁷So I went to Parah and, uncovering the hole, took the band from the place where I had put it away: and the band was damaged and of no use for anything.

⁸Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

⁹The Lord has said, In this way I will do damage to the pride of Judah and to the great pride of Jerusalem.

¹⁰These evil people who say they will not give ear to my words, who go on in the pride of their hearts and have become servants and worshippers of other gods, will become like this band which is of no use for anything.

¹¹For as a band goes tightly round a man's body, so I made all the people of Israel and all the people of Judah tightly united to me; so that they might be a people for me and a name and a praise and a glory: but they would not give ear.

¹²So you are to say this word to them: This is the word of the Lord, the God of Israel: Every skin bottle will be full of wine; and they will say to you, Is it not quite clear to us that every skin bottle will be full of wine?

¹³Then you are to say to them, The Lord has said, I will make all the people of this land, even the kings seated on David's seat, and the priests and the prophets and all the people of Jerusalem, overcome with strong drink.

¹⁴I will have them smashed against one another, fathers and sons together, says the Lord: I will have no pity or mercy, I will have no feeling for them to keep me from giving them to destruction.

¹⁵Give ear and let your ears be open; be not lifted up: for these are the words of the Lord.

¹⁶Give glory to the Lord your God, before he makes it dark, and before your feet are slipping on the dark mountains, and, while you are looking for a light, he makes it into deep dark, into black night.

¹⁷But if you do not give ear to it, my soul will be weeping in secret for your pride; my eye will be weeping bitterly, streaming with water, because the Lord's flock has been taken away as prisoners.

¹⁸Say to the king and to the queen-mother, Make yourselves low, be seated on the earth: for the crown of your glory has come down from your heads.

¹⁹The towns of the south are shut up, and there is no one to make them open: Judah is taken away as prisoners; all Judah is taken away as prisoners.

²⁰Let your eyes be lifted up (O Jerusalem), and see those who are coming from the north. Where is the flock which was given to you, your beautiful flock?

²¹What will you say when he puts over you those whom you yourself have made your friends? will not pains take you like a woman in childbirth?

²²And if you say in your heart, Why have these things come on me? because of the number of your sins, your skirts have been uncovered and violent punishment overtakes you.

²³Is it possible for the skin of the Ethiopian to be changed, or the markings on the leopard? Then it might be possible for you to do good, who have been trained to do evil.

²⁴So I will send them in all directions, as dry grass is taken away by the wind of the waste land.

²⁵This is your fate, the part measured out to you by me, says the Lord, because you have put me out of your memory and put your faith in what is false.

²⁶So I will have your skirts uncovered before your face, in order that your shame may be seen.

²⁷I have seen your disgusting acts, even your false behaviour and your cries of desire and your loose ways on the hills in the field. Unhappy are you, O Jerusalem, you have no desire to be made clean; how long will you be in turning back to me?

14The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah when there was no water.

²Judah is weeping and its doors are dark with sorrow, and people are seated on the earth clothed in black; and the cry of Jerusalem has gone up.

³Their great men have sent their servants for water: they come to the holes and there is no water to be seen; they come back with nothing in their vessels; they are overcome with shame and fear, covering their heads.

⁴Those who do work on the land are in fear, for there has been no rain on the land, and the farmers are shamed, covering their heads.

⁵And the roe, giving birth in the field, lets her young one be uncared for, because there is no grass.

⁶And the asses of the field on the open hilltops are opening their mouths wide like jackals to get air; their eyes are hollow because there is no grass.

⁷Though our sins give witness against us, do something, O Lord, for the honour of your name: for again and again we have been turned away from you, we have done evil against you.

⁸O you hope of Israel, its saviour in time of trouble, why are you like one who is strange in the land, and like a traveller putting up his tent for a night?

⁹Why are you like a man surprised, like a man of war who is not able to give help? but you, O Lord, are with us, and we are named by your name; do not go away from us.

¹⁰This is what the Lord has said about this people: Even so they have been glad to go from the right way; they have not kept their feet from wandering, so the Lord has no pleasure in them; now he will keep their wrongdoing in mind and send punishment for their sins.

¹¹And the Lord said to me, Make no prayer for this people for their good.

¹²When they go without food, I will not give ear to their cry; when they give burned offerings and meal offerings, I will not take pleasure in them: but I will put an end to them by the sword and by need of food and by disease.

¹³Then I said, Ah, Lord God! see, the prophets say to them, You will not see the sword or be short of food; but I will give you certain peace in this place.

¹⁴Then the Lord said to me, The prophets say false words in my name, and I gave them no orders, and I said nothing to them: what they say to you is a false vision and wonder-working words without substance, the deceit of their hearts.

¹⁵So this is what the Lord has said about the prophets who make use of my name, though I sent them not, and say, The sword and need of food will not be in this land: the sword and need of food will put an end to those prophets.

¹⁶And the people to whom they are prophets will be pushed out dead into the streets of Jerusalem, because there is no food, and because of the sword; and they will have no one to put their bodies into the earth, them or their wives or their sons or their daughters: for I will let loose their evil-doing on them.

¹⁷And you are to say this word to them, Let my eyes be streaming with water night and day, and let it not be stopped; for the virgin daughter of my people is wounded with a great wound, with a very bitter blow.

¹⁸If I go out into the open country, there are those put to death by the sword! and if I go into the town, there are those who are diseased from need of food! for the prophet and the priest go about in the land and have no knowledge.

¹⁹Have you completely given up Judah? is your soul turned in disgust from Zion? why have you given us blows from which there is no one to make us well? we were looking for peace, but no good came; and for a time of well-being, but there was only a great fear.

²⁰We are conscious, O Lord, of our sin and of the wrongdoing of our fathers: we have done evil against you.

²¹Do not be turned from us in disgust, because of your name; do not put shame on the seat of your glory: keep us in mind, let not your agreement with us be broken.

²²Are any of the false gods of the nations able to make rain come? are the heavens able to give showers? are you not he, O Lord our God? so we will go on waiting for you, for you have done all these things.

15Then the Lord said to me, Even if Moses and Samuel came before me, I would have no desire for this people: send them away from before me, and let them go.

²And it will be, when they say to you, Where are we to go? then you are to say to them, The Lord has said, Such as are for death, to death; and such as are for the sword, to the sword; and such as are to be in need of food, to need of food; and such as are to be taken away prisoners, to be taken away.

³And I will put over them four divisions, says the Lord: the sword causing death, dogs pulling the dead bodies about, and the birds of heaven, and the beasts of the earth to take their bodies for food and put an end to them.

⁴And I will make them a cause of fear to all the kingdoms of the earth, because of Manasseh, the son of Hezekiah, king of Judah, and what he did in Jerusalem.

⁵For who will have pity on you, O Jerusalem? and who will have sorrow for you? or who will go out of his way to see how you are?

⁶You have given me up, says the Lord, you have gone back: so my hand is stretched out against you for your destruction; I am tired of changing my purpose.

⁷And I have sent a cleaning wind on them in the public places of the land; I have taken their children from them; I have given my people to destruction; they have not been turned from their ways.

⁸I have let their widows be increased in number more than the sand of the seas: I have sent against them, against the mother and the young men, one who makes waste in the heat of the day, causing pain and fears to come on her suddenly.

⁹The mother of seven is without strength; her spirit is gone from her, her sun has gone down while it is still day: she has been shamed and overcome: and the rest of them I will give up to the sword before their haters, says the Lord.

¹⁰Sorrow is mine, my mother, because you have given birth to me, a cause of fighting and argument in all the earth! I have not made men my creditors and I am not in debt to any, but every one of them is cursing me.

¹¹...

¹²Is it possible for iron to be broken; even iron from the north, and brass?

¹³I will give your wealth and your stores to your attackers, without a price, because of all your sins, even in every part of your land.

¹⁴They will go away with your haters into a land which is strange to you: for my wrath is on fire with a flame which will be burning on you.

¹⁵O Lord, you have knowledge: keep me in mind and come to my help, and give their right reward to those who are attacking me; take me not away, for you are slow to be angry: see how I have undergone shame because of you from all those who make little of your word;

¹⁶But to me your word is a joy, making my heart glad; for I am named by your name, O Lord God of armies.

¹⁷I did not take my seat among the band of those who are glad, and I had no joy; I kept by myself because of your hand; for you have made me full of wrath.

¹⁸Why is my pain unending and my wound without hope of being made well? Sorrow is mine, for you are to me as a stream offering false hope and as waters which are not certain.

¹⁹For this cause the Lord has said, If you will come back, then I will again let you take your place before me; and if you give out what is of value and not that which has no value, you will be as my mouth: let them come back to you, but do not go back to them.

²⁰And I will make you a strong wall of brass to this people; they will be fighting against you, but they will not overcome you: for I am with you to keep you safe, says the Lord.

²¹I will keep you safe from the hands of the evil-doers, and I will give you salvation from the hands of the cruel ones.

16Then again the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

²You are not to take a wife for yourself or have sons or daughters in this place.

³For this is what the Lord has said about the sons and daughters who come to birth in this place, and about their mothers who have given them birth, and about their fathers who have given life to them in this land:

⁴Death from evil diseases will overtake them; there will be no weeping for them and their bodies will not be put to rest; they will be like waste on the face of the earth: the sword and need of food will put an end to them; their dead bodies will be meat for the birds of heaven and for the beasts of the earth.

⁵For this is what the Lord has said: Do not go into the house of sorrow, do not go to make weeping or songs of grief for them: for I have taken away my peace from this people, says the Lord, even mercy and pity.

⁶Death will overtake great as well as small in the land: their bodies will not be put in a resting-place, and no one will be weeping for them or wounding themselves or cutting off their hair for them:

⁷No one will make a feast for them in sorrow, to give them comfort for the dead, or put to their lips the cup of comfort on account of their father or their mother.

⁸And you are not to go into the house of feasting, or be seated with them to take food or drink.

⁹For the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said, See, before your eyes and in your days I will put an end in this place to the laughing voices and the voice of joy; to the voice of the newly-married man and the voice of the bride.

¹⁰And it will be, that when you say all these words to the people, then they will say to you, Why has the Lord done all this evil against us? what is our wrongdoing and what is our sin which we have done against the Lord our God?

¹¹Then you will say to them, Because your fathers have given me up, says the Lord, and have gone after other gods and become their servants and their worshippers, and have given me up and have not kept my law;

¹²And you have done worse evil than your fathers; for see, every one of you is guided by the pride of his evil heart, so as not to give ear to me:

¹³For this reason I will send you away out of this land into a land which is strange to you, to you and to your fathers; there you will be the servants of other gods day and night, and you will have no mercy from me.

¹⁴For this cause, see, the days are coming, says the Lord, when it will no longer be said, By the living Lord, who took the children of Israel up out of the land of Egypt.

¹⁵But, By the living Lord, who took the children of Israel up out of the land of the north, and from all the countries where he had sent them: and I will take them back again to their land which I gave to their fathers.

¹⁶See, I will send for great numbers of fishermen, says the Lord, and they will take them like fish in a net; and after that, I will send for numbers of bowmen, and they will go after them, driving them from every mountain and from every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks.

¹⁷For my eyes are on all their ways: there is no cover for them from my face, and their evil-doing is not kept secret from my eyes.

¹⁸And I will give them the reward of their evil-doing and their sin twice over; because they have made my land unclean, and have made my heritage full of the bodies of their unholy and disgusting things.

¹⁹O Lord, my strength and my strong tower, my safe place in the day of trouble, the nations will come to you from the ends of the earth, and say, The heritage of our fathers is nothing but deceit, even false things in which there is no profit.

²⁰Will a man make for himself gods which are no gods?

²¹For this reason, truly, I will make them see, this once I will give them knowledge of my hand and my power; and they will be certain that my name is the Lord.

17The sin of Judah is recorded with a pen of iron, and with the sharp point of a jewel it is cut on their hearts of stone, and on the horns of their altars for a sign to them:

²Their altars and their wood pillars under every branching tree, on the high hills and the mountains in the field.

³I will give your wealth and all your stores to be taken away in war without a price, because of your sins in every part of your land.

⁴And your hand will have to let go your heritage which I gave you; and I will make you a servant to your haters in a land which is strange to you: for you have put my wrath on fire with a flame which will go on burning for ever.

⁵This is what the Lord has said: Cursed is the man who puts his faith in man, and makes flesh his arm, and whose heart is turned away from the Lord.

⁶For he will be like the brushwood in the upland, and will not see when good comes; but his living-place will be in the dry places in the waste land, in a salt and unpeopled land.

⁷A blessing is on the man who puts his faith in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is.

⁸For he will be like a tree planted by the waters, pushing out its roots by the stream; he will have no fear when the heat comes, but his leaf will be green; in a dry year he will have no care, and will go on giving fruit.

⁹The heart is a twisted thing, not to be searched out by man: who is able to have knowledge of it?

¹⁰I the Lord am the searcher of the heart, the tester of the thoughts, so that I may give to every man the reward of his ways, in keeping with the fruit of his doings.

¹¹Like the partridge, getting eggs together but not producing young, is a man who gets wealth but not by right; before half his days are ended, it will go from him, and at his end he will be foolish.

¹²A seat of glory, placed on high from the first, is our holy place.

¹³O Lord, the hope of Israel, all who give you up will be put to shame; those who go away from you will be cut off from the earth, because they have given up the Lord, the fountain of living waters.

¹⁴Make me well, O Lord, and I will be well; be my saviour, and I will be safe: for you are my hope.

¹⁵See, they say to me, Where is the word of the Lord? let it come now.

¹⁶As for me, I have not said; Let the day of trouble come to them quickly; and I have not been hoping for the death-giving day; you have knowledge of what came from my lips; it was open before you.

¹⁷Be not a cause of fear to me: you are my safe place in the day of evil.

¹⁸Let them be put to shame who are attacking me, but let me not be shamed; let them be overcome with fear, but let me not be overcome: send on them the day of evil, and put them to destruction twice over.

¹⁹This is what the Lord has said to me: Go and take your place in the doorway of Benjamin, where the kings of Judah come in and by which they go out, and in all the doorways of Jerusalem;

²⁰And say to them, Give ear to the word of the Lord, you kings of Judah, and all the people of Jerusalem who come in by these doors:

²¹This is what the Lord has said: See to yourselves, that you take up no weight on the Sabbath day, or take it in through the doors of Jerusalem;

²²And take no weight out of your houses on the Sabbath day, or do any work, but keep the Sabbath day holy, as I gave orders to your fathers;

²³But they gave no attention and would not give ear, but they made their necks stiff so that they might not give ear and might not get teaching.

²⁴And it will be, that if with all care you give ear to me, says the Lord, and take no weight through the doorways of this town on the Sabbath day, but keep the Sabbath day holy and do no work in it;

²⁵Then through the doors of this town there will come kings and princes, seated on the seat of David, going in carriages and on horseback, they and their princes, and the men of Judah and the people of Jerusalem: and this town will keep its place for ever.

²⁶And they will come from the towns of Judah, and from the places round about Jerusalem, and from the land of Benjamin, and from the lowlands, and from the mountains, and from the South, with burned offerings and offerings of beasts and meal offerings and perfume and offerings of praise, to the house of the Lord.

²⁷But if you do not give ear to me, to keep the Sabbath day holy, and to let no weight be lifted and taken through the doors of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day: then I will put a fire in its doorways, burning up the great houses of Jerusalem, and it will never be put out.

18The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying,

²Up! go down to the potter's house, and there I will let my words come to your ears.

³Then I went down to the potter's house, and he was doing his work on the stones.

⁴And when the vessel, which he was forming out of earth, got damaged in the hand of the potter, he made it again into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to make it.

⁵Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

⁶O Israel, am I not able to do with you as this potter does? says the Lord. See, like earth in the potter's hand are you in my hands, O Israel.

⁷Whenever I say anything about uprooting a nation or a kingdom, and smashing it and sending destruction on it;

⁸If, in that very minute, that nation of which I was talking is turned away from its evil, my purpose of doing evil to them will be changed.

⁹And whenever I say anything about building up a nation or a kingdom, and planting it;

¹⁰If, in that very minute, it does evil in my eyes, going against my orders, then my good purpose, which I said I would do for them, will be changed.

¹¹Now, then, say to the men of Judah and to the people of Jerusalem, This is what the Lord has said: See, I am forming an evil thing against you, and designing a design against you: let every man come back now from his evil way, and let your ways and your doings be changed for the better.

¹²But they will say, There is no hope: we will go on in our designs, and every one of us will do what he is moved by the pride of his evil heart to do.

¹³So this is what the Lord has said: Make search among the nations and see who has had word of such things; the virgin of Israel has done a very shocking thing.

¹⁴Will the white snow go away from the top of Sirion? will the cold waters flowing from the mountains become dry?

¹⁵For my people have put me out of their memory, burning perfumes to that which is nothing; and because of this, I will put a cause of falling in their ways, even in the old roads, and will make them go on side-roads, in a way not lifted up;

¹⁶Making their land a thing of wonder, causing sounds of surprise for ever; everyone who goes by will be overcome with wonder, shaking his head.

¹⁷I will send them in flight, as from an east wind, before the attacker; I will let them see my back and not my face on the day of their downfall.

¹⁸Then they said, Come, let us make a design against Jeremiah; for teaching will never be cut off from the priest, or wisdom from the wise, or the word from the prophet. Come, let us make use of his words for an attack on him, and let us give attention with care to what he says.

¹⁹Give thought to me, O Lord, and give ear to the voice of those who put forward a cause against me.

²⁰Is evil to be the reward of good? for they have made a deep hole for my soul. Keep in mind how I took my place before you, to say a good word for them so that your wrath might be turned away from them.

²¹For this cause, let their children be without food, and give them over to the power of the sword; and let their wives be without children and become widows; let their men be overtaken by death, and their young men be put to the sword in the fight.

²²Let a cry for help go up from their houses, when you send an armed band on them suddenly: for they have made a hole in which to take me, and have put nets for my feet secretly.

²³But you, Lord, have knowledge of all the designs which they have made against my life; let not their evil-doing be covered or their sin be washed away from before your eyes: but let it be a cause of falling before you: so do to them in the time of your wrath.

19This is what the Lord has said: Go and get for money a potter's bottle made of earth, and take with you some of the responsible men of the people and of the priests;

²And go out to the valley of the son of Hinnom, by the way into the door of broken pots, and there say in a loud voice the words which I will give you;

³Say, Give ear to the word of the Lord, O kings of Judah and people of Jerusalem; the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said, See, I will send evil on this place which will be bitter to the ears of anyone hearing of it.

⁴Because they have given me up, and made this place a strange place, burning perfumes in it to other gods, of whom they and their fathers and the kings of Judah had no knowledge; and they have made this place full of the blood of those who have done no wrong;

⁵And they have put up the high places of the Baal, burning their sons in the fire; a thing which was not ordered by me, and it was never in my mind:

⁶For this cause, see, a time is coming, says the Lord, when this place will no longer be named Topheth, or, The valley of the son of Hinnom, but, The valley of Death.

⁷I will make the purpose of Judah and Jerusalem come to nothing in this place; I will have them put to the sword by their haters, and by the hands of those who have designs on their life; and their dead bodies I will give to be food for the birds of heaven and the beasts of the earth.

⁸And I will make this town a thing of wonder and a cause of surprise; everyone who goes by will be overcome with wonder and make sounds of surprise, because of all its troubles.

⁹I will make them take the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters for food, they will be making a meal of one another, because of their bitter need and the cruel grip of their haters and those who have made designs against their life.

¹⁰Then let the potter's bottle be broken before the eyes of the men who have gone with you,

¹¹And say to them, This is what the Lord of armies has said: Even so will this people and this town be broken by me, as a potter's bottle is broken and may not be put together again: and the bodies of the dead will be put in the earth in Topheth, till there is no more room.

¹²This is what I will do to this place, says the Lord, and to its people, making this town like Topheth:

¹³And the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses of the kings of Judah, which they have made unclean, will be like the place of Topheth, even all the houses on whose roofs perfumes have been burned to all the army of heaven, and drink offerings drained out to other gods.

¹⁴Then Jeremiah came from Topheth, where the Lord had sent him to give the prophet's word; and he took his place in the open square of the Lord's house, and said to all the people,

¹⁵The Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said: See, I will send on this town and on all her towns all the evil which I have said; because they made their necks stiff, so that they might not give ear to my words.

20Now it came to the ears of Pashhur, the son of Immer the priest, who was chief in authority in the house of the Lord, that Jeremiah was saying these things;

²And Pashhur gave blows to Jeremiah and had his feet chained in a framework of wood in the higher doorway of Benjamin, which was in the house of the Lord.

³Then on the day after, Pashhur let Jeremiah loose. Then Jeremiah said to him, The Lord has given you the name of Magor-missabib (Cause-of-fear-on-every-side), not Pashhur.

⁴For the Lord has said, See, I will make you a cause of fear to yourself and to all your friends: they will come to their death by the sword of their haters, and your eyes will see it: and I will give all Judah into the hands of the king of Babylon, and he will take them away prisoners into Babylon and put them to the sword.

⁵And more than this, I will give all the wealth of this town and all its profits and all its things of value, even all the stores of the kings of Judah will I give into the hands of their haters, who will put violent hands on them and take them away to Babylon.

⁶And you, Pashhur, and all who are in your house, will go away prisoners: you will come to Babylon, and there your body will be put to rest, you and all your friends, to whom you said false words.

⁷O Lord, you have been false to me, and I was tricked; you are stronger than I, and have overcome me: I have become a thing to be laughed at all the day, everyone makes sport of me.

⁸For every word I say is a cry for help; I say with a loud voice, Violent behaviour and wasting: because the word of the Lord is made a shame to me and a cause of laughing all the day.

⁹And if I say, I will not keep him in mind, I will not say another word in his name; then it is in my heart like a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am tired of keeping myself in, I am not able to do it.

¹⁰For numbers of them say evil secretly in my hearing (there is fear on every side): they say, Come, let us give witness against him; all my nearest friends, who are watching for my fall, say, It may be that he will be taken by deceit, and we will get the better of him and give him punishment.

¹¹But the Lord is with me as a great one, greatly to be feared: so my attackers will have a fall, and they will not overcome me: they will be greatly shamed, because they have not done wisely, even with an unending shame, kept in memory for ever.

¹²But, O Lord of armies, testing the upright and seeing the thoughts and the heart, let me see your punishment come on them; for I have put my cause before you.

¹³Make melody to the Lord, give praise to the Lord: for he has made the soul of the poor man free from the hands of the evil-doers.

¹⁴A curse on the day of my birth: let there be no blessing on the day when my mother had me.

¹⁵A curse on the man who gave the news to my father, saying, You have a male child; making him very glad.

¹⁶May that man be like the towns overturned by the Lord without mercy: let a cry for help come to his ears in the morning, and the sound of war in the middle of the day;

¹⁷Because he did not put me to death before my birth took place: so my mother's body would have been my last resting-place, and she would have been with child for ever.

¹⁸Why did I come from my mother's body to see pain and sorrow, so that my days might be wasted with shame?

21The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, when King Zedekiah sent to him Pashhur, the son of Malchiah, and Zephaniah, the son of Maaseiah the priest, saying,

²Will you get directions from the Lord for us; for Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, is making war against us; it may be that the Lord will do something for us like all the wonders he has done, and make him go away from us.

³Then Jeremiah said to them, This is what you are to say to Zedekiah:

⁴The Lord God of Israel has said, See, I am turning back the instruments of war in your hands, with which you are fighting against the king of Babylon and the Chaldaeans, who are outside the walls and shutting you in; and I will get them together inside this town.

⁵And I myself will be fighting against you with an outstretched hand and with a strong arm, even with angry feeling and passion and in great wrath.

⁶And I will send a great disease on the people living in this town, on man and on beast, causing their death.

⁷And after that, says the Lord, I will give up Zedekiah, king of Judah, and his servants and his people, even those in the town who have not come to their end from the disease and the sword and from need of food, into the hands of Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, and into the hands of their haters, and into the hands of those desiring their death: he will put them to the sword; he will not let anyone get away, he will have no pity or mercy.

⁸And to this people you are to say, The Lord has said, See, I put before you the way of life and the way of death.

⁹He who keeps in this town will come to his death by the sword and through need of food and through disease; but he who goes out and gives himself up to the Chaldaeans who are shutting you in, will go on living, and will keep his life safe.

¹⁰For my face is turned to this town for evil and not for good, says the Lord: it will be given into the hands of the king of Babylon, and he will have it burned with fire.

¹¹About the family of the king of Judah. Give ear to the word of the Lord;

¹²O family of David, this is what the Lord has said: Do what is right in the morning, and make free from the hands of the cruel one him whose goods have been violently taken away, or my wrath will go out like fire, burning so that no one may put it out, because of the evil of your doings.

¹³See, I am against you, you who are living on the rock of the valley, says the Lord; you who say, Who will come down against us? or who will get into our houses?

¹⁴I will send punishment on you in keeping with the fruit of your doings, says the Lord: and I will put a fire in her woodlands, burning up everything round about her.

22This is what the Lord has said: Go down to the house of the king of Judah and there give him this word,

²And say, Give ear to the word of the Lord, O king of Judah, seated on the seat of David, you and your servants and your people who come in by these doors.

³This is what the Lord has said: Do what is right, judging uprightly, and make free from the hands of the cruel one him whose goods have been violently taken away: do no wrong and be not violent to the man from a strange country and the child without a father and the widow, and let not those who have done no wrong be put to death in this place.

⁴For if you truly do this, then there will come in through the doors of this house kings seated on the seat of David, going in carriages and on horseback, he and his servants and his people

⁵But if you do not give ear to these words, I give you my oath by myself, says the Lord, that this house will become a waste.

⁶For this is what the Lord has said about the family of the king of Judah: You are Gilead to me, and the top of Lebanon: but, truly, I will make you waste, with towns unpeopled.

⁷And I will make ready those who will send destruction on you, everyone armed for war: by them your best cedar-trees will be cut down and put in the fire.

⁸And nations from all sides will go past this town, and every man will say to his neighbour, Why has the Lord done such things to this great town?

⁹And they will say, Because they gave up the agreement of the Lord their God, and became worshippers and servants of other gods.

¹⁰Let there be no weeping for the dead, and make no songs of grief for him: but make bitter weeping for him who has gone away, for he will never come back or see again the country of his birth.

¹¹For this is what the Lord has said about Shallum, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, who became king in place of Josiah his father, who went out from this place: He will never come back there again:

¹²But death will come to him in the place where they have taken him away prisoner, and he will never see this land again.

¹³A curse is on him who is building his house by wrongdoing, and his rooms by doing what is not right; who makes use of his neighbour without payment, and gives him nothing for his work;

¹⁴Who says, I will make a wide house for myself, and rooms of great size, and has windows cut out, and has it roofed with cedar and painted with bright red.

¹⁵Are you to be a king because you make more use of cedar than your father? did not your father take food and drink and do right, judging in righteousness, and then it was well for him?

¹⁶He was judge in the cause of the poor and those in need; then it was well. Was not this to have knowledge of me? says the Lord.

¹⁷But your eyes and your heart are fixed only on profit for yourself, on causing the death of him who has done no wrong, and on violent and cruel acts.

¹⁸So this is what the Lord has said about Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah: They will make no weeping for him, saying, Ah my brother! or, Ah sister! they will make no weeping for him, saying, Ah lord! or, Ah his glory!

¹⁹They will do to him what they do to the dead body of an ass; his body will be pulled out and placed on the earth outside the doors of Jerusalem.

²⁰Go up to Lebanon and give a cry; let your voice be loud in Bashan, crying out from Abarim; for all your lovers have come to destruction

²¹My word came to you in the time of your well-being; but you said, I will not give ear. This has been your way from your earliest years, you did not give attention to my voice.

²²All the keepers of your sheep will be food for the wind, and your lovers will be taken away prisoners: truly, then you will be shamed and unhonoured because of all your evil-doing.

²³O you who are living in Lebanon, making your living-place in the cedars, how greatly to be pitied will you be when pains come on you, as on a woman in childbirth!

²⁴By my life, says the Lord, even if Coniah, the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, was the ring on my right hand, even from there I would have you pulled off;

²⁵And I will give you into the hands of those desiring your death, and into the hands of those whom you are fearing, even into the hands of Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, and into the hands of the Chaldaeans.

²⁶I will send you out, and your mother who gave you birth, into another country not the land of your birth; and there death will come to you.

²⁷But to the land on which their soul's desire is fixed, they will never come back.

²⁸Is this man Coniah a broken vessel of no value? is he a vessel in which there is no pleasure? why are they violently sent out, he and his seed, into a land which is strange to them?

²⁹O earth, earth, earth, give ear to the word of the Lord!

³⁰The Lord has said, Let this man be recorded as having no children, a man who will not do well in all his life: for no man of his seed will do well, seated on the seat of the kingdom of David and ruling again in Judah.

23A curse is on the keepers who are causing the destruction and loss of the sheep of my field, says the Lord.

²So this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, has said against the keepers who have the care of my people: You have let my flock be broken up, driving them away and not caring for them; see, I will send on you the punishment for the evil of your doings, says the Lord.

³And I will get the rest of my flock together from all the countries where I have sent them, and will make them come back again to their resting-place; and they will have offspring and be increased.

⁴And I will put over them keepers who will take care of them: never again will they be overcome with fear or be troubled, and there will not be the loss of one of them, says the Lord.

⁵See, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will give to David a true Branch, and he will be ruling as king, acting wisely, doing what is right, and judging uprightly in the land.

⁶In his days Judah will have salvation and Israel will be living without fear: and this is the name by which he will be named, The Lord is our righteousness.

⁷And so, truly, the days are coming when they will say no longer, By the living Lord, who took the children of Israel up out of the land of Egypt;

⁸But, By the living Lord, who took up the seed of Israel, and made them come out of the north country, and from all the countries where I had sent them; and they will be living in the land which is theirs.

⁹About the prophets. My heart is broken in me, all my bones are shaking; I am like a man full of strong drink, like a man overcome by wine; because of the Lord, and because of his holy words.

¹⁰For the land is full of men who are untrue to their wives; because of the curse the land is full of grief; the green fields of the waste land have become dry; and they are quick to do evil, their strength is for what is not right.

¹¹For the prophet as well as the priest is unclean; even in my house I have seen their evil-doing, says the Lord.

¹²For this cause their steps will be slipping on their way: they will be forced on into the dark and have a fall there: for I will send evil on them in the year of their punishment, says the Lord.

¹³And I have seen ways without sense in the prophets of Samaria; they became prophets of the Baal, causing my people Israel to go wrong.

¹⁴And in the prophets of Jerusalem I have seen a shocking thing; they are untrue to their wives, walking in deceit, and they make strong the hands of evil-doers, so that a man may not be turned back from his evil-doing: they have all become like Sodom to me, and its people like Gomorrah.

¹⁵So this is what the Lord of armies has said about the prophets: See, I will give them a bitter plant for their food, and bitter water for their drink: for from the prophets of Jerusalem unclean behaviour has gone out into all the land.

¹⁶This is what the Lord of armies has said: Do not give ear to the words which the prophets say to you: they give you teaching of no value: it is from themselves that their vision comes, and not out of the mouth of the Lord.

¹⁷They keep on saying to those who have no respect for the word of the Lord, You will have peace; and to everyone who goes on his way in the pride of his heart, they say, No evil will come to you.

¹⁸For which of them has knowledge of the secret of the Lord, and has seen him, and given ear to his word? which of them has taken note of his word and given attention to it?

¹⁹See, the storm-wind of the Lord, even the heat of his wrath, has gone out, a rolling storm, bursting on the heads of the evil-doers.

²⁰The wrath of the Lord will not be turned back till he has done, till he has put into effect, the purposes of his heart: in days to come you will have full knowledge of this.

²¹I did not send these prophets, but they went running: I said nothing to them, but they gave out the prophet's word.

²²But if they had been in my secret, then they would have made my people give ear to my words, turning them from their evil way, and from the evil of their doings.

²³Am I only a God who is near, says the Lord, and not a God at a distance?

²⁴In what secret place may a man take cover without my seeing him? says the Lord. Is there any place in heaven or earth where I am not? says the Lord.

²⁵My ears have been open to what the prophets have said, who say false words in my name, saying, I have had a dream, I have had a dream, I have had a dream,

²⁶Is (my word) in the hearts of the prophets who give out false words, even the prophets of the deceit of their hearts?

²⁷Whose purpose is to take away the memory of my name from my people by their dreams, of which every man is talking to his neighbour, as their fathers gave up the memory of my name for the Baal.

²⁸If a prophet has a dream, let him give out his dream; and he who has my word, let him give out my word in good faith. What has the dry stem to do with the grain? says the Lord.

²⁹Is not my word like fire? says the Lord; and like a hammer, smashing the rock to bits?

³⁰For this cause I am against the prophets, says the Lord, who take my words, every one from his neighbour.

³¹See, I am against the prophets, says the Lord, who let their tongues say, He has said.

³²See, I am against the prophets of false dreams, says the Lord, who give them out and make my people go out of the way by their deceit and their uncontrolled words: but I did not send them or give them orders; and they will be of no profit to this people, says the Lord.

³³And if this people, or the prophet, or a priest, questioning you, says, What word of weight is there from the Lord? then you are to say to them, You are the word, for I will not be troubled with you any more, says the Lord.

³⁴And as for the prophet and the priest and the people who say, A word of weight from the Lord! I will send punishment on that man and on his house.

³⁵But this is what you are to say, every man to his neighbour and every man to his brother, What answer has the Lord given? and, What has the Lord said?

³⁶And you will no longer put people in mind of the word of weight of the Lord: for every man's word will be a weight on himself; for the words of the living God, of the Lord of armies, our God, have been twisted by you.

³⁷This is what you are to say to the prophet, What answer has the Lord given to you? and, What has the Lord said?

³⁸But if you say, The word of weight of the Lord; this is what the Lord has said: Because you say, The weight of the Lord, and I have sent to you, saying, You are not to say, The weight of the Lord;

³⁹For this reason, truly, I will put you completely out of my memory, and I will put you, and the town which I gave to you and to your fathers, away from before my face:

⁴⁰And I will give you a name without honour for ever, and unending shame which will never go from the memory of men.

24The Lord gave me a vision, and I saw two baskets full of figs put in front of the Temple of the Lord, after Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, had taken prisoner Jeconiah, the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and the chiefs of Judah, and the expert workmen and metal-workers from Jerusalem, and had taken them to Babylon.

²One basket had very good figs, like the figs which first come to growth: and the other basket had very bad figs, so bad that they were of no use for food.

³Then the Lord said to me, What do you see, Jeremiah? And I said, Figs; the good figs are very good, and the bad very bad, and of no use for food, they are so bad.

⁴And the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

⁵This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, has said: Like these good figs, so in my eyes will be the prisoners of Judah, whom I have sent from this place into the land of the Chaldaeans for their good.

⁶For I will keep my eyes on them for good, and I will take them back again to this land, building them up and not pulling them down, planting them and not uprooting them.

⁷And I will give them a heart to have knowledge of me, that I am the Lord: and they will be my people, and I will be their God: for they will come back to me with all their heart.

⁸And like the bad figs which are so bad that they are of no use for food, so I will give up Zedekiah, king of Judah, and his chiefs and the rest of Jerusalem who are still in this land, and those who are in the land of Egypt:

⁹I will give them up to be a cause of fear and of trouble among all the kingdoms of the earth; to be a name of shame and common talk and a cutting word and a curse in all the places wherever I will send them wandering.

¹⁰And I will send the sword, and need of food, and disease, among them till they are all cut off from the land which I gave to them and to their fathers.

25The word which came to Jeremiah about all the people of Judah in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah king of Judah; this was the first year of Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon.

²This word Jeremiah gave out to all the people of Judah and to those living in Jerusalem, saying,

³From the thirteenth year of Josiah, the son of Amon, king of Judah, even till this day, for twenty-three years, the word of the Lord has been coming to me, and I have given it to you, getting up early and talking to you; but you have not given ear.

⁴And the Lord has sent to you all his servants the prophets, getting up early and sending them; but you have not given attention and your ear has not been open to give hearing;

⁵Saying, Come back now, everyone from his evil way and from the evil of your doings, and keep your place in the land which the Lord has given to you and to your fathers, from times long past even for ever:

⁶Do not go after other gods to be their servants and to give them worship, and do not make me angry with the work of your hands, causing evil to yourselves.

⁷But you have not given ear to me, says the Lord; so that you have made me angry with the work of your hands, causing evil to yourselves.

⁸So this is what the Lord of armies has said: Because you have not given ear to my words,

⁹See, I will send and take all the families of the north, says the Lord, and Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, my servant, and make them come against this land, and against its people, and against all these nations on every side; and I will give them up to complete destruction, and make them a cause of fear and surprise and a waste place for ever.

¹⁰And more than this, I will take from them the sound of laughing voices, the voice of joy, the voice of the newly-married man, and the voice of the bride, the sound of the stones crushing the grain, and the shining of lights.

¹¹All this land will be a waste and a cause of wonder; and these nations will be the servants of the king of Babylon for seventy years.

¹²And it will come about, after seventy years are ended, that I will send punishment on the king of Babylon, and on that nation, says the Lord, for their evil-doing, and on the land of the Chaldaeans; and I will make it a waste for ever.

¹³And I will make that land undergo everything I have said against it, even everything recorded in this book, which Jeremiah the prophet has said against all the nations.

¹⁴For a number of nations and great kings will make servants of them, even of them: and I will give them the reward of their acts, even the reward of the work of their hands.

¹⁵For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, has said to me: Take the cup of the wine of this wrath from my hand, and make all the nations to whom I send you take of it.

¹⁶And after drinking it, they will go rolling from side to side, and be off their heads, because of the sword which I will send among them.

¹⁷Then I took the cup from the Lord's hand, and gave a drink from it to all the nations to whom the Lord sent me;

¹⁸Jerusalem and the towns of Judah and their kings and their princes, to make them a waste place, a cause of fear and surprise and a curse, as it is this day;

¹⁹Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and his servants and his princes and all his people;

²⁰And all the mixed people and all the kings of the land of Uz, and all the kings of the land of the Philistines, and Ashkelon and Gaza and Ekron and the rest of Ashdod;

²¹Edom and Moab and the children of Ammon,

²²And all the kings of Tyre, and all the kings of Zidon, and the kings of the lands across the sea;

²³Dedan and Tema and Buz, and all who have the ends of their hair cut;

²⁴And all the kings of Arabia, and all the kings of the mixed people living in the waste land;

²⁵And all the kings of Zimri, and all the kings of Elam, and all the kings of the Medes;

²⁶And all the kings of the north, far and near, one with another; and all the kingdoms of the world on the face of the earth.

²⁷And you are to say to them, This is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said: Take of this cup and be overcome, and let it come out again from your lips, and from your fall you will never be lifted up again, because of the sword which I will send among you.

²⁸And it will be, if they will not take of the cup in your hand, then you are to say to them, This is what the Lord of armies has said: You will certainly take of it.

²⁹For see, I am starting to send evil on the town which is named by my name, and are you to be without any punishment? You will not be without punishment: for I will send a sword on all people living on the earth, says the Lord of armies.

³⁰So, as a prophet, give out these words among them, and say to them, The voice of the Lord will be sounding like a lion from on high; he will send out his voice from his holy place, like the loud voice of a lion, against his flock; he will give a cry, like those who are crushing the grapes, against all the people of the earth.

³¹A noise will come, even to the end of the earth; for the Lord has a cause against the nations, he will give his decision against all flesh; as for the evil-doers, he will give them to the sword, says the Lord.

³²This is what the Lord of armies has said: See, evil is going out from nation to nation, and a great storm will come up from the inmost parts of the earth.

³³And at that day, the bodies of those whom the Lord has put to death will be seen from one end of the earth even to the other end of the earth: there will be no weeping for them, their bodies will not be taken up or put to rest in the earth; they will be like waste on the face of the land.

³⁴Give cries of grief, you keepers of sheep; give cries for help, rolling yourselves in the dust, you chiefs of the flock: for the days of your destruction have fully come, and I will send you in all directions, and your fall will be like that of the males of the flock.

³⁵There will be no way of flight for the keepers of sheep, no road for the chiefs of the flock to get away safely.

³⁶A sound of the cry of the keepers of sheep, and the bitter crying of the chiefs of the flock! for the Lord has made waste their green fields.

³⁷And there is no sound in the fields of peace, because of the burning wrath of the Lord.

³⁸The lion has come out of his secret place, for the land has become a waste because of the cruel sword, and because of the heat of his wrath.

26When Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, first became king, this word came from the Lord, saying,

²This is what the Lord has said: Take your place in the open square of the Lord's house and say to all the towns of Judah, who come into the Lord's house for worship, everything I give you orders to say to them: keep back not a word;

³It may be that they will give ear, and that every man will be turned from his evil way, so that my purpose of sending evil on them because of the evil of their doings may be changed.

⁴And you are to say to them, This is what the Lord has said: If you do not give ear to me and go in the way of my law which I have put before you,

⁵And give ear to the words of my servants the prophets whom I send to you, getting up early and sending them, though you gave no attention;

⁶Then I will make this house like Shiloh, and will make this town a curse to all the nations of the earth.

⁷And in the hearing of the priests and the prophets and all the people, Jeremiah said these words in the house of the Lord.

⁸Now, when Jeremiah had come to the end of saying everything the Lord had given him orders to say to all the people, the priests and the prophets and all the people took him by force, saying, Death will certainly be your fate.

⁹Why have you said in the name of the Lord, This house will be like Shiloh, and this land a waste with no one living in it? And all the people had come together to Jeremiah in the house of the Lord.

¹⁰And the rulers of Judah, hearing of these things, came up from the king's house to the house of the Lord, and took their seats by the new door of the Lord's house.

¹¹Then the priests and the prophets said to the rulers and to all the people, The right fate for this man is death; for he has said words against this town in your hearing.

¹²Then Jeremiah said to all the rulers and to all the people, The Lord has sent me as his prophet to say against this house and against this town all the words which have come to your ears.

¹³So now, make a change for the better in your ways and your doings, and give ear to the voice of the Lord your God; then the Lord will let himself be turned from the decision he has made against you for evil.

¹⁴As for me, here I am in your hands: do with me whatever seems good and right in your opinion.

¹⁵Only be certain that, if you put me to death, you will make yourselves and your town and its people responsible for the blood of one who has done no wrong: for truly, the Lord has sent me to you to say all these words in your ears.

¹⁶Then the rulers and all the people said to the priests and the prophets, It is not right for this man to be put to death: for he has said words to us in the name of the Lord our God.

¹⁷Then some of the responsible men of the land got up and said to all the meeting of the people,

¹⁸Micah the Morashtite, who was a prophet in the days of Hezekiah, king of Judah, said to all the people of Judah, This is what the Lord of armies has said: Zion will become like a ploughed field, and Jerusalem will become a mass of broken walls, and the mountain of the house like the high places of the woodland.

¹⁹Did Hezekiah and all Judah put him to death? did he not in the fear of the Lord make prayer for the grace of the Lord, and the Lord let himself be turned from the decision he had made against them for evil? By this act we might do great evil against ourselves.

²⁰And there was another man who was a prophet of the Lord, Uriah, the son of Shemaiah of Kiriath-jearim; he said against this town and against this land all the words which Jeremiah had said:

²¹And when his words came to the ears of Jehoiakim the king and all his men of war and his captains, the king would have put him to death; but Uriah, hearing of it, was full of fear and went in flight into Egypt:

²²And Jehoiakim the king sent Elnathan, the son of Achbor, and certain men with him, into Egypt.

²³And they took Uriah out of Egypt and came back with him to Jehoiakim the king; who put him to death with the sword, and had his dead body put into the resting-place of the bodies of the common people.

²⁴But Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, gave Jeremiah his help, so that he was not given into the hands of the people to be put to death.

27When Zedekiah, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, first became king this word came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying,

²This is what the Lord has said to me: Make for yourself bands and yokes and put them on your neck;

³And send them to the king of Edom, and to the king of Moab, and to the king of the children of Ammon, and to the king of Tyre, and to the king of Zidon, by their servants who come to Jerusalem, to Zedekiah, king of Judah;

⁴And give them orders to say to their masters, This is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said: Say to your masters,

⁵I have made the earth, and man and beast on the face of the earth, by my great power and by my outstretched arm; and I will give it to anyone at my pleasure.

⁶And now I have given all these lands into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, my servant; and I have given the beasts of the field to him for his use.

⁷And all the nations will be servants to him and to his son and to his son's son, till the time comes for his land to be overcome: and then a number of nations and great kings will take it for their use.

⁸And it will come about, that if any nation does not become a servant to this same Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and does not put its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, then I will send punishment on that nation, says the Lord, by the sword and need of food and by disease, till I have given them into his hands.

⁹And you are not to give attention to your prophets or your readers of signs or your dreamers or those who see into the future or those who make use of secret arts, who say to you, You will not become servants of the king of Babylon:

¹⁰For they say false words to you, so that you may be sent away far from your land, and so that you may be forced out by me and come to destruction.

¹¹But as for that nation which puts its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon and becomes his servant, I will let that nation keep on in its land, farming it and living in it, says the Lord.

¹²And I said all this to Zedekiah, king of Judah, saying, Put your necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon and become his servants and his people, so that you may keep your lives.

¹³Why are you desiring death, you and your people, by the sword, and because food is gone, and by disease, as the Lord has said of the nation which does not become the servant of the king of Babylon?

¹⁴And you are not to give ear to the prophets who say to you, You will not become servants of the king of Babylon: for what they say is not true.

¹⁵For I have not sent them, says the Lord, but they are saying what is false in my name, so that I might send you out by force, causing destruction to come on you and on your prophets.

¹⁶And I said to the priests and to all the people, This is what the Lord has said: Give no attention to the words of your prophets who say to you, See, in a very little time now the vessels of the Lord's house will come back again from Babylon: for what they say to you is false.

¹⁷Give no attention to them; become servants of the king of Babylon and keep yourselves from death: why let this town become a waste?

¹⁸But if they are prophets, and if the word of the Lord is with them, let them now make request to the Lord of armies that the vessels which are still in the house of the Lord and in the house of the king of Judah and at Jerusalem, may not go to Babylon.

¹⁹For this is what the Lord has said about the rest of the vessels which are still in this town,

²⁰Which Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, did not take away, when he took Jeconiah, the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, a prisoner from Jerusalem to Babylon, with all the great men of Judah and Jerusalem;

²¹For this is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said about the rest of the vessels in the house of the Lord and in the house of the king of Judah and at Jerusalem:

²²They will be taken away to Babylon, and there they will be till the day when I send their punishment on them, says the Lord. Then I will take them up and put them back in their place.

28And it came about in that year, when Zedekiah first became king of Judah, in the fourth year, in the fifth month, that Hananiah, the son of Azzur the prophet, who came from Gibeon, said to Jeremiah in the house of the Lord, before the priests and all the people,

²These are the words of the Lord of armies, the God of Israel: By me the yoke of the king of Babylon has been broken.

³In the space of two years I will send back into this place all the vessels of the Lord's house which Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, took away from this place to Babylon:

⁴And I will let Jeconiah, the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, come back to this place, with all the prisoners of Judah who went to Babylon, says the Lord: for I will have the yoke of the king of Babylon broken.

⁵Then the prophet Jeremiah said to the prophet Hananiah, before the priests and all the people who had come into the house of the Lord,

⁶The prophet Jeremiah said, So be it: may the Lord do so: may the Lord give effect to the words which you have said, and let the vessels of the Lord's house, and all the people who have been taken away, come back from Babylon to this place.

⁷But still, give ear to this word which I am saying to you and to all the people:

⁸The prophets, who were before me and before you, from early times gave word to a number of countries and great kingdoms about war and destruction and disease.

⁹The prophet whose words are of peace, when his words come true, will be seen to be a prophet whom the Lord has sent.

¹⁰Then Hananiah the prophet took the yoke from the neck of the prophet Jeremiah and it was broken by his hands.

¹¹And before all the people Hananiah said, The Lord has said, Even so will I let the yoke of the king of Babylon be broken off the necks of all the nations in the space of two years. Then the prophet Jeremiah went away.

¹²Then after the yoke had been broken off the neck of the prophet Jeremiah by Hananiah the prophet, the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying,

¹³Go and say to Hananiah, This is what the Lord has said: Yokes of wood have been broken by you, but in their place I will make yokes of iron.

¹⁴For the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said: I have put a yoke of iron on the necks of all these nations, making them servants to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon; and they are to be his servants: and in addition I have given him the beasts of the field.

¹⁵Then the prophet Jeremiah said to Hananiah the prophet, Give ear, now, Hananiah; the Lord has not sent you; but you are making this people put their faith in what is false.

¹⁶For this reason the Lord has said, See, I will send you away from off the face of the earth: this year death will overtake you, because you have said words against the Lord.

¹⁷So death came to Hananiah the prophet the same year, in the seventh month.

29Now these are the words of the letter which Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the responsible men among those who had been taken away, and to the priests and the prophets and to all the rest of the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken away prisoners from Jerusalem to Babylon;

²(After Jeconiah the king and the queen-mother and the unsexed servants and the rulers of Judah and Jerusalem and the expert workmen and the metal-workers had gone away from Jerusalem;)

³By the hand of Elasah, the son of Shaphan, and Gemariah, the son of Hilkiah, (whom Zedekiah, king of Judah, sent to Babylon, to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon,) saying,

⁴This is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said to all those whom I have taken away prisoners from Jerusalem to Babylon:

⁵Go on building houses and living in them, and planting gardens and using the fruit of them;

⁶Take wives and have sons and daughters, and take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands, so that they may have sons and daughters; and be increased in number there and do not become less.

⁷And be working for the peace of the land to which I have had you taken away prisoners, and make prayer to the Lord for it: for in its peace you will have peace.

⁸For this is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said: Do not let yourselves be tricked by the prophets who are among you, and the readers of signs, and give no attention to their dreams which they may have;

⁹For they are saying to you what is false in my name: I have not sent them, says the Lord.

¹⁰For this is what the Lord has said: When seventy years are ended for Babylon, I will have pity on you and give effect to my good purpose for you, causing you to come back to this place.

¹¹For I am conscious of my thoughts about you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you hope at the end.

¹²And you will go on crying to me and making prayer to me, and I will give ear to you.

¹³And you will be searching for me and I will be there, when you have gone after me with all your heart.

¹⁴I will be near you again, says the Lord, and your fate will be changed, and I will get you together from all the nations and from all the places where I had sent you away, says the Lord; and I will take you back again to the place from which I sent you away prisoners.

¹⁵For you have said, The Lord has given us prophets in Babylon.

¹⁶For this is what the Lord has said about the king who is seated on the seat of David's kingdom, and about all the people living in this town, your countrymen who have not gone out with you as prisoners;

¹⁷This is what the Lord of armies has said: See, I will send on them the sword and need of food and disease, and will make them like bad figs, which are of no use for food, they are so bad.

¹⁸I will go after them, attacking them with the sword and with need of food and with disease, and will make them a cause of fear to all the kingdoms of the earth, to be a curse and a wonder and a surprise and a name of shame among all the nations where I have sent them:

¹⁹Because they have not given ear to my words, says the Lord, when I sent to them my servants the prophets, getting up early and sending them; but you did not give ear, says the Lord.

²⁰And now, give ear to the word of the Lord, all you whom I have sent away prisoners from Jerusalem to Babylon.

²¹This is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said about Ahab, the son of Kolaiah, and about Zedekiah, the son of Maaseiah, who are saying to you what is false in my name: See, I will give them up into the hands of Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, and he will put them to death before your eyes.

²²And their fate will be used as a curse by all the prisoners of Judah who are in Babylon, who will say, May the Lord make you like Zedekiah and like Ahab, who were burned in the fire by the king of Babylon;

²³Because they have done shame in Israel, and have taken their neighbours' wives, and in my name have said false words, which I did not give them orders to say; and I myself am the witness, says the Lord.

²⁴About Shemaiah the Nehelamite.

²⁵Shemaiah the Nehelamite sent a letter in his name to Zephaniah, the son of Maaseiah the priest, saying,

²⁶The Lord has made you priest in place of Jehoiada the priest, to be an overseer in the house of the Lord for every man who is off his head and is acting as a prophet, to put such men in prison and in chains.

²⁷So why have you made no protest against Jeremiah of Anathoth, who is acting as a prophet to you?

²⁸For he has sent to us in Babylon saying, The time will be long: go on building houses and living in them, and planting gardens and using the fruit of them.

²⁹And Zephaniah the priest made clear to Jeremiah the prophet what was said in the letter, reading it to him.

³⁰Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet, saying,

³¹Send to all those who have been taken away, saying, This is what the Lord has said about Shemaiah the Nehelamite: Because Shemaiah has been acting as a prophet to you, and I did not send him, and has made you put your faith in what is false;

³²For this cause the Lord has said, Truly I will send punishment on Shemaiah and on his seed; not a man of his family will have a place among this people, and he will not see the good which I am going to do to my people, says the Lord: because he has said words against the Lord.

30The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying,

²The Lord, the God of Israel, has said, Put down in a book all the words which I have said to you.

³For see, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will let the fate of my people Israel and Judah be changed, says the Lord: and I will make them come back to the land which I gave to their fathers, so that they may take it for their heritage.

⁴And these are the words which the Lord said about Israel and about Judah.

⁵This is what the Lord has said: A voice of shaking fear has come to our ears, of fear and not of peace.

⁶Put the question and see if it is possible for a man to have birth-pains: why do I see every man with his hands gripping his sides, as a woman does when the pains of birth are on her, and all faces are turned green?

⁷Ha! for that day is so great that there is no day like it: it is the time of Jacob's trouble: but he will get salvation from it.

⁸For it will come about on that day, says the Lord of armies, that his yoke will be broken off his neck, and his bands will be burst; and men of strange lands will no longer make use of him as their servant:

⁹But they will be servants to the Lord their God and to David their king, whom I will give back to them.

¹⁰So have no fear, O Jacob, my servant, says the Lord; and do not be troubled, O Israel: for see, I will make you come back from far away, and your seed from the land where they are prisoners; and Jacob will come back, and will be quiet and at peace, and no one will give him cause for fear.

¹¹For I am with you, says the Lord, to be your saviour: for I will put an end to all the nations where I have sent you wandering, but I will not put an end to you completely: though with wise purpose I will put right your errors, and will not let you go quite without punishment.

¹²For the Lord has said, Your disease may not be made well and your wound is bitter.

¹³There is no help for your wound, there is nothing to make you well.

¹⁴Your lovers have no more thought for you, they go after you no longer; for I have given you the wound of a hater, even cruel punishment;

¹⁵Why are you crying for help because of your wound? for your pain may never be taken away: because your evil-doing was so great and because your sins were increased, I have done these things to you.

¹⁶For this cause, all those who take you for their food will themselves become your food; and all your attackers, every one of them, will be taken prisoners; and those who send destruction on you will come to destruction; and all those who take away your goods by force will undergo the same themselves.

¹⁷For I will make you healthy again and I will make you well from your wounds, says the Lord; because they have given you the name of an outlaw, saying, It is Zion cared for by no man.

¹⁸The Lord has said, See, I am changing the fate of the tents of Jacob, and I will have pity on his houses; the town will be put up on its hill, and the great houses will be living-places again.

¹⁹And from them will go out praise and the sound of laughing: and I will make them great in number, and they will not become less; and I will give them glory, and they will not be small.

²⁰And their children will be as they were in the old days, and the meeting of the people will have its place before me, and I will send punishment on all who are cruel to them.

²¹And their chief will be of their number; their ruler will come from among themselves; and I will let him be present before me, so that he may come near to me: for who may have strength of heart to come near me? says the Lord.

²²And you will be my people, and I will be your God.

²³See, the storm-wind of the Lord, even the heat of his wrath, has gone out, a rolling storm, bursting on the heads of the evil-doers.

²⁴The wrath of the Lord will not be turned back till he has done, till he has put into effect, the purposes of his heart: in days to come you will have full knowledge of this.

31At that time, says the Lord, I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they will be my people.

²The Lord has said, Grace came in the waste land to a people kept safe from the sword, even to Israel on the way to his resting-place.

³From far away he saw the Lord: my love for you is an eternal love: so with mercy I have made you come with me.

⁴I will again make new your buildings, O virgin of Israel, and you will take up your place: again you will take up your instruments of music, and go out in the dances of those who are glad.

⁵Again will your vine-gardens be planted on the hill of Samaria: the planters will be planting and using the fruit.

⁶For there will be a day when those who get in the grapes on the hills of Ephraim will be crying, Up! let us go up to Zion to the Lord our God.

⁷For the Lord has said, Make a glad song for Jacob and give a cry on the top of the mountains: give the news, give praise, and say, The Lord has given salvation to his people, even to the rest of Israel.

⁸See, I will take them from the north country, and get them from the inmost parts of the earth, and with them the blind and the feeble-footed, the woman with child and her who is in birth-pains together: a very great army, they will come back here.

⁹They will come with weeping, and going before them I will be their guide: guiding them by streams of water in a straight way where there is no falling: for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is the first of my sons.

¹⁰Give ear to the word of the Lord, O you nations, and give news of it in the sea-lands far away, and say, He who has sent Israel wandering will get him together and will keep him as a keeper does his flock.

¹¹For the Lord has given a price for Jacob, and made him free from the hands of him who was stronger than he.

¹²So they will come with songs on the high places, flowing together to the good things of the Lord, to the grain and the wine and the oil, to the young ones of the flock and of the herd: their souls will be like a watered garden, and they will have no more sorrow.

¹³Then the virgin will have joy in the dance, and the young men and the old will be glad: for I will have their weeping turned into joy, I will give them comfort and make them glad after their sorrow.

¹⁴I will give the priests their desired fat things, and my people will have a full measure of my good things, says the Lord.

¹⁵So has the Lord said: In Ramah there is a sound of crying, weeping and bitter sorrow; Rachel weeping for her children; she will not be comforted for their loss.

¹⁶The Lord has said this: Keep your voice from sorrow and your eyes from weeping: for your work will be rewarded, says the Lord; and they will come back from the land of their hater.

¹⁷And there is hope for the future, says the Lord; and your children will come back to the land which is theirs.

¹⁸Certainly Ephraim's words of grief have come to my ears, You have given me training and I have undergone it like a young cow unused to the yoke: let me be turned and come back, for you are the Lord my God.

¹⁹Truly, after I had been turned, I had regret for my ways; and after I had got knowledge, I made signs of sorrow: I was put to shame, truly, I was covered with shame, because I had to undergo the shame of my early years.

²⁰Is Ephraim my dear son? is he the child of my delight? for whenever I say things against him, I still keep him in my memory: so my heart is troubled for him; I will certainly have mercy on him, says the Lord.

²¹Put up guiding pillars, make road signs for yourself: give attention to the highway, even the way in which you went: be turned again, O virgin of Israel, be turned to these your towns.

²²How long will you go on turning this way and that, O wandering daughter? for the Lord has made a new thing on the earth, a woman changed into a man.

²³So the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said, Again will these words be used in the land of Judah and in its towns, when I have let their fate be changed: May the blessing of the Lord be on you, O resting-place of righteousness, O holy mountain.

²⁴And Judah and all its towns will be living there together; the farmers and those who go about with flocks.

²⁵For I have given new strength to the tired soul and to every sorrowing soul in full measure.

²⁶At this, awaking from my sleep, I saw; and my sleep was sweet to me.

²⁷See, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will have Israel and Judah planted with the seed of man and with the seed of beast.

²⁸And it will come about that, as I have been watching over them for the purpose of uprooting and smashing down and overturning and sending destruction and causing trouble; so I will be watching over them for the purpose of building up and planting, says the Lord.

²⁹In those days they will no longer say, The fathers have been tasting bitter grapes and the children's teeth are put on edge.

³⁰But everyone will be put to death for the evil which he himself has done: whoever has taken bitter grapes will himself have his teeth put on edge.

³¹See, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new agreement with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah:

³²Not like the agreement which I made with their fathers, on the day when I took them by the hand to be their guide out of the land of Egypt; which agreement was broken by them, and I gave them up, says the Lord.

³³But this is the agreement which I will make with the people of Israel after those days, says the Lord; I will put my law in their inner parts, writing it in their hearts; and I will be their God, and they will be my people.

³⁴And no longer will they be teaching every man his neighbour and every man his brother, saying, Get knowledge of the Lord: for they will all have knowledge of me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord: for they will have my forgiveness for their evil-doing, and their sin will go from my memory for ever.

³⁵These are the words of the Lord, who has given the sun for a light by day, ordering the moon and stars for a light by night, who puts the sea in motion, causing the thunder of its waves; the Lord of armies is his name.

³⁶If the order of these things before me is ever broken, says the Lord, then will the seed of Israel come to an end as a nation before me for ever.

³⁷This is what the Lord has said: If the heavens on high may be measured, and the bases of the earth searched out, then I will give up the seed of Israel, because of all they have done, says the Lord.

³⁸See, the days are coming, says the Lord, for the building of the Lord's town, from the tower of Hananel to the doorway of the angle.

³⁹And the measuring-line will go out in front of it as far as the hill Gareb, going round to Goah.

⁴⁰And all the valley of the dead bodies, and all the field of death as far as the stream Kidron, up to the angle of the horses' doorway to the east, will be holy to the Lord; it will not again be uprooted or overturned for ever.

32The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the tenth year of Zedekiah, king of Judah, which was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar.

²Now at that time the king of Babylon's army was round Jerusalem, shutting it in: and Jeremiah the prophet was shut up in the place of the armed watchmen, in the house of the king of Judah.

³For Zedekiah, king of Judah, had had him shut up, saying, Why have you, as a prophet, been saying, The Lord has said, See, I will give this town into the hands of the king of Babylon, and he will take it;

⁴And Zedekiah, king of Judah, will not get away from the hands of the Chaldaeans, but will certainly be given up into the hands of the king of Babylon, and will have talk with him, mouth to mouth, and see him, eye to eye.

⁵And he will take Zedekiah away to Babylon, where he will be till I have pity on him, says the Lord: though you are fighting with the Chaldaeans, things will not go well for you?

⁶And Jeremiah said, The word of the Lord came to me, saying,

⁷See, Hanamel, the son of Shallum, your father's brother, will come to you and say, Give the price and get for yourself my property in Anathoth: for you have the right of the nearest relation.

⁸So Hanamel, the son of my father's brother, came to me, as the Lord had said, to the place of the armed watchmen, and said to me, Give the price and get my property which is in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin: for you have the nearest relation's right to the heritage; so get it for yourself. Then it was clear to me that this was the word of the Lord.

⁹So I got for a price the property in Anathoth from Hanamel, the son of my father's brother, and gave him the money, seventeen shekels of silver;

¹⁰And I put it in writing, stamping it with my stamp, and I took witnesses and put the money into the scales.

¹¹So I took the paper witnessing the business, one copy rolled up and stamped, and one copy open:

¹²And I gave the paper to Baruch, the son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, before the eyes of Hanamel, the son of my father's brother, and of the witnesses who had put their names to the paper, and before all the Jews who were seated in the place of the armed watchmen.

¹³And I gave orders to Baruch in front of them, saying,

¹⁴This is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said: Take these papers, the witness of this business, the one which is rolled up and stamped, and the one which is open; and put them in a vessel of earth so that they may be kept for a long time.

¹⁵For the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said, There will again be trading in houses and fields and vine-gardens in this land.

¹⁶Now after I had given the paper to Baruch, the son of Neriah, I made my prayer to the Lord, saying,

¹⁷Ah Lord God! see, you have made the heaven and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm, and there is nothing you are not able to do:

¹⁸You have mercy on thousands, and send punishment for the evil-doing of the fathers on their children after them: the great, the strong God, the Lord of armies is his name:

¹⁹Great in wisdom and strong in act: whose eyes are open on all the ways of the sons of men, giving to everyone the reward of his ways and the fruit of his doings:

²⁰You have done signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, and even to this day, in Israel and among other men; and have made a name for yourself as at this day;

²¹And have taken your people Israel out of the land of Egypt with signs and with wonders and with a strong hand and an outstretched arm, causing great fear;

²²And have given them this land, which you gave your word to their fathers to give them, a land flowing with milk and honey;

²³And they came in and took it for their heritage, but they did not give ear to your voice, and were not ruled by your law; they have done nothing of all you gave them orders to do: so you have made all this evil come on them:

²⁴See, they have made earthworks against the town to take it; and the town is given into the hands of the Chaldaeans who are fighting against it, because of the sword and need of food and disease: and what you have said has taken place, and truly you see it.

²⁵And you have said to me, Give the money to get yourself a property, and have the business witnessed; though the town is given into the hands of the Chaldaeans.

²⁶And the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying,

²⁷See, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh: is there anything so hard that I am unable to do it?

²⁸So this is what the Lord has said: See, I am giving this town into the hands of the Chaldaeans and into the hands of Nebuchadrezzar, the king of Babylon, and he will take it:

²⁹And the Chaldaeans, who are fighting against this town, will come and put the town on fire, burning it together with the houses, on the roofs of which perfumes have been burned to the Baal, and drink offerings have been drained out to other gods, moving me to wrath.

³⁰For the children of Israel and the children of Judah have done nothing but evil in my eyes from their earliest years: the children of Israel have only made me angry with the work of their hands, says the Lord.

³¹For this town has been to me a cause of wrath and of burning passion from the day of its building till this day, so that I put it away from before my face:

³²Because of all the evil of the children of Israel and of the children of Judah, which they have done to make me angry, they and their kings, their princes, their priests, and their prophets, and the men of Judah and the people of Jerusalem.

³³And they have been turning their backs and not their faces to me: and though I was their teacher, getting up early and teaching them, their ears were not open to teaching.

³⁴But they put their disgusting images into the house which is named by my name, making it unclean.

³⁵And they put up the high places of the Baal in the valley of the son of Hinnom, making their sons and their daughters go through the fire to Molech; which I did not give them orders to do, and it never came into my mind that they would do this disgusting thing, causing Judah to be turned out of the way.

³⁶And now the Lord, the God of Israel, has said of this town, about which you say, It is given into the hands of the king of Babylon by the sword and by need of food and by disease:

³⁷See, I will get them together from all the countries where I have sent them in my wrath and in the heat of my passion and in my bitter feeling; and I will let them come back into this place where they may take their rest safely.

³⁸And they will be my people, and I will be their God:

³⁹And I will give them one heart and one way, so that they may go on in the worship of me for ever, for their good and the good of their children after them:

⁴⁰And I will make an eternal agreement with them, that I will never give them up, but ever do them good; and I will put the fear of me in their hearts, so that they will not go away from me.

⁴¹And truly, I will take pleasure in doing them good, and all my heart and soul will be given to planting them in this land in good faith.

⁴²For the Lord has said: As I have made all this great evil come on this people, so I will send on them all the good which I said about them.

⁴³And there will be trading in fields in this land of which you say, It is a waste, without man or beast; it is given into the hands of the Chaldaeans.

⁴⁴Men will get fields for money, and put the business in writing, stamping the papers and having them witnessed, in the land of Benjamin and in the country round Jerusalem and in the towns of Judah and in the towns of the hill-country and in the towns of the lowland and in the towns of the South: for I will let their fate be changed, says the Lord.

33Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the second time, while he was still shut up in the place of the armed watchmen, saying,

²These are the words of the Lord, who is doing it, the Lord who is forming it, to make it certain; the Lord is his name;

³Let your cry come to me, and I will give you an answer, and let you see great things and secret things of which you had no knowledge.

⁴For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, has said about the houses of this town and the houses of the kings of Judah, which have been broken down to make earthworks and ...;

⁵... and to make them full of the dead bodies of men whom I have put to death in my wrath and in my passion, and because of whose evil-doing I have kept my face covered from this town.

⁶See, I will make it healthy and well again, I will even make them well; I will let them see peace and good faith in full measure.

⁷And I will let the fate of Judah and of Israel be changed, building them up as at first.

⁸And I will make them clean from all their sin, with which they have been sinning against me; I will have forgiveness for all their sins, with which they have been sinning against me, and with which they have done evil against me.

⁹And this town will be to me for a name of joy, for a praise and a glory before all the nations of the earth, who, hearing of all the good which I am doing for them, will be shaking with fear because of all the good and the peace which I am doing for it.

¹⁰This is what the Lord has said: There will again be sounding in this place, of which you say, It is a waste, without man and without beast; even in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem which are waste and unpeopled, without man and without beast,

¹¹Happy sounds, the voice of joy, the voice of the newly-married man and the voice of the bride, the voices of those who say, Give praise to the Lord of armies, for the Lord is good, for his mercy is unchanging for ever: the voices of those who go with praise into the house of the Lord. For I will let the land come back to its first condition, says the Lord.

¹²This is what the Lord of armies has said: Again there will be in this place, which is a waste, without man and without beast, and in all its towns, a resting-place where the keepers of sheep will make their flocks take rest.

¹³In the towns of the hill-country, in the towns of the lowland, and in the towns of the South and in the land of Benjamin and in the country round Jerusalem and in the towns of Judah, the flocks will again go under the hand of him who is numbering them, says the Lord.

¹⁴See, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will give effect to the good word which I have said about the people of Israel and the people of Judah.

¹⁵In those days and at that time, I will let a Branch of righteousness come up for David; and he will be a judge in righteousness in the land.

¹⁶In those days, Judah will have salvation and Jerusalem will be safe: and this is the name which will be given to her: The Lord is our righteousness.

¹⁷For the Lord has said, David will never be without a man to take his place on the seat of the kingdom of Israel;

¹⁸And the priests and the Levites will never be without a man to come before me, offering burned offerings and perfumes and meal offerings and offerings of beasts at all times.

¹⁹And the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying,

²⁰The Lord has said: If it is possible for my agreement of the day and the night to be broken, so that day and night no longer come at their fixed times,

²¹Then my agreement with my servant David may be broken, so that he no longer has a son to take his place on the seat of the kingdom; and my agreement with the Levites, the priests, my servants.

²²As it is not possible for the army of heaven to be numbered, or the sand of the sea measured, so will I make the seed of my servant David, and the Levites my servants.

²³And the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying,

²⁴Have you taken note of what these people have said, The two families, which the Lord took for himself, he has given up? This they say, looking down on my people as being, in their eyes, no longer a nation.

²⁵The Lord has said, If I have not made day and night, and if the limits of heaven and earth have not been fixed by me,

²⁶Then I will give up caring for the seed of Jacob and of David my servant, so that I will not take of his seed to be rulers over the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: for I will let their fate be changed and will have mercy on them.

34The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, when Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, and all his army, and all the kingdoms of the earth which were under his rule, and all the peoples, were fighting against Jerusalem and all its towns, saying,

²The Lord, the God of Israel, has said, Go and say to Zedekiah, king of Judah, This is what the Lord has said: See, I will give this town into the hands of the king of Babylon, and he will have it burned with fire:

³And you will not get away from him, but will certainly be taken and given up into his hands; and you will see the king of Babylon, eye to eye, and he will have talk with you, mouth to mouth, and you will go to Babylon.

⁴But give ear to the word of the Lord, O Zedekiah, king of Judah; this is what the Lord has said about you: Death will not come to you by the sword:

⁵You will come to your end in peace; and such burnings as they made for your fathers, the earlier kings before you, will be made for you; and they will be weeping for you and saying, Ah lord! for I have said the word, says the Lord.

⁶Then Jeremiah the prophet said all these things to Zedekiah, king of Judah, in Jerusalem,

⁷When the army of the king of Babylon was fighting against Jerusalem and against all the towns of Judah which had not been taken, against Lachish and against Azekah; for these were the last of the walled towns of Judah.

⁸The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, after King Zedekiah had made an agreement with all the people in Jerusalem, to give news in public that servants were to be made free;

⁹That every man was to let his Hebrew man-servant and his Hebrew servant-girl go free; so that no one might make use of a Jew, his countryman, as a servant:

¹⁰And this was done by all the rulers and the people who had taken part in the agreement, and every one let his man-servant and his servant-girl go free, not to be used as servants any longer; they did so, and let them go.

¹¹But later, they took back again the servants and the servant-girls whom they had let go free, and put them again under the yoke as servants and servant-girls.

¹²For this reason the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying,

¹³The Lord, the God of Israel, has said, I made an agreement with your fathers on the day when I took them out of Egypt, out of the prison-house, saying,

¹⁴At the end of seven years every man is to let go his countryman who is a Hebrew, who has become yours for a price and has been your servant for six years; you are to let him go free: but your fathers gave no attention and did not give ear.

¹⁵And now, turning away from evil, you had done what is right in my eyes, giving a public undertaking for every man to make his neighbour free; and you had made an agreement before me in the house which is named by my name:

¹⁶But again you have put shame on my name, and you have taken back, every one his man-servant and his servant-girl, whom you had sent away free, and you have put them under the yoke again to be your servants and servant-girls.

¹⁷And so the Lord has said, You have not given ear to me and undertaken publicly, every man to let loose his countryman and his neighbour: see, I undertake to let loose against you the sword and disease and need of food; and I will send you wandering among all the kingdoms of the earth.

¹⁸And I will give the men who have gone against my agreement and have not given effect to the words of the agreement which they made before me, when the ox was cut in two and they went between the parts of it,

¹⁹The rulers of Judah and the rulers of Jerusalem, the unsexed servants and the priests and all the people of the land who went between the parts of the ox,

²⁰Even these I will give up into the hands of their haters and into the hands of those who have designs against their lives: and their dead bodies will become food for the birds of heaven and the beasts of the earth.

²¹And Zedekiah, king of Judah, and his rulers I will give into the hands of their haters and into the hands of those who have designs against their lives, and into the hands of the king of Babylon's army which has gone away from you.

²²See, I will give orders, says the Lord, and make them come back to this town; and they will make war on it and take it and have it burned with fire: and I will make the towns of Judah waste and unpeopled.

35The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, in the days of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, saying,

²Go into the house of the Rechabites, and have talk with them, and take them into the house of the Lord, into one of the rooms, and give them wine.

³Then I took Jaazaniah, the son of Jeremiah, the son of Habazziniah, and his brothers and all his sons and all the Rechabites;

⁴And I took them into the house of the Lord, into the room of the sons of Hanan, the son of Igdaliah, the man of God, which was near the rulers' room, which was over the room of Maaseiah, the son of Shallum, the keeper of the door;

⁵And I put before the sons of the Rechabites basins full of wine and cups, and I said to them, Take some wine.

⁶But they said, We will take no wine: for Jonadab, the son of Rechab our father, gave us orders, saying, You are to take no wine, you or your sons, for ever:

⁷And you are to make no houses, or put in seed, or get vine-gardens planted, or have any: but all your days you are to go on living in tents, so that you may have a long life in the land where you are living as in a strange country.

⁸And we have kept the rules of Jonadab, the son of Rechab our father, in everything which he gave us orders to do, drinking no wine all our days, we and our wives and our sons and our daughters;

⁹Building no houses for ourselves, having no vine-gardens or fields or seed:

¹⁰But we have been living in tents, and have done everything which Jonadab our father gave us orders to do.

¹¹But when Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, came up into the land, we said, Come, let us go to Jerusalem, away from the army of the Chaldaeans and from the army of the Aramaeans: and so we are living in Jerusalem.

¹²Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying,

¹³This is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said: Go and say to the men of Judah and the people of Jerusalem, Is there no hope of teaching you to give ear to my words? says the Lord.

¹⁴The orders which Jonadab, the son of Rechab, gave to his sons to take no wine, are done, and to this day they take no wine, for they do the orders of their father: but I have sent my words to you, getting up early and sending them, and you have not given ear to me.

¹⁵And I have sent you all my servants the prophets, getting up early and sending them, saying, Come back, now, every man from his evil way, and do better, and go not after other gods to become their servants, and you will go on living in the land which I have given to you and to your fathers: but your ears have not been open, and you have not given attention to me.

¹⁶Though the sons of Jonadab the son of Rechab have done the orders of their father which he gave them, this people has not given ear to me:

¹⁷For this reason the Lord, the God of armies, the God of Israel, has said, See, I will send on Judah and on all the people of Jerusalem all the evil which I said I would do to them: because I sent my words to them, but they did not give ear; crying out to them, but they gave no answer.

¹⁸But to the Rechabites Jeremiah said, This is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said: Because you have done the orders of Jonadab your father, and have kept his rules, and done everything as he gave you orders to do it;

¹⁹For this reason the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said, Jonadab, the son of Rechab, will never be without a man to take his place before me.

36Now it came about in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, that this word came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying,

²Take a book and put down in it all the words I have said to you against Israel and against Judah and against all the nations, from the day when my word came to you in the days of Josiah till this day.

³It may be that the people of Judah, hearing of all the evil which it is my purpose to do to them, will be turned, every man from his evil ways; so that they may have my forgiveness for their evil-doing and their sin.

⁴Then Jeremiah sent for Baruch, the son of Neriah; and Baruch took down from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the Lord which he had said to him, writing them in a book.

⁵And Jeremiah gave orders to Baruch, saying, I am shut up, and am not able to go into the house of the Lord:

⁶So you are to go, reading there from the book, which you have taken down from my mouth, the words of the Lord, in the hearing of the people in the Lord's house, on a day when they go without food, and in the hearing of all the men of Judah who have come out from their towns.

⁷It may be that their prayer for grace will go up to the Lord, and that every man will be turned from his evil ways: for great is the wrath and the passion made clear by the Lord against this people.

⁸And Baruch, the son of Neriah, did as Jeremiah the prophet gave him orders to do, reading from the book the words of the Lord in the Lord's house.

⁹Now it came about in the fifth year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, in the ninth month, that it was given out publicly that all the people in Jerusalem, and all the people who came from the towns of Judah to Jerusalem, were to keep from food before the Lord.

¹⁰Then Baruch gave a public reading of the words of Jeremiah from the book, in the house of the Lord, in the room of Gemariah, the son of Shaphan the scribe, in the higher square, as one goes in by the new doorway of the Lord's house, in the hearing of all the people.

¹¹And Micaiah, the son of Gemariah, the son of Shaphan, after hearing all the words of the Lord from the book,

¹²Went down to the king's house, to the scribe's room: and all the rulers were seated there, Elishama the scribe and Delaiah, the son of Shemaiah, and Elnathan, the son of Achbor, and Gemariah, the son of Shaphan, and Zedekiah, the son of Hananiah, and all the rulers.

¹³Then Micaiah gave them an account of all the words which had come to his ears when Baruch was reading the book to the people.

¹⁴So all the rulers sent Jehudi, the son of Nethaniah, the son of Shelemiah, the son of Cushi, to Baruch, saying, Take in your hand the book from which you have been reading to the people and come. So Baruch, the son of Neriah, took the book in his hand and came down to them.

¹⁵Then they said to him, Be seated now, and give us a reading from it. So Baruch did so, reading it to them.

¹⁶Now it came about that, after hearing all the words, they said to one another in fear, We will certainly give the king an account of all these words.

¹⁷And questioning Baruch, they said, Say now, how did you put all these words down in writing from his mouth?

¹⁸Then Baruch, answering, said, He said all these things to me by word of mouth, and I put them down with ink in the book.

¹⁹Then the rulers said to Baruch, Go and put yourself in a safe place, you and Jeremiah, and let no man have knowledge of where you are.

²⁰Then they went into the open square to the king; but the book they put away in the room of Elishama the scribe; and they gave the king an account of all the words.

²¹So the king sent Jehudi to get the book, and he took it from the room of Elishama the scribe. And Jehudi gave a reading of it in the hearing of the king and all the rulers who were by the king's side.

²²Now the king was seated in the winter house, and a fire was burning in the fireplace in front of him.

²³And it came about that whenever Jehudi, in his reading, had got through three or four divisions, the king, cutting them with his penknife, put them into the fire, till all the book was burned up in the fire which was burning in the fireplace.

²⁴But they had no fear and gave no signs of grief, not the king or any of his servants, after hearing all these words.

²⁵And Elnathan and Delaiah and Gemariah had made a strong request to the king not to let the book be burned, but he would not give ear to them.

²⁶And the king gave orders to Jerahmeel, the king's son, and Seraiah, the son of Azriel, and Shelemiah, the son of Abdeel, to take Baruch the scribe and Jeremiah the prophet: but the Lord kept them safe.

²⁷Then after the book, in which Baruch had put down the words of Jeremiah, had been burned by the king, the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying,

²⁸Take another book and put down in it all the words which were in the first book, which Jehoiakim, king of Judah, put into the fire.

²⁹And about Jehoiakim, king of Judah, you are to say, This is what the Lord has said: You have put this book into the fire, saying, Why have you put in it that the king of Babylon will certainly come, causing the destruction of this land and putting an end to every man and beast in it?

³⁰For this reason the Lord has said of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, He will have no son to take his place on the seat of David: his dead body will be put out to undergo the heat of the day and the cold of the night.

³¹And I will send punishment on him and on his seed and on his servants for their evil-doing; I will send on them and on the people of Jerusalem and the men of Judah, all the evil which I said against them, but they did not give ear.

³²Then Jeremiah took another book, and gave it to Baruch the scribe, the son of Neriah, who put down in it, from the mouth of Jeremiah, all the words of the book which had been burned in the fire by Jehoiakim, king of Judah: and in addition a number of other words of the same sort.

37And Zedekiah, the son of Josiah, became king in place of Coniah, the son of Jehoiakim, whom Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, made king in the land of Judah.

²But he and his servants and the people of the land did not give ear to the words of the Lord which he said by Jeremiah the prophet.

³And Zedekiah the king sent Jehucal, the son of Shelemiah, and Zephaniah, the son of Maaseiah the priest, to the prophet Jeremiah, saying, Make prayer now to the Lord our God for us.

⁴(Now Jeremiah was going about among the people, for they had not put him in prison.

⁵And Pharaoh's army had come out from Egypt: and the Chaldaeans, who were attacking Jerusalem, hearing news of them, went away from Jerusalem.)

⁶Then the word of the Lord came to the prophet Jeremiah, saying,

⁷The Lord, the God of Israel, has said: This is what you are to say to the king of Judah who sent you to get directions from me: See, Pharaoh's army, which has come out to your help, will go back to Egypt, to their land.

⁸And the Chaldaeans will come back again and make war against this town and they will take it and put it on fire.

⁹The Lord has said, Have no false hopes, saying to yourselves, The Chaldaeans will go away from us: for they will not go away.

¹⁰For even if you had overcome all the army of the Chaldaeans fighting against you, and there were only wounded men among them, still they would get up, every man in his tent, and put this town on fire.

¹¹And it came about that when the Chaldaean army outside Jerusalem had gone away for fear of Pharaoh's army,

¹²Jeremiah went out of Jerusalem to go into the land of Benjamin, with the purpose of taking up his heritage there among the people.

¹³But when he was at the Benjamin door, a captain of the watch named Irijah, the son of Shelemiah, the son of Hananiah, who was stationed there, put his hand on Jeremiah the prophet, saying, You are going to give yourself up to the Chaldaeans.

¹⁴Then Jeremiah said, That is not true; I am not going to the Chaldaeans. But he would not give ear to him: so Irijah made him prisoner and took him to the rulers.

¹⁵And the rulers were angry with Jeremiah, and gave him blows and put him in prison in the house of Jonathan the scribe: for they had made that the prison.

¹⁶So Jeremiah came into the hole of the prison, under the arches, and was there for a long time.

¹⁷Then King Zedekiah sent and got him out: and the king, questioning him secretly in his house, said, Is there any word from the Lord? And Jeremiah said, There is. Then he said, You will be given up into the hands of the king of Babylon.

¹⁸Then Jeremiah said to King Zedekiah, What has been my sin against you or against your servants or against this people, that you have put me in prison?

¹⁹Where now are your prophets who said to you, The king of Babylon will not come against you and against this land?

²⁰And now be pleased to give ear, O my lord the king; let my prayer for help come before you, and do not make me go back to the house of Jonathan the scribe, for fear that I may come to my death there.

²¹Then by the order of Zedekiah the king, Jeremiah was put into the place of the armed watchmen, and they gave him every day a cake of bread from the street of the bread-makers, till all the bread in the town was used up. So Jeremiah was kept in the place of the armed watchmen.

38Now it came to the ears of Shephatiah, the son of Mattan, and Gedaliah, the son of Pashhur, and Jucal, the son of Shelemiah, and Pashhur, the son of Malchiah, that Jeremiah had said to all the people,

²These are the words of the Lord: Whoever goes on living in this town will come to his death by the sword or through need of food or by disease: but whoever goes out to the Chaldaeans will keep his life out of the power of the attackers and be safe.

³The Lord has said, This town will certainly be given into the hands of the army of the king of Babylon, and he will take it.

⁴Then the rulers said to the king, Let this man be put to death, because he is putting fear into the hearts of the men of war who are still in the town, and into the hearts of the people, by saying such things to them: this man is not working for the well-being of the people, but for their damage.

⁵Then Zedekiah the king said, See, he is in your hands: for the king was not able to do anything against them.

⁶So they took Jeremiah and put him into the water-hole of Malchiah, the king's son, in the place of the armed watchmen: and they let Jeremiah down with cords. And in the hole there was no water, but wet earth: and Jeremiah went down into the wet earth.

⁷Now it came to the ears of Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, an unsexed servant in the king's house, that they had put Jeremiah into the water-hole; the king at that time being seated in the doorway of Benjamin:

⁸And Ebed-melech went out from the king's house and said to the king,

⁹My lord the king, these men have done evil in all they have done to Jeremiah the prophet, whom they have put into the water-hole; and he will come to his death in the place where he is through need of food: for there is no more bread in the town.

¹⁰Then the king gave orders to Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, saying, Take with you three men from here and get Jeremiah out of the water-hole before death overtakes him.

¹¹So Ebed-melech took the men with him and went into the house of the king, to the place where the clothing was kept, and got from there old clothing and bits of old cloth, and let them down by cords into the water-hole where Jeremiah was.

¹²And Ebed-melech the Ethiopian said to Jeremiah, Put these bits of old cloth under your arms under the cords. And Jeremiah did so.

¹³So pulling Jeremiah up with the cords they got him out of the water-hole: and Jeremiah was kept in the place of the armed watchmen.

¹⁴Then King Zedekiah sent for Jeremiah the prophet and took him into the rulers' doorway in the house of the Lord: and the king said to Jeremiah, I have a question to put to you; keep nothing back from me.

¹⁵Then Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, If I give you the answer to your question, will you not certainly put me to death? and if I make a suggestion to you, you will not give it a hearing.

¹⁶So King Zedekiah gave his oath to Jeremiah secretly, saying, By the living Lord, who gave us our life, I will not put you to death, or give you up to these men who are desiring to take your life.

¹⁷Then Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, These are the words of the Lord, the God of armies, the God of Israel: If you go out to the king of Babylon's captains, then you will have life, and the town will not be burned with fire, and you and your family will be kept from death:

¹⁸But if you do not go out to the king of Babylon's captains, then this town will be given into the hands of the Chaldaeans and they will put it on fire, and you will not get away from them.

¹⁹And King Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, I am troubled on account of the Jews who have gone over to the Chaldaeans, for fear that they may give me up to them and they will put me to shame.

²⁰But Jeremiah said, They will not give you up: be guided now by the word of the Lord as I have given it to you, and it will be well for you, and you will keep your life.

²¹But if you do not go out, this is what the Lord has made clear to me:

²²See, all the rest of the women in the house of the king of Judah will be taken out to the king of Babylon's captains, and these women will say, Your nearest friends have been false to you and have got the better of you: they have made your feet go deep into the wet earth, and they are turned away back from you.

²³And they will take all your wives and your children out to the Chaldaeans: and you will not get away out of their hands, but will be taken by the hands of the king of Babylon: and this town will be burned with fire.

²⁴Then Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, Let no man have knowledge of these words, and you will not be put to death.

²⁵But if it comes to the ears of the rulers that I have been talking with you, and they come and say to you, Give us word now of what you have said to the king and what the king said to you, keeping nothing back and we will not put you to death;

²⁶Then you are to say to them, I made my request to the king, that he would not send me back to my death in Jonathan's house.

²⁷Then all the rulers came to Jeremiah, questioning him: and he gave them an answer in the words the king had given him orders to say. So they said nothing more to him; for the thing was not made public.

²⁸So Jeremiah was kept in the place of the armed watchmen till the day when Jerusalem was taken.

39And it came about, that when Jerusalem was taken, (in the ninth year of Zedekiah, king of Judah, in the tenth month, Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, with all his army, came against Jerusalem, shutting it in on every side;

²In the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in the fourth month, on the ninth day of the month, the town was broken into:)

³All the captains of the king of Babylon came in and took their places in the middle doorway of the town, Nergal-shar-ezer, ruler of Sin-magir, the Rabmag, and Nebushazban, the Rab-saris, and all the captains of the king of Babylon.

⁴And when Zedekiah, king of Judah, and all the men of war saw it, they went in flight from the town by night, by the way of the king's garden, through the doorway between the two walls: and they went out by the Arabah.

⁵But the Chaldaean army went after them and overtook Zedekiah in the lowlands of Jericho: and they made him a prisoner and took him up to Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, to Riblah in the land of Hamath, to be judged by him.

⁶Then the king of Babylon put the sons of Zedekiah to death before his eyes in Riblah: and the king of Babylon put to death all the great men of Judah.

⁷And more than this, he put out Zedekiah's eyes, and had him put in chains to take him away to Babylon.

⁸And the Chaldaeans put the king's house on fire, as well as the houses of the people, and had the walls of Jerusalem broken down.

⁹Then Nebuzaradan, the captain of the armed men, took away to Babylon as prisoners, all the rest of the workmen who were still in the town, as well as those who had given themselves up to him, and all the rest of the people.

¹⁰But Nebuzaradan, the captain of the armed men, let the poorest of the people, who had nothing whatever, go on living in the land of Judah, and gave them vine-gardens and fields at the same time.

¹¹Now Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, gave orders about Jeremiah to Nebuzaradan, the captain of the armed men, saying,

¹²Take him and keep an eye on him and see that no evil comes to him; but do with him whatever he says to you.

¹³So Nebuzaradan, the captain of the armed men, sent Nebushazban, the Rab-saris, and Nergal-shar-ezer, the Rabmag, and all the chief captains of the king of Babylon,

¹⁴And they sent and took Jeremiah out of the place of the watchmen, and gave him into the care of Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, to take him to his house: so he was living among the people.

¹⁵Now the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah while he was shut up in the place of the armed watchmen, saying,

¹⁶Go and say to Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, This is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said: See, my words will come true for this town, for evil and not for good: they will come about before your eyes on that day.

¹⁷But I will keep you safe on that day, says the Lord: you will not be given into the hands of the men you are fearing.

¹⁸For I will certainly let you go free, and you will not be put to the sword, but your life will be given to you out of the hands of your attackers: because you have put your faith in me, says the Lord.

40The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, after Nebuzaradan, the captain of the armed men, had let him go from Ramah, when he had taken him; for he had been put in chains, among all the prisoners of Jerusalem and Judah who were taken away prisoners to Babylon.

²And the captain of the armed men took Jeremiah and said to him, The Lord your God gave word of the evil which was to come on this place:

³*** and the Lord has made it come, and has done as he said; because of your sin against the Lord in not giving ear to his voice; and that is why this thing has come on you.

⁴Now see, this day I am freeing you from the chains which are on your hands. If it seems good to you to come with me to Babylon, then come, and I will keep an eye on you; but if it does not seem good to you to come with me to Babylon, then do not come: see, all the land is before you; if it seems good and right to you to go on living in the land,

⁵Then go back to Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, whom the king of Babylon has made ruler over the towns of Judah, and make your living-place with him among the people; or go wherever it seems right to you to go. So the captain of the armed men gave him food and some money and let him go.

⁶So Jeremiah went to Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam, in Mizpah, and was living with him among the people who were still in the land.

⁷Now when it came to the ears of all the captains of the forces who were in the field, and their men, that the king of Babylon had made Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam, ruler in the land, and had put under his care the men and women and children, all the poorest of the land, those who had not been taken away to Babylon;

⁸Then they came to Gedaliah in Mizpah, even Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah, and Johanan, the son of Kareah, and Seraiah, the son of Tanhumeth, and the sons of Ephai the Netophathite, and Jezaniah, the son of the Maacathite, they and their men.

⁹And Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, took an oath to them and their men, saying, Have no fear of the servants of the Chaldaeans: go on living in the land, and become the servants of the king of Babylon, and all will be well.

¹⁰As for me, I will be living in Mizpah as your representative before the Chaldaeans who come to us: but you are to get in your wine and summer fruits and oil and put them in your vessels, and make living-places for yourselves in the towns which you have taken.

¹¹In the same way, when all the Jews who were in Moab and among the children of Ammon and in Edom and in all the countries, had news that the king of Babylon had let Judah keep some of its people and that he had put over them Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan;

¹²Then all the Jews came back from all the places to which they had gone in flight, and came to the land of Judah, to Gedaliah, to Mizpah, and got in a great store of wine and summer fruit.

¹³Now Johanan, the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces which were in the field, came to Gedaliah in Mizpah,

¹⁴And said to him, Has it come to your knowledge that Baalis, the king of the children of Ammon, has sent Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah, to take your life? But Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam, put no faith in what they said.

¹⁵Then Johanan, the son of Kareah, said to Gedaliah in Mizpah secretly, Let me now go and put Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah, to death without anyone's knowledge: why let him take your life so that all the Jews who have come together to you may be sent in flight, and the rest of the men of Judah come to an end?

¹⁶But Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam, said to Johanan, the son of Kareah, You are not to do this: for what you say about Ishmael is false.

41Now it came about in the seventh month that Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah, the son of Elishama, of the king's seed, having with him ten men, came to Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam, in Mizpah; and they had a meal together in Mizpah.

²Then Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah, and the ten men who were with him, got up, and attacking Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, with the sword, put to death him whom the king of Babylon had made ruler over the land.

³And Ishmael put to death all the Jews who were with him, even with Gedaliah, at Mizpah, and the Chaldaean men of war.

⁴Now on the second day after he had put Gedaliah to death, when no one had knowledge of it,

⁵Some people came from Shechem, from Shiloh and Samaria, eighty men, with the hair of their faces cut off and their clothing out of order, and with cuts on their bodies, and in their hands meal offerings and perfumes which they were taking to the house of the Lord.

⁶And Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah, went out from Mizpah with the purpose of meeting them, weeping on his way: and it came about that when he was face to face with them he said, Come to Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam.

⁷And when they came inside the town, Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah, and the men who were with him, put them to death and put their bodies into a deep hole.

⁸But there were ten men among them who said to Ishmael, Do not put us to death, for we have secret stores, in the country, of grain and oil and honey. So he did not put them to death with their countrymen.

⁹Now the hole into which Ishmael had put the dead bodies of the men whom he had put to death, was the great hole which Asa the king had made for fear of Baasha, king of Israel: and Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah, made it full of the bodies of those who had been put to death.

¹⁰Then Ishmael took away as prisoners all the rest of the people who were in Mizpah, the king's daughters and all the people still in Mizpah, whom Nebuzaradan, the captain of the armed men, had put under the care of Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam: Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah, took them away prisoners with the purpose of going over to the children of Ammon.

¹¹But when Johanan, the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the armed forces who were with him, had news of all the evil which Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah, had done,

¹²They took their men and went out to make war on Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah, and they came face to face with him by the great waters in Gibeon.

¹³Now when all the people who were with Ishmael saw Johanan, the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces with him, then they were glad.

¹⁴And all the people whom Ishmael had taken away prisoners from Mizpah, turning round, came back and went to Johanan, the son of Kareah.

¹⁵But Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah, got away from Johanan, with eight men, and went to the children of Ammon.

¹⁶Then Johanan, the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces who were with him, took all the rest of the people whom Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah, had made prisoners, after he had put to death Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam, the people from Mizpah, that is, the men of war and the women and the children and the unsexed servants, whom he had taken back with him from Gibeon:

¹⁷And they went and were living in the resting-place of Chimham, which is near Beth-lehem on the way into Egypt,

¹⁸Because of the Chaldaeans: for they were in fear of them because Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah, had put to death Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam, whom the king of Babylon had made ruler over the land.

42Then all the captains of the forces, and Johanan, the son of Kareah, and Jezaniah, the son of Hoshaiah, and all the people from the least to the greatest, came near,

²And said to Jeremiah the prophet, Let our request come before you, and make prayer for us to the Lord your God, even for this small band of us; for we are only a small band out of what was a great number, as your eyes may see:

³That the Lord your God may make clear to us the way in which we are to go and what we are to do.

⁴Then Jeremiah the prophet said to them, I have given ear to you; see, I will make prayer to the Lord your God, as you have said; and it will be that, whatever the Lord may say in answer to you, I will give you word of it, keeping nothing back.

⁵Then they said to Jeremiah, May the Lord be a true witness against us in good faith, if we do not do everything which the Lord your God sends you to say to us.

⁶If it is good or if it is evil, we will be guided by the voice of the Lord our God, to whom we are sending you; so that it may be well for us when we give ear to the voice of the Lord our God.

⁷And it came about that after ten days the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah.

⁸And he sent for Johanan, the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces who were still with him, and all the people, from the least to the greatest,

⁹And said to them, These are the words of the Lord, the God of Israel, to whom you sent me to put your request before him:

¹⁰If you still go on living in the land, then I will go on building you up and not pulling you down, planting you and not uprooting you: for my purpose of doing evil to you has been changed.

¹¹Have no fear of the king of Babylon, of whom you are now in fear; have no fear of him, says the Lord: for I am with you to keep you safe and to give you salvation from his hands.

¹²And I will have mercy on you, so that he may have mercy on you and let you go back to your land.

¹³But if you say, We have no desire to go on living in this land; and do not give ear to the voice of the Lord your God,

¹⁴Saying, No, but we will go into the land of Egypt, where we will not see war, or be hearing the sound of the horn, or be in need of food; there we will make our living-place;

¹⁵Then give ear now to the word of the Lord, O you last of Judah: the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said, If your minds are fixed on going into Egypt and stopping there;

¹⁶Then it will come about that the sword, which is the cause of your fear, will overtake you there in the land of Egypt, and need of food, which you are fearing, will go after you there in Egypt; and there death will come to you.

¹⁷Such will be the fate of all the men whose minds are fixed on going into Egypt and stopping there; they will come to their end by the sword, by being short of food, and by disease: not one of them will keep his life or get away from the evil which I will send on them.

¹⁸For this is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said: As my wrath and passion have been let loose on the people of Jerusalem, so will my passion be let loose on you when you go into Egypt: and you will become an oath and a cause of wonder and a curse and a name of shame; and you will never see this place again.

¹⁹The Lord has said about you, O last of Judah, Go not into Egypt: be certain that I have given witness to you this day.

²⁰For you have been acting with deceit in your hearts; for you sent me to the Lord your God, saying, Make prayer for us to the Lord our God, and give us word of everything he may say, and we will do it.

²¹And this day I have made it clear to you, and you have not given ear to the voice of the Lord your God in anything for which he has sent me to you.

²²And now be certain that you will come to your end by the sword and by being short of food and by disease, in the place to which you are pleased to go for a living-place.

43And it came about that when Jeremiah had come to the end of giving all the people the words of the Lord their God, which the Lord their God had sent him to say to them, even all these words,

²Then Azariah, the son of Hoshaiah, and Johanan, the son of Kareah, and all the men of pride, said to Jeremiah, You have said what is false: the Lord our God has not sent you to say, You are not to go into the land of Egypt and make your living-place there:

³But Baruch, the son of Neriah, is moving you against us, to give us up into the hands of the Chaldaeans so that they may put us to death, and take us away prisoners into Babylon.

⁴So Johanan, the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces, and all the people, did not give ear to the order of the Lord that they were to go on living in the land of Judah.

⁵But Johanan, the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces took all the rest of Judah who had come back into the land of Judah from all the nations where they had been forced to go;

⁶The men and the women and the children and the king's daughters, and every person whom Nebuzaradan, the captain of the armed men, had put under the care of Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, and Jeremiah the prophet and Baruch, the son of Neriah;

⁷And they came into the land of Egypt; for they did not give ear to the voice of the Lord: and they came to Tahpanhes.

⁸Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah in Tahpanhes, saying,

⁹Take in your hand some great stones, and put them in a safe place in the paste in the brickwork which is at the way into Pharaoh's house in Tahpanhes, before the eyes of the men of Judah;

¹⁰And say to them, This is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said: See, I will send and take Nebuchadrezzar, the king of Babylon, my servant, and he will put the seat of his kingdom on these stones which have been put in a safe place here by you; and his tent will be stretched over them.

¹¹And he will come and overcome the land of Egypt; those who are for death will be put to death, those who are to be prisoners will be made prisoners, and those who are for the sword will be given to the sword.

¹²And he will put a fire in the houses of the gods of Egypt; and they will be burned by him: and he will make Egypt clean as a keeper of sheep makes clean his clothing; and he will go out from there in peace.

¹³And the stone pillars of Beth-shemesh in the land of Egypt will be broken by him, and the houses of the gods of Egypt burned with fire.

44The word which came to Jeremiah about all the Jews who were living in the land of Egypt, in Migdol and at Tahpanhes and at Noph and in the country of Pathros, saying,

²The Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said: You have seen all the evil which I have sent on Jerusalem and on all the towns of Judah; and now, this day they are waste and unpeopled;

³Because of the evil which they have done, moving me to wrath by burning perfumes in worship to other gods, who were not their gods or yours or the gods of their fathers.

⁴And I sent all my servants the prophets to you, getting up early and sending them, saying, Do not do this disgusting thing which is hated by me.

⁵But they gave no attention, and their ears were not open so that they might be turned from their evil-doing and from burning perfume to other gods.

⁶Because of this, my passion and my wrath were let loose, burning in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem; and they are waste and unpeopled as at this day.

⁷So now, the Lord, the God of armies, the God of Israel, has said, Why are you doing this great evil against yourselves, causing every man and woman, little child and baby at the breast among you in Judah to be cut off till not one is still living;

⁸Moving me to wrath with the work of your hands, burning perfumes to other gods in the land of Egypt, where you have gone to make a place for yourselves, so that you may become a curse and a name of shame among all the nations of the earth?

⁹Have you no memory of the evil-doing of your fathers, and the evil-doing of the kings of Judah, and the evil-doing of their wives, and the evil which you yourselves have done, and the evil which your wives have done, in the land of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?

¹⁰Even to this day their hearts are not broken, and they have no fear, and have not gone in the way of my law or of my rules which I gave to you and to your fathers.

¹¹So this is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said: See, my face will be turned against you for evil, for the cutting off of all Judah;

¹²And I will take the last of Judah, whose minds are fixed on going into the land of Egypt and stopping there, and they will all come to their end, falling in the land of Egypt by the sword and by being short of food and by disease; death will overtake them, from the least to the greatest, death by the sword and by need of food: they will become an oath and a cause of wonder and a curse and a name of shame.

¹³For I will send punishment on those who are living in the land of Egypt, as I have sent punishment on Jerusalem, by the sword and by need of food and by disease:

¹⁴So that not one of the rest of Judah, who have gone into the land of Egypt and are living there, will get away or keep his life, to come back to the land of Judah where they are hoping to come back and be living again: for not one will come back, but only those who are able to get away.

¹⁵Then all the men who had knowledge that their wives were burning perfumes to other gods, and all the women who were present, a great meeting, answering Jeremiah, said,

¹⁶As for the word which you have said to us in the name of the Lord, we will not give ear to you.

¹⁷But we will certainly do every word which has gone out of our mouths, burning perfumes to the queen of heaven and draining out drink offerings to her as we did, we and our fathers and our kings and our rulers, in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem: for then we had food enough and did well and saw no evil.

¹⁸But from the time when we gave up burning perfumes to the queen of heaven and draining out drink offerings to her, we have been in need of all things, and have been wasted by the sword and by need of food.

¹⁹And the women said, When we were burning perfumes to the queen of heaven and draining out drink offerings to her, did we make cakes in her image and give her our drink offerings without the knowledge of our husbands?

²⁰Then Jeremiah said to all the people, to the men and women and all the people who had given him that answer,

²¹The perfumes which you have been burning in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, you and your fathers and your kings and your rulers and the people of the land, had the Lord no memory of them, and did he not keep them in mind?

²²And the Lord was no longer able to put up with the evil of your doings and the disgusting things you did; and because of this your land has become a waste and a cause of wonder and a curse, with no one living in it, as at this day.

²³Because you have been burning perfumes, and sinning against the Lord, and have not given ear to the voice of the Lord, or gone in the way of his law or his rules or his orders; for this reason this evil has come on you, as it is today.

²⁴Further, Jeremiah said to all the people and all the women, Give ear to the word of the Lord, all those of Judah who are living in Egypt:

²⁵This is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said: You women have said with your mouths, and with your hands you have done what you said, We will certainly give effect to the oaths we have made, to have perfumes burned to the queen of heaven and drink offerings drained out to her: then give effect to your oaths and do them.

²⁶And now give ear to the word of the Lord, all you of Judah who are living in the land of Egypt: Truly, I have taken an oath by my great name, says the Lord, that my name is no longer to be named in the mouth of any man of Judah in all the land of Egypt, saying, By the life of the Lord God.

²⁷See, I am watching over them for evil and not for good: all the men of Judah who are in the land of Egypt will be wasted by the sword and by need of food till there is an end of them.

²⁸And those who get away safe from the sword will come back from the land of Egypt to the land of Judah, a very small number; and all the rest of Judah, who have gone into the land of Egypt and are living there, will see whose word has effect, mine or theirs.

²⁹And this will be the sign to you, says the Lord, that I will give you punishment in this place, so that you may see that my words will certainly have effect against you for evil:

³⁰The Lord has said, See, I will give up Pharaoh Hophra, king of Egypt, into the hands of those who are fighting against him and desiring to take his life, as I gave Zedekiah, king of Judah, into the hands of Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, his hater, who had designs against his life.

45The words which Jeremiah the prophet said to Baruch, the son of Neriah, when he put these words down in a book from the mouth of Jeremiah, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah; he said,

²This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, has said of you, O Baruch:

³You said, Sorrow is mine! for the Lord has given me sorrow in addition to my pain; I am tired with the sound of my sorrow, and I get no rest.

⁴This is what you are to say to him: The Lord has said, Truly, the building which I put up will be broken down, and that which was planted by me will be uprooted, and this through all the land;

⁵And as for you, are you looking for great things for yourself? Have no desire for them: for truly I will send evil on all flesh, says the Lord: but your life I will keep safe from attack wherever you go.

46The word of the Lord which came to Jeremiah the prophet about the nations.

²Of Egypt: about the army of Pharaoh-neco, king of Egypt, which was by the river Euphrates in Carchemish, which Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, overcame in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah.

³Get out the breastplate and body-cover, and come together to the fight.

⁴Make the horses ready, and get up, you horsemen, and take your places with your head-dresses; make the spears sharp and put on the breastplates.

⁵What have I seen? they are overcome with fear and turned back; their men of war are broken and have gone in flight, not looking back: fear is on every side, says the Lord.

⁶Let not the quick-footed go in flight, or the man of war get away; on the north, by the river Euphrates, they are slipping and falling.

⁷Who is this coming up like the Nile, whose waters are lifting their heads like the rivers?

⁸Egypt is coming up like the Nile, and his waters are lifting their heads like the rivers, and he says, I will go up, covering the earth; I will send destruction on the town and its people.

⁹Go up, you horses; go rushing on, you carriages of war; go out, you men of war: Cush and Put, gripping the body-cover, and the Ludim, with bent bows.

¹⁰But that day is the day of the Lord, the Lord of armies, a day of punishment when he will take payment from his haters: and the sword will have all its desire, drinking their blood in full measure: for there is an offering to the Lord, the Lord of armies, in the north country by the river Euphrates.

¹¹Go up to Gilead and take sweet oil, O virgin daughter of Egypt: there is no help in all your medical arts; nothing will make you well.

¹²Your shame has come to the ears of the nations, and the earth is full of your cry: for the strong man is falling against the strong, they have come down together.

¹³The word which the Lord said to Jeremiah the prophet, of how Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, would come and make war on the land of Egypt.

¹⁴Give the news in Migdol, make it public in Noph: say, Take up your positions and make yourselves ready; for on every side of you the sword has made destruction.

¹⁵Why has Apis, your strong one, gone in flight? he was not able to keep his place, because the Lord was forcing him down with strength.

¹⁶... are stopped in their going, they are falling; and they say one to another, Let us get up and go back to our people, to the land of our birth, away from the cruel sword.

¹⁷Give a name to Pharaoh, king of Egypt: A noise who has let the time go by.

¹⁸By my life, says the King, whose name is the Lord of armies, truly, like Tabor among the mountains and like Carmel by the sea, so will he come.

¹⁹O daughter living in Egypt, make ready the vessels of a prisoner: for Noph will become a waste, it will be burned up and become unpeopled.

²⁰Egypt is a fair young cow; but a biting insect has come on her out of the north.

²¹And those who were her fighters for payment are like fat oxen; for they are turned back, they have gone in flight together, they do not keep their place: for the day of their fate has come on them, the time of their punishment.

²²She makes a sound like the hiss of a snake when they come on with strength; they go against her with axes, like wood-cutters.

²³They will be cutting down her woods, for they may not be searched out; because they are like locusts, more than may be numbered.

²⁴The daughter of Egypt will be put to shame; she will be given up into the hands of the people of the north.

²⁵The Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said: See, I will send punishment on Amon of No and on Pharaoh and on those who put their faith in him;

²⁶And I will give them up into the hands of those who will take their lives, and into the hands of Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, and into the hands of his servants: and later, it will be peopled as in the past, says the Lord.

²⁷But have no fear, O Jacob, my servant, and do not be troubled, O Israel: for see, I will make you come back from far away, and your seed from the land where they are prisoners; and Jacob will come back, and will be quiet and in peace, and no one will give him cause for fear.

²⁸Have no fear, O Jacob, my servant, says the Lord; for I am with you: for I will put an end to all the nations where I have sent you, but I will not put an end to you completely: though with wise purpose I will put right your errors, and will not let you go quite without punishment.

47The word of the Lord which came to Jeremiah the prophet about the Philistines, before Pharaoh's attack on Gaza.

²This is what the Lord has said: See, waters are coming up out of the north, and will become an overflowing stream, overflowing the land and everything in it, the town and those who are living in it; and men will give a cry, and all the people of the land will be crying out in pain.

³At the noise of the stamping of the feet of his war-horses, at the rushing of his carriages and the thunder of his wheels, fathers will give no thought to their children, because their hands are feeble;

⁴Because of the day which is coming with destruction on all the Philistines, cutting off from Tyre and Zidon the last of their helpers: for the Lord will send destruction on the Philistines, the rest of the sea-land of Caphtor.

⁵The hair is cut off from the head of Gaza; Ashkelon has come to nothing; the last of the Anakim are deeply wounding themselves.

⁶O sword of the Lord, how long will you have no rest? put yourself back into your cover; be at peace, be quiet.

⁷How is it possible for it to be quiet, seeing that the Lord has given it orders? against Ashkelon and against the sea-land he has given it directions.

48Of Moab. The Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said: Sorrow on Nebo, for it has been made waste; Kiriathaim has been put to shame and is taken: the strong place is put to shame and broken down.

²The praise of Moab has come to an end; as for Heshbon, evil has been designed against her; come, let us put an end to her as a nation. But your mouth will be shut, O Madmen; the sword will go after you.

³There is the sound of crying from Horonaim, wasting and great destruction;

⁴Moab is broken; her cry has gone out to Zoar.

⁵For by the slope of Luhith they will go up, weeping all the way; for on the way down to Horonaim the cry of destruction has come to their ears.

⁶Go in flight, get away with your lives, and let your faces be turned to Aroer in the Arabah.

⁷For because you have put your faith in your strong places, you, even you, will be taken: and Chemosh will go out as a prisoner, his priests and his rulers together.

⁸And the attacker will come against every town, not one will be safe; and the valley will be made waste, and destruction will come to the lowland, as the Lord has said.

⁹Put up a pillar for Moab, for she will come to a complete end: and her towns will become a waste, without anyone living in them.

¹⁰Let him be cursed who does the Lord's work half-heartedly; let him be cursed who keeps back his sword from blood.

¹¹From his earliest days, Moab has been living in comfort; like wine long stored he has not been drained from vessel to vessel, he has never gone away as a prisoner: so his taste is still in him, his smell is unchanged.

¹²So truly, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will send to him men who will have him turned over till there is no more wine in his vessels, and his wine-skins will be completely broken.

¹³And Moab will be shamed on account of Chemosh, as the children of Israel were shamed on account of Beth-el their hope.

¹⁴How say you, We are men of war and strong fighters?

¹⁵He who makes Moab waste has gone up against her; and the best of her young men have gone down to their death, says the King, whose name is the Lord of armies.

¹⁶The fate of Moab is near, and trouble is coming on him very quickly.

¹⁷All you who are round about him, give signs of grief for him, and all you who have knowledge of his name, say, How is the strong rod broken, even the beautiful branch!

¹⁸Come down from your glory, O people of Dibon, and take your seat in the place of the waste; for the attacker of Moab has gone up against you, sending destruction on your strong places.

¹⁹O daughter of Aroer, take your station by the way, on the watch: questioning him who is in flight, and her who has got away safe, say, What has been done?

²⁰Moab has been put to shame, she is broken: make loud sounds of grief, crying out for help; give the news in Arnon, that Moab has been made waste.

²¹And punishment has come on the lowlands; on Holon and Jahzah, and on Mephaath,

²²And on Dibon, and on Nebo, and on Beth-diblathaim,

²³And on Kiriathaim, and on Beth-gamul, and on Beth-meon,

²⁴And on Kerioth, and on Bozrah, and on all the towns of the land of Moab, far and near.

²⁵The horn of Moab is cut off, and his arm is broken, says the Lord.

²⁶Make him full of wine, for his heart has been lifted up against the Lord: and Moab will be rolling in the food he was not able to keep down, and everyone will be making sport of him.

²⁷For did you not make sport of Israel? was he taken among thieves? for whenever you were talking about him, you were shaking your head over him.

²⁸O people of Moab, go away from the towns and take cover in the rock; be like the dove of the Arabah, which makes her living-place in holes.

²⁹We have had word of the pride of Moab, how great it is; how he is lifted up in pride; and his great opinion of himself, and that his heart is lifted up.

³⁰I have knowledge of his wrath, says the Lord, that it is nothing; his high-sounding words have done nothing.

³¹For this cause I will give cries of grief for Moab, crying out for Moab, even for all of it; I will be sorrowing for the men of Kir-heres.

³²My weeping for you, O vine of Sibmah, will be more than the weeping of Jazer: your branches have gone over the sea, stretching even to Jazer: destruction has come down on your summer fruits and your cut grapes.

³³All joy is gone; no longer are they glad for the fertile field and for the land of Moab; I have made the wine come to an end from the crushing vessels: no longer will the grapes be crushed with the sound of glad voices.

³⁴The cry of Heshbon comes even to Elealeh; to Jahaz their voice is sounding; from Zoar even to Horonaim and to Eglath-shelishiyah: for the waters of Nimrim will become dry.

³⁵And I will put an end in Moab, says the Lord, to him who is making offerings in the high place and burning perfumes to his gods.

³⁶So my heart is sounding for Moab like the sound of pipes, and my heart is sounding like pipes for the men of Kir-heres: for the wealth he has got for himself has come to an end.

³⁷For everywhere the hair of the head and the hair of the face is cut off: on every hand there are wounds, and haircloth on every body.

³⁸On all the house-tops of Moab and in its streets there is weeping everywhere; for Moab has been broken like a vessel in which there is no pleasure, says the Lord.

³⁹How is it broken down! how is Moab's back turned in shame! so Moab will be a cause of sport and of fear to everyone round about him.

⁴⁰For the Lord has said, See, he will come like an eagle in flight, stretching out his wings against Moab.

⁴¹Kerioth is taken, and the strong places have been forced, and the hearts of Moab's men of war in that day will be like the heart of a woman in birth-pains.

⁴²And Moab will come to an end as a people, because he has been lifting himself up against the Lord.

⁴³Fear and death and the net have come on you, O people of Moab, says the Lord.

⁴⁴He who goes in flight from the fear will be overtaken by death; and he who gets free from death will be taken in the net: for I will make this come on Moab, even the year of their punishment, says the Lord.

⁴⁵Those who went in flight from the fear are waiting under the shade of Heshbon: for a fire has gone out from Heshbon and a flame from the house of Sihon, burning up the pride of Moab and the crown of the head of the violent ones.

⁴⁶Sorrow is yours, O Moab! the people of Chemosh are overcome: for your sons have been taken away as prisoners, and your daughters made servants.

⁴⁷But still, I will let the fate of Moab be changed in the last days, says the Lord.

49About the children of Ammon. These are the words of the Lord: Has Israel no sons? has he no one to take the heritage? why then has Milcom taken Gad for himself, putting his people in its towns?

²Because of this, see, the days are coming when I will have a cry of war sounded against Rabbah, the town of the children of Ammon; it will become a waste of broken walls, and her daughter-towns will be burned with fire: then Israel will take the heritage of those who took his heritage, says the Lord.

³Make sounds of grief, O Heshbon, for Ai is wasted; give loud cries, O daughters of Rabbah, and put haircloth round you: give yourselves to weeping, running here and there and wounding yourselves; for Milcom will be taken prisoner together with his rulers and his priests.

⁴Why are you lifted up in pride on account of your valleys, your flowing valley, O daughter ever turning away? who puts her faith in her wealth, saying, Who will come against me?

⁵See, I will send fear on you, says the Lord, the Lord of armies, from those who are round you on every side; you will be forced out, every man straight before him, and there will be no one to get together the wanderers.

⁶But after these things, I will let the fate of the children of Ammon be changed, says the Lord.

⁷About Edom. This is what the Lord of armies has said. Is there no more wisdom in Teman? have wise suggestions come to an end among men of good sense? has their wisdom completely gone?

⁸Go in flight, go back, take cover in deep places, you who are living in Dedan; for I will send the fate of Edom on him, even the time of his punishment.

⁹If men came to get your grapes, would they not let some be uncut on the vines? if thieves came by night, would they not make waste till they had enough?

¹⁰I have had Esau searched out, uncovering his secret places, so that he may not keep himself covered: his seed is wasted and has come to an end, and there is no help from his neighbours.

¹¹Put in my care your children who have no father, and I will keep them safe; and let your widows put their faith in me.

¹²For the Lord has said, Those for whom the cup was not made ready will certainly be forced to take of it; and are you to go without punishment? you will not be without punishment, but will certainly be forced to take from the cup.

¹³For I have taken an oath by myself, says the Lord, that Bozrah will become a cause of wonder, a name of shame, a waste and a curse; and all its towns will be waste places for ever.

¹⁴Word has come to me from the Lord, and a representative has been sent to the nations, to say, Come together and go up against her, and take your places for the fight.

¹⁵For see, I have made you small among the nations, looked down on by men.

¹⁶... the pride of your heart has been a false hope, O you who are living in the cracks of the rock, keeping your place on the top of the hill: even if you made your living-place as high as the eagle, I would make you come down, says the Lord.

¹⁷And Edom will become a cause of wonder: everyone who goes by will be overcome with wonder, and make sounds of fear at all her punishments.

¹⁸As at the downfall of Sodom and Gomorrah and their neighbouring towns, says the Lord, no man will be living in it, no son of man will have a resting-place there.

¹⁹See, he will come up like a lion from the thick growth of Jordan against the resting-place of Teman: but I will suddenly make him go in flight from her; and I will put over her the man of my selection: for who is like me? and who will put forward his cause against me? and what keeper of sheep will be able to keep his place before me?

²⁰For this cause give ear to the decision of the Lord which he has made against Edom, and to his purposes designed against the people of Teman: Truly, they will be pulled away by the smallest of the flock; truly, he will make waste their fields with them.

²¹The earth is shaking with the noise of their fall; their cry is sounding in the Red Sea.

²²See, he will come up like an eagle in flight, stretching out his wings against Bozrah: and the hearts of Edom's men of war on that day will be like the heart of a woman in birth-pains.

²³About Damascus. Hamath is put to shame, and Arpad; for the word of evil has come to their ears, their heart in its fear is turned to water, it will not be quiet.

²⁴Damascus has become feeble, she is turned to flight, fear has taken her in its grip: pain and sorrows have come on her, as on a woman in birth-pains.

²⁵How has the town of praise been wasted, the place of joy!

²⁶So her young men will be falling in her streets, and all the men of war will be cut off in that day, says the Lord of armies.

²⁷And I will have a fire lighted on the wall of Damascus, burning up the great houses of Ben-hadad.

²⁸About Kedar and the kingdoms of Hazor, which Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, overcame. This is what the Lord has said: Up! go against Kedar, and make an attack on the children of the east.

²⁹Their tents and their flocks they will take; they will take away for themselves their curtains and all their vessels and their camels: they will give a cry to them, Fear on every side.

³⁰Go in flight, go wandering far off, take cover in deep places, O people of Hazor, says the Lord; for Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, has made a design against you, he has a purpose against you in mind.

³¹Up! go against a nation which is living in comfort and without fear of danger, says the Lord, without doors or locks, living by themselves.

³²And their camels will be taken from them by force, and their great herds will come into the hands of their attackers: those who have the ends of their hair cut I will send in flight to all the winds; and I will send their fate on them from every side, says the Lord.

³³And Hazor will be a hole for jackals, a waste for ever: no one will be living in it, and no son of man will have a resting-place there.

³⁴The word of the Lord which came to Jeremiah the prophet about Elam, when Zedekiah first became king of Judah, saying,

³⁵This is what the Lord of armies has said: See, I will have the bow of Elam, their chief strength, broken.

³⁶And I will send on Elam four winds from the four quarters of heaven, driving them out to all those winds; there will be no nation into which the wanderers from Elam do not come.

³⁷And I will let Elam be broken before their haters, and before those who are making designs against their lives: I will send evil on them, even my burning wrath, says the Lord; and I will send the sword after them till I have put an end to them:

³⁸I will put the seat of my power in Elam, and in Elam I will put an end to kings and rulers, says the Lord.

³⁹But it will come about that, in the last days, I will let the fate of Elam be changed, says the Lord.

50The word which the Lord said about Babylon, about the land of the Chaldaeans, by Jeremiah the prophet.

²Give it out among the nations, make it public, and let the flag be lifted up; give the word and keep nothing back; say, Babylon is taken, Bel is put to shame, Merodach is broken, her images are put to shame, her gods are broken.

³For out of the north a nation is coming up against her, which will make her land waste and unpeopled: they are in flight, man and beast are gone.

⁴In those days and in that time, says the Lord, the children of Israel will come, they and the children of Judah together; they will go on their way weeping and making prayer to the Lord their God.

⁵They will be questioning about the way to Zion, with their faces turned in its direction, saying, Come, and be united to the Lord in an eternal agreement which will be kept in mind for ever.

⁶My people have been wandering sheep: their keepers have made them go out of the right way, turning them loose on the mountains: they have gone from mountain to hill, having no memory of their resting-place.

⁷They have been attacked by all those who came across them: and their attackers said, We are doing no wrong, because they have done evil against the Lord in whom is righteousness, against the Lord, the hope of their fathers.

⁸Go in flight out of Babylon, go out of the land of the Chaldaeans, and be like he-goats before the flocks.

⁹For see, I am moving and sending up against Babylon a band of great nations from the north country: and they will put their armies in position against her; and from there she will be taken: their arrows will be like those of an expert man of war; not one will come back without getting its mark.

¹⁰And the wealth of Chaldaea will come into the hands of her attackers: all those who take her wealth will have enough, says the Lord.

¹¹Because you are glad, because you are lifted up with pride, you wasters of my heritage, because you are playing like a young cow put out to grass, and you make a noise like strong horses;

¹²Your mother will be put to shame; she who gave you birth will be looked down on: see, she will be the last of the nations, a waste place, a dry and unwatered land.

¹³Because of the wrath of the Lord no one will be living in it, and it will be quite unpeopled: everyone who goes by Babylon will be overcome with wonder, and make sounds of fear at all her punishments.

¹⁴Put your armies in position against Babylon on every side, all you bowmen; let loose your arrows at her, not keeping any back: for she has done evil against the Lord.

¹⁵Give a loud cry against her on every side; she has given herself up, her supports are overturned, her walls are broken down: for it is the payment taken by the Lord; give her payment; as she has done, so do to her.

¹⁶Let the planter of seed be cut off from Babylon, and everyone using the curved blade at the time of the grain-cutting: for fear of the cruel sword, everyone will be turned to his people, everyone will go in flight to his land.

¹⁷Israel is a wandering sheep; the lions have been driving him away: first he was attacked by the king of Assyria, and now his bones have been broken by Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon.

¹⁸So this is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said: See, I will send punishment on the king of Babylon and on his land, as I have given punishment to the king of Assyria.

¹⁹And I will make Israel come back to his resting-place, and he will get his food on Carmel and Bashan, and have his desire in full measure on the hills of Ephraim and in Gilead.

²⁰In those days and in that time, says the Lord, when the evil-doing of Israel is looked for, there will be nothing; and in Judah no sins will be seen: for I will have forgiveness for those whom I will keep safe.

²¹Go up against the land of Merathaim, even against it, and against the people of Pekod; put them to death and send destruction after them, says the Lord, and do everything I have given you orders to do.

²²There is a sound of war in the land and of great destruction.

²³How is the hammer of all the earth cut in two and broken! how has Babylon become a waste among the nations!

²⁴I have put a net for you, and you have been taken, O Babylon, without your knowledge: you have been uncovered and taken because you were fighting against the Lord.

²⁵From his store-house the Lord has taken the instruments of his wrath: for the Lord, the Lord of armies, has a work to do in the land of the Chaldaeans.

²⁶Come up against her one and all, let her store-houses be broken open: make her into a mass of stones, give her to the curse, till there is nothing of her to be seen.

²⁷Put all her oxen to the sword; let them go down to death: sorrow is theirs, for their day has come, the time of their punishment.

²⁸The voice of those who are in flight, who have got away safe from the land of Babylon, to give news in Zion of punishment from the Lord our God, even payment for his Temple.

²⁹Send for the archers to come together against Babylon, all the bowmen; put up your tents against her on every side; let no one get away: give her the reward of her work; as she has done, so do to her: for she has been uplifted in pride against the Lord, against the Holy One of Israel.

³⁰For this cause her young men will be falling in her streets, and all her men of war will be cut off in that day, says the Lord.

³¹See, I am against you, O pride, says the Lord, the Lord of armies, for your day has come, the time when I will send punishment on you.

³²And pride will go with uncertain steps and have a fall, and there will be no one to come to his help: and I will put a fire in his towns, burning up everything round about him.

³³This is what the Lord of armies has said: The children of Israel and the children of Judah are crushed down together: all those who took them prisoner keep them in a tight grip; they will not let them go.

³⁴Their saviour is strong; the Lord of armies is his name: he will certainly take up their cause, so that he may give rest to the earth and trouble to the people of Babylon.

³⁵A sword is on the Chaldaeans, says the Lord, and on the people of Babylon, and on her rulers and on her wise men.

³⁶A sword is on the men of pride, and they will become foolish: a sword is on her men of war, and they will be broken.

³⁷A sword is on all the mixed people in her, and they will become like women: a sword is on her store-houses, and they will be taken by her attackers.

³⁸A sword is on her waters, drying them up; for it is a land of images, and their minds are fixed on false gods.

³⁹For this reason the beasts of the waste land with the wolves will make their holes there and the ostriches will be living in it: never again will men be living there, it will be unpeopled from generation to generation.

⁴⁰As when Sodom and Gomorrah and their neighbouring towns were overturned by God, says the Lord, so no man will be living in it, and no son of man will have a resting-place there.

⁴¹See, a people is coming from the north; a great nation and a number of kings will be put in motion from the inmost parts of the earth.

⁴²Bows and spears are in their hands; they are cruel and have no mercy; their voice is like the thunder of the sea, and they go on horses; everyone in his place like men going to the fight, against you, O daughter of Babylon.

⁴³The king of Babylon has had news of them, and his hands have become feeble: trouble has come on him and pain like the pain of a woman in childbirth.

⁴⁴See, he will come up like a lion from the thick growth of Jordan against the resting-place of Teman: but I will suddenly make them go in flight from her; and I will put over her the man of my selection: for who is like me? and who will put forward his cause against me? and what keeper of sheep will keep his place before me?

⁴⁵So give ear to the decision of the Lord which he has made against Babylon, and to his purposes designed against the land of the Chaldaeans; Truly, they will be pulled away by the smallest of the flock; truly, he will make waste their fields with them.

⁴⁶At the cry, Babylon is taken! the earth is shaking, and the cry comes to the ears of the nations.

51The Lord has said: See, I will make a wind of destruction come up against Babylon and against those who are living in Chaldaea;

²And I will send men to Babylon to make her clean and get her land cleared: for in the day of trouble they will put up their tents against her on every side.

³Against her the bow of the archer is bent, and he puts on his coat of metal: have no mercy on her young men, give all her army up to the curse.

⁴And the dead will be stretched out in the land of the Chaldaeans, and the wounded in her streets.

⁵For Israel has not been given up, or Judah, by his God, by the Lord of armies; for their land is full of sin against the Holy One of Israel.

⁶Go in flight out of Babylon, so that every man may keep his life; do not be cut off in her evil-doing: for it is the time of the Lord's punishment; he will give her her reward.

⁷Babylon has been a gold cup in the hand of the Lord, which has made all the earth overcome with wine: the nations have taken of her wine, and for this cause the nations have gone off their heads.

⁸Sudden is the downfall of Babylon and her destruction: make cries of grief for her; take sweet oil for her pain, if it is possible for her to be made well.

⁹We would have made Babylon well, but she is not made well: give her up, and let us go everyone to his country: for her punishment is stretching up to heaven, and lifted up even to the skies.

¹⁰The Lord has made clear our righteousness: come, and let us give an account in Zion of the work of the Lord our God.

¹¹Make bright the arrows; take up the body-covers: the Lord has been moving the spirit of the king of the Medes; because his design against Babylon is its destruction: for it is the punishment from the Lord, the payment for his Temple.

¹²Let the flag be lifted up against the walls of Babylon, make the watch strong, put the watchmen in their places, make ready a surprise attack: for it is the Lord's purpose, and he has done what he said about the people of Babylon.

¹³O you whose living-place is by the wide waters, whose stores are great, your end is come, your evil profit is ended.

¹⁴The Lord of armies has taken an oath by himself, saying, Truly, I will make you full with men as with locusts, and their voices will be loud against you.

¹⁵He has made the earth by his power, he has made the world strong in its place by his wisdom, and by his wise design the heavens have been stretched out:

¹⁶At the sound of his voice there is a massing of the waters in the heavens, and he makes the mists go up from the ends of the earth; he makes the thunder-flames for the rain and sends out the wind from his store-houses.

¹⁷Then every man becomes like a beast without knowledge; every gold-worker is put to shame by the image he has made: for his metal image is deceit, and there is no breath in them.

¹⁸They are nothing, a work of error: in the time of their punishment, destruction will overtake them.

¹⁹The heritage of Jacob is not like these; for the maker of all things is his heritage: the Lord of armies is his name.

²⁰You are my fighting axe and my instrument of war: with you the nations will be broken; with you kingdoms will be broken;

²¹With you the horse and the horseman will be broken; with you the war-carriage and he who goes in it will be broken;

²²With you man and woman will be broken; with you the old man and the boy will be broken; with you the young man and the virgin will be broken;

²³With you the keeper of sheep with his flock will be broken, and with you the farmer and his oxen will be broken, and with you captains and rulers will be broken.

²⁴And I will give to Babylon, and to all the people of Chaldaea, their reward for all the evil they have done in Zion before your eyes, says the Lord.

²⁵See, I am against you, says the Lord, O mountain of destruction, causing the destruction of all the earth: and my hand will be stretched out on you, rolling you down from the rocks, and making you a burned mountain.

²⁶And they will not take from you a stone for the angle of a wall or the base of a building; but you will be a waste place for ever, says the Lord.

²⁷Let a flag be lifted up in the land, let the horn be sounded among the nations, make the nations ready against her; get the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz together against her, make ready a scribe against her; let the horses come up against her like massed locusts.

²⁸Make the nations ready for war against her, the king of the Medes and his rulers and all his captains, and all the land under his rule.

²⁹And the land is shaking and in pain: for the purposes of the Lord are fixed, to make the land of Babylon an unpeopled waste.

³⁰Babylon's men of war have kept back from the fight, waiting in their strong places; their strength has given way, they have become like women: her houses have been put on fire, her locks are broken.

³¹One man, running, will give word to another, and one who goes with news will be handing it on to another, to give word to the king of Babylon that his town has been taken from every quarter:

³²And the ways across the river have been taken, and the water-holes ... burned with fire, and the men of war are in the grip of fear.

³³For these are the words of the Lord of armies, the God of Israel: The daughter of Babylon is like a grain-floor when it is stamped down; before long, the time of her grain-cutting will come.

³⁴Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, has made a meal of me, violently crushing me, he has made me a vessel with nothing in it, he has taken me in his mouth like a dragon, he has made his stomach full with my delicate flesh, crushing me with his teeth.

³⁵May the violent things done to me, and my downfall, come on Babylon, the daughter of Zion will say; and, May my blood be on the people of Chaldaea, Jerusalem will say.

³⁶For this reason the Lord has said: See, I will give support to your cause, and take payment for what you have undergone; I will make her sea dry, and her fountain without water.

³⁷And Babylon will become a mass of broken walls, a hole for jackals, a cause of wonder and surprise, without a living man in it.

³⁸They will be crying out together like lions, their voices will be like the voices of young lions.

³⁹When they are heated, I will make a feast for them, and overcome them with wine, so that they may become unconscious, sleeping an eternal sleep without awaking, says the Lord.

⁴⁰I will make them go down to death like lambs, like he-goats together.

⁴¹How is Babylon taken! and the praise of all the earth surprised! how has Babylon become a cause of wonder among the nations!

⁴²The sea has come up over Babylon; she is covered with the mass of its waves.

⁴³Her towns have become a waste, a dry and unwatered land, where no man has his living-place and no son of man goes by.

⁴⁴And I will send punishment on Bel in Babylon, and take out of his mouth what went into it; no longer will the nations be flowing together to him: truly, the wall of Babylon will come down.

⁴⁵My people, go out from her, and let every man get away safe from the burning wrath of the Lord.

⁴⁶So that your hearts may not become feeble and full of fear because of the news which will go about in the land; for a story will go about one year, and after that in another year another story, and violent acts in the land, ruler against ruler.

⁴⁷For this cause, truly, the days are coming when I will send punishment on the images of Babylon, and all her land will be shamed, and her dead will be falling down in her.

⁴⁸And the heaven and the earth and everything in them, will make a song of joy over Babylon: for those who make her waste will come from the north, says the Lord.

⁴⁹As Babylon had the dead of Israel put to the sword, so in Babylon the dead of all the land will be stretched out.

⁵⁰You who have got away safe from the sword, go, waiting for nothing; have the Lord in memory when you are far away, and keep Jerusalem in mind.

⁵¹We are shamed because bitter words have come to our ears; our faces are covered with shame: for men from strange lands have come into the holy places of the Lord's house.

⁵²For this reason, see, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will send punishment on her images; and through all her land the wounded will be crying out in pain.

⁵³Even if Babylon was lifted up to heaven, even if she had the high places of her strength shut in with walls, still I would send against her those who will make her waste, says the Lord.

⁵⁴There is the sound of a cry from Babylon, and of a great destruction from the land of the Chaldaeans:

⁵⁵For the Lord is making Babylon waste, and putting an end to the great voice coming out of her; and her waves are thundering like great waters, their voice is sounding loud:

⁵⁶For the waster has come on her, even on Babylon, and her men of war are taken, their bows are broken: for the Lord is a rewarding God, and he will certainly give payment.

⁵⁷And I will make her chiefs and her wise men, her rulers and her captains and her men of war, overcome with wine; their sleep will be an eternal sleep without awaking, says the King; the Lord of armies is his name.

⁵⁸The Lord of armies has said: The wide walls of Babylon will be completely uncovered and her high doorways will be burned with fire; so peoples keep on working for nothing, and the weariness of nations comes to an end in the smoke.

⁵⁹The order which Jeremiah the prophet gave to Seraiah, the son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, when he went with Zedekiah, the king of Judah, to Babylon in the fourth year of his rule. Now Seraiah was the chief controller of the house.

⁶⁰And Jeremiah put in a book all the evil which was to come on Babylon.

⁶¹And Jeremiah said to Seraiah, When you come to Babylon, see that you give them all these words;

⁶²And after reading them, say, O Lord, you have said about this place that it is to be cut off, so that no one will be living in it, not a man or a beast, but it will be unpeopled for ever.

⁶³And it will be that, when you have come to an end of reading this book, you are to have a stone fixed to it, and have it dropped into the Euphrates:

⁶⁴And you are to say, So Babylon will go down, never to be lifted up again, because of the evil which I will send on her: and weariness will overcome them. So far, these are the words of Jeremiah.

52Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king; he was king for eleven years in Jerusalem: and his mother's name was Hamutal, the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.

²And he did evil in the eyes of the Lord, as Jehoiakim had done.

³And because of the wrath of the Lord this came about in Jerusalem and Judah, till he had sent them away from before him: and Zedekiah took up arms against the king of Babylon.

⁴And in the ninth year of his rule, on the tenth day of the tenth month, Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, came against Jerusalem with all his army and took up his position before it, building earthworks all round it.

⁵So the town was shut in by their forces till the eleventh year of King Zedekiah.

⁶In the fourth month, on the ninth day of the month, the store of food in the town was almost gone, so that there was no food for the people of the land.

⁷Then an opening was made in the wall of the town, and all the men of war went in flight out of the town by night through the doorway between the two walls which was by the king's garden; (now the Chaldaeans were stationed round the town:) and they went by the way of the Arabah.

⁸And the Chaldaean army went after King Zedekiah and overtook him on the other side of Jericho, and all his army went in flight from him in every direction.

⁹Then they made the king a prisoner and took him up to the king of Babylon to Riblah in the land of Hamath to be judged.

¹⁰And the king of Babylon put the sons of Zedekiah to death before his eyes: and he put to death all the rulers of Judah in Riblah.

¹¹And he put out Zedekiah's eyes; and the king of Babylon, chaining him in iron bands, took him to Babylon, and put him in prison till the day of his death.

¹²Now in the fifth month, on the tenth day of the month, in the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan, the captain of the armed men, a servant of the king of Babylon, came into Jerusalem.

¹³And he had the house of the Lord and the king's house and all the houses of Jerusalem, even every great house, burned with fire:

¹⁴And the walls round Jerusalem were broken down by the Chaldaean army which was with the captain.

¹⁵Then Nebuzaradan, the captain of the armed men, took away as prisoners the rest of the people who were still in the town, and those who had given themselves up to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the workmen.

¹⁶But Nebuzaradan, the captain of the armed men, let the poorest of the land go on living there, to take care of the vines and the fields.

¹⁷And the brass pillars which were in the house of the Lord, and the wheeled bases and the great brass water-vessel in the house of the Lord, were broken up by the Chaldaeans, who took all the brass away to Babylon.

¹⁸And the pots and the spades and the scissors for the lights and the spoons, and all the brass vessels used in the Lord's house, they took away.

¹⁹And the cups and the fire-trays and the basins and the pots and the supports for the lights and the spoons and the wide basins; the gold of the gold vessels, and the silver of the silver vessels, the captain of the armed men took away.

²⁰The two pillars, the great water-vessel, and the twelve brass oxen which were under it, and the ten wheeled bases, which King Solomon had made for the house of the Lord: the brass of all these vessels was without weight.

²¹And as for the pillars, one pillar was eighteen cubits high, and twelve cubits measured all round, and it was as thick as a man's hand: it was hollow.

²²And there was a crown of brass on it: the crown was five cubits high, circled with a network and apples all of brass; and the second pillar had the same.

²³There were ninety-six apples on the outside; the number of apples all round the network was a hundred.

²⁴And the captain of the armed men took Seraiah, the chief priest, and Zephaniah, the second priest, and the three door-keepers;

²⁵And from the town he took the unsexed servant who was over the men of war, and seven of the king's near friends who were in the town, and the scribe of the captain of the army, who was responsible for getting the people of the land together in military order, and sixty men of the people of the land who were in the town.

²⁶These Nebuzaradan, the captain of the armed men, took with him to the king of Babylon at Riblah.

²⁷And the king of Babylon put them to death at Riblah in the land of Hamath. So Judah was taken prisoner away from his land.

²⁸These are the people whom Nebuchadrezzar took away prisoner: in the seventh year, three thousand and twenty-three Jews:

²⁹And in the eighteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar he took away as prisoners from Jerusalem eight hundred and thirty-two persons:

³⁰In the twenty-third year of Nebuchadrezzar, Nebuzaradan, the captain of the armed men, took away as prisoners seven hundred and forty-five of the Jews: all the persons were four thousand and six hundred.

³¹And in the thirty-seventh year after Jehoiachin, king of Judah, had been taken prisoner, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-fifth day of the month, Evil-merodach, king of Babylon, in the first year after he became king, took Jehoiachin, king of Judah, out of prison.

³²And he said kind words to him and put his seat higher than the seats of the other kings who were with him in Babylon.

³³And his prison clothing was changed, and he was a guest at the king's table every day for the rest of his life.

³⁴And for his food, the king gave him a regular amount every day till the day of his death, for the rest of his life.

1Now it came about in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month, while I was by the river Chebar among those who had been made prisoners, that the heavens were made open and I saw visions of God.

²On the fifth day of the month, in the fifth year after King Jehoiachin had been made a prisoner,

³The word of the Lord came to me, Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldaeans by the river Chebar; and the hand of the Lord was on me there.

⁴And, looking, I saw a storm-wind coming out of the north, a great cloud with flames of fire coming after one another, and a bright light shining round about it and in the heart of it was something coloured like electrum.

⁵And in the heart of it were the forms of four living beings. And this was what they were like; they had the form of a man.

⁶And every one had four faces, and every one of them had four wings.

⁷And their feet were straight feet; and the under sides of their feet were like the feet of oxen; and they were shining like polished brass.

⁸And they had the hands of a man under their wings; the four of them had faces on their four sides.

⁹They went without turning, every one went straight forward.

¹⁰As for the form of their faces, they had the face of a man, and the four of them had the face of a lion on the right side, and the four of them had the face of an ox on the left side, and the four of them had the face of an eagle.

¹¹And their wings were separate at the top; two of the wings of every one were joined one to another, and two were covering their bodies.

¹²Every one of them went straight forward; wherever the spirit was to go they went; they went on without turning.

¹³And between the living beings it was like burning coals of fire, as if flames were going one after the other between the living beings; and the fire was bright, and out of the fire went thunder-flames.

¹⁴And the living beings went out and came back as quickly as a thunder-flame.

¹⁵Now while I was looking at the four living beings, I saw one wheel on the earth, by the side of the living beings, for the four of them.

¹⁶The form of the wheels and their work was like a beryl; the four of them had the same form and design, and they were like a wheel inside a wheel.

¹⁷The four of them went straight forward without turning to one side.

¹⁸And I saw that they had edges, and their edges, even of the four, were full of eyes round about.

¹⁹And when the living beings went on, the wheels went by their side; and when the living beings were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up.

²⁰Wherever the spirit was to go they went; and the wheels were lifted up by their side: for the spirit of the living beings was in the wheels.

²¹When these went on, the others went; and when these came to rest, the others came to rest; and when these were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up by their side: for the spirit of the living beings was in the wheels.

²²And over the heads of the living beings there was the form of an arch, looking like ice, stretched out over their heads on high.

²³Under the arch their wings were straight, one stretched out to another: every one had two wings covering their bodies on this side and two covering their bodies on that side.

²⁴And when they went, the sound of their wings was like the sound of great waters to my ears, like the voice of the Ruler of all, a sound like the rushing of an army: when they came to rest they let down their wings.

²⁵And there was a voice from the top of the arch which was over their heads: when they came to rest they let down their wings.

²⁶And on the top of the arch which was over their heads was the form of a king's seat, like a sapphire stone; and on the form of the seat was the form of a man seated on it on high.

²⁷And I saw it coloured like electrum, with the look of fire in it and round it, going up from what seemed to be the middle of his body; and going down from what seemed to be the middle of his body I saw what was like fire, and there was a bright light shining round him.

²⁸Like the bow in the cloud on a day of rain, so was the light shining round him. And this is what the glory of the Lord was like. And when I saw it I went down on my face, and the voice of one talking came to my ears.

2And he said to me, Son of man, get up on your feet, so that I may say words to you.

²And at his words the spirit came into me and put me on my feet; and his voice came to my ears.

³And he said to me, Son of man, I am sending you to the children of Israel, to an uncontrolled nation which has gone against me: they and their fathers have been sinners against me even to this very day.

⁴And the children are hard and stiff-hearted; I am sending you to them: and you are to say to them, These are the words of the Lord.

⁵And they, if they give ear to you or if they do not give ear (for they are an uncontrolled people), will see that there has been a prophet among them.

⁶And you, son of man, have no fear of them or of their words, even if sharp thorns are round you and you are living among scorpions: have no fear of their words and do not be overcome by their looks, for they are an uncontrolled people.

⁷And you are to give them my words, if they give ear to you or if they do not: for they are uncontrolled.

⁸But you, son of man, give ear to what I say to you, and do not be uncontrolled like that uncontrolled people: let your mouth be open and take what I give you.

⁹And looking, I saw a hand stretched out to me, and I saw the roll of a book in it;

¹⁰And he put it open before me, and it had writing on the front and on the back; words of grief and sorrow and trouble were recorded in it.

3And he said to me, Son of man, take this roll for your food, and go and say my words to the children of Israel.

²And, on my opening my mouth, he made me take the roll as food.

³And he said to me, Son of man, let your stomach make a meal of it and let your inside be full of this roll which I am giving you. Then I took it, and it was sweet as honey in my mouth.

⁴And he said to me, Son of man, go now to the children of Israel, and say my words to them.

⁵For you are not sent to a people whose talk is strange and whose language is hard, but to the children of Israel;

⁶Not to a number of peoples whose talk is strange and whose language is hard and whose words are not clear to you. Truly, if I sent you to them they would give ear to you.

⁷But the children of Israel will not give ear to you; for they have no mind to give ear to me: for all the children of Israel have a hard brow and a stiff heart.

⁸See, I have made your face hard against their faces, and your brow hard against their brows.

⁹Like a diamond harder than rock I have made your brow: have no fear of them and do not be overcome by their looks, for they are an uncontrolled people.

¹⁰Then he said to me, Son of man, take into your heart all my words which I am about to say to you, and let your ears be open to them.

¹¹And go now to those who have been taken away as prisoners, to the children of your people, and say to them, This is what the Lord has said; if they give ear or if they do not.

¹²Then I was lifted up by the wind, and at my back the sound of a great rushing came to my ears when the glory of the Lord was lifted up from his place.

¹³And there was the sound of the wings of the living beings touching one another, and the sound of the wheels at their side, the sound of a great rushing.

¹⁴And the wind, lifting me up, took me away: and I went in the heat of my spirit, and the hand of the Lord was strong on me.

¹⁵Then I came to those who had been taken away as prisoners, who were at Telabib by the river Chebar, and I was seated among them full of wonder for seven days.

¹⁶And at the end of seven days, the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

¹⁷Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the children of Israel: so give ear to the word of my mouth, and give them word from me of their danger.

¹⁸When I say to the evil-doer, Death will certainly be your fate; and you give him no word of it and say nothing to make clear to the evil-doer the danger of his evil way, so that he may be safe; that same evil man will come to death in his evil-doing; but I will make you responsible for his blood.

¹⁹But if you give the evil-doer word of his danger, and he is not turned from his sin or from his evil way, death will overtake him in his evil-doing; but your life will be safe.

²⁰Again, when an upright man, turning away from his righteousness, does evil, and I put a cause of falling in his way, death will overtake him: because you have given him no word of his danger, death will overtake him in his evil-doing, and there will be no memory of the upright acts which he has done; but I will make you responsible for his blood.

²¹But if you say to the upright man that he is not to do evil, he will certainly keep his life because he took note of your word; and your life will be safe.

²²And the hand of the Lord was on me there; and he said, Get up and go out into the valley and there I will have talk with you.

²³Then I got up and went out into the valley; and I saw the glory of the Lord resting there as I had seen it by the river Chebar; and I went down on my face.

²⁴Then the spirit came into me and put me on my feet; and he had talk with me and said to me, Go and keep yourself shut up inside your house.

²⁵But see, O son of man, I will put bands on you, prisoning you in them, and you will not go out among them:

²⁶And I will make your tongue fixed to the roof of your mouth, so that you have no voice and may not make protests to them: for they are an uncontrolled people.

²⁷But when I have talk with you I will make your mouth open, and you are to say to them, This is what the Lord has said: Let the hearer give ear; and as for him who will not, let him keep his ears shut: for they are an uncontrolled people.

4And you, son of man, take a back and put it before you and on it make a picture of a town, even Jerusalem.

²And make an attack on it, shutting it in, building strong places against it, and making high an earthwork against it; and put up tents against it, placing engines all round it for smashing down its walls.

³And take a flat iron plate, and put it for a wall of iron between you and the town: and let your face be turned to it, and it will be shut in and you will make an attack on it. This will be a sign to the children of Israel.

⁴Then, stretching yourself out on your left side, take the sin of the children of Israel on yourself: for as long as you are stretched out, so long will the sin of the children of Israel be on you.

⁵For I have had the years of their sin measured for you by a number of days, even three hundred and ninety days: and you will take on yourself the sin of the children of Israel.

⁶And when these days are ended, turning on your right side, you are to take on yourself the sin of the children of Judah: forty days, a day for a year, I have had it fixed for you.

⁷And let your face be turned to where Jerusalem is shut in, with your arm uncovered, and be a prophet against it.

⁸And see, I will put bands on you; and you will be stretched out without turning from one side to the other till the days of your attack are ended.

⁹And take for yourself wheat and barley and different sorts of grain, and put them in one vessel and make bread for yourself from them; all the days when you are stretched on your side it will be your food.

¹⁰And you are to take your food by weight, twenty shekels a day: you are to take it at regular times.

¹¹And you are to take water by measure, the sixth part of a hin: you are to take it at regular times.

¹²And let your food be barley cakes, cooking it before their eyes with the waste which comes out of a man.

¹³And the Lord said, Even so the children of Israel will have unclean bread for their food among the nations where I am driving them.

¹⁴Then I said, Ah, Lord! see, my soul has never been unclean, and I have never taken as my food anything which has come to a natural death or has been broken by beasts, from the time when I was young even till now; no disgusting flesh has ever come into my mouth.

¹⁵Then he said to me, See, I have given you cow's waste in place of man's waste, and you will make your bread ready on it.

¹⁶And he said to me, Son of man, see, I will take away from Jerusalem her necessary bread: they will take their bread by weight and with care, measuring out their drinking-water with fear and wonder:

¹⁷So that they may be in need of bread and water and be wondering at one another, wasting away in their sin.

5And you, son of man, take a sharp sword, using it like a haircutter's blade, and making it go over your head and the hair of your chin: and take scales for separating the hair by weight.

²You are to have a third part burned with fire inside the town, when the days of the attack are ended; and a third part you are to take and give blows with the sword round about it; and give a third part for the wind to take away, and let loose a sword after them.

³And take from them a small number of hairs, folding them in your skirts.

⁴And again take some of these and put them in the fire, burning them up in the fire; and say to all the children of Israel,

⁵This is what the Lord has said: This is Jerusalem: I have put her among the nations, and countries are round her on every side;

⁶And she has gone against my orders by doing evil more than the nations, and against my rules more than the countries round her: for they have given up my orders, and as for my rules, they have not gone in the way of them.

⁷For this cause the Lord has said: Because you have been more uncontrolled than the nations round about you, and have not been guided by my rules or kept my orders, but have kept the orders of the nations round about you;

⁸For this cause the Lord has said: See, I, even I, am against you; and I will be judging among you before the eyes of the nations.

⁹And I will do in you what I have not done and will not do again, because of all your disgusting ways.

¹⁰For this cause fathers will take their sons for food among you, and sons will make a meal of their fathers; and I will be judge among you, and all the rest of you I will send away to every wind.

¹¹For this cause, by my life, says the Lord, because you have made my holy place unclean with all your hated things and all your disgusting ways, you will become disgusting to me; my eye will have no mercy and I will have no pity.

¹²A third of you will come to death from disease, wasting away among you through need of food; a third will be put to the sword round about you; and a third I will send away to every wind, letting loose a sword after them.

¹³So my wrath will be complete and my passion will come to rest on them; and they will be certain that I the Lord have given the word of decision, when my wrath against them is complete.

¹⁴And I will make you a waste and a name of shame among the nations round about you, in the eyes of everyone who goes by.

¹⁵And you will be a name of shame and a cause of bitter words, an example and a wonder to the nations round about you, when I give effect to my judging among you in wrath and in passion and in burning protests: I the Lord have said it:

¹⁶When I send on you the evil arrows of disease, causing destruction, which I will send to put an end to you; and, further, I will take away your necessary food.

¹⁷And I will send on you need of food and evil beasts, and they will be a cause of loss to you; and disease and violent death will go through you; and I will send the sword on you: I the Lord have said it.

6And the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

²Son of man, let your face be turned to the mountains of Israel, and be a prophet to them, and say,

³You mountains of Israel, give ear to the words of the Lord: this is what the Lord has said to the mountains and the hills, to the waterways and the valleys: See, I, even I, am sending on you a sword for the destruction of your high places.

⁴And your altars will be made waste, and your sun-images will be broken: and I will have your dead men placed before your images.

⁵And I will put the dead bodies of the children of Israel in front of their images, sending your bones in all directions about your altars.

⁶In all your living-places the towns will become broken walls, and the high places made waste; so that your altars may be broken down and made waste, and your images broken and ended, and so that your sun-images may be cut down and your works rubbed out.

⁷And the dead will be falling down among you, and you will be certain that I am the Lord.

⁸But still, I will keep a small band safe from the sword among the nations, when you are sent wandering among the countries.

⁹And those of you who are kept safe will have me in mind among the nations where they have been taken away as prisoners, how I sent punishment on their hearts which were untrue to me, and on their eyes which were turned to their false gods: and they will be full of hate for themselves because of the evil things which they have done in all their disgusting ways.

¹⁰And they will be certain that I am the Lord: not for nothing did I say that I would do this evil to them.

¹¹This is what the Lord has said: Give blows with your hand, stamping with your foot, and say, O sorrow! because of all the evil and disgusting ways of the children of Israel: for death will overtake them by the sword and through need of food and by disease.

¹²He who is far away will come to his death by disease; he who is near will be put to the sword; he who is shut up will come to his death through need of food; and I will give full effect to my passion against them.

¹³And you will be certain that I am the Lord, when their dead men are stretched among their images round about their altars on every high hill, on all the tops of the mountains, and under every branching tree, and under every thick oak-tree, the places where they made sweet smells to all their images.

¹⁴And my hand will be stretched out against them, making the land waste and unpeopled, from the waste land to Riblah, through all their living-places: and they will be certain that I am the Lord.

7And the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

²And you, son of man, say, This is what the Lord has said to the land of Israel: An end has come, the end has come on the four quarters of the land.

³Now the end has come on you, and I will send my wrath on you, judging you for your ways, I will send punishment on you for all your disgusting acts.

⁴My eye will not have mercy on you, and I will have no pity: but I will send the punishment of your ways on you, and your disgusting works will be among you: and you will be certain that I am the Lord.

⁵This is what the Lord has said: An evil, even one evil; see, it is coming.

⁶An end has come, the end has come; see, it is coming on you.

⁷The crowning time has come on you, O people of the land: the time has come, the day is near; the day will not be slow in coming, it will not keep back.

⁸Now, in a little time, I will let loose my passion on you, and give full effect to my wrath against you, judging you for your ways, and sending punishment on you for all your disgusting works.

⁹My eye will not have mercy, and I will have no pity: I will send on you the punishment of your ways, and your disgusting works will be among you; and you will see that I am the Lord who gives punishment.

¹⁰See, the day; see, it is coming: the crowning time has gone out; the twisted way is flowering, pride has put out buds.

¹¹Violent behaviour has been lifted up into a rod of evil; it will not be slow in coming, it will not keep back.

¹²The time has come, the day is near: let not him who gives a price for goods be glad, or him who gets the price have sorrow:

¹³For the trader will not go back to the things for which he had his price, even while he is still living:

¹⁴And he who has given a price for goods will not get them, for my wrath is on all of them.

¹⁵Outside is the sword, and inside disease and need of food: he who is in the open country will be put to the sword; he who is in the town will come to his end through need of food and disease.

¹⁶And those of them who get away safely will go and be in the secret places like the doves of the valleys, all of them will come to death, every one in his sin.

¹⁷All hands will be feeble and all knees without strength, like water.

¹⁸And they will put haircloth round them, and deep fear will be covering them; and shame will be on all faces, and the hair gone from all their heads.

¹⁹They will put out their silver into the streets, and their gold will be as an unclean thing; their silver and their gold will not be able to keep them safe in the day of the wrath of the Lord; they will not get their desire or have food for their need: because it has been the cause of their falling into sin.

²⁰As for their beautiful ornament, they had put it on high, and had made the images of their disgusting and hated things in it: for this cause I have made it an unclean thing to them.

²¹And I will give it into the hands of men from strange lands who will take it by force, and to the evil-doers of the earth to have for themselves; and they will make it unholy.

²²And my face will be turned away from them, and they will make my secret place unholy: violent men will go into it and make it unholy.

²³Make the chain: for the land is full of crimes of blood, and the town is full of violent acts.

²⁴For this reason I will send the worst of the nations and they will take their houses for themselves: I will make the pride of their strength come to an end; and their holy places will be made unclean.

²⁵Shaking fear is coming; and they will be looking for peace, and there will be no peace.

²⁶Destruction will come on destruction, and one story after another; and the vision of the prophet will be shamed, and knowledge of the law will come to an end among the priests, and wisdom among the old.

²⁷The king will give himself up to sorrow, and the ruler will be clothed with wonder, and the hands of the people of the land will be troubled: I will give them punishment for their ways, judging them as it is right for them to be judged; and they will be certain that I am the Lord.

8Now in the sixth year, in the sixth month, on the fifth day of the month, when I was in my house and the responsible men of Judah were seated before me, the hand of the Lord came on me there.

²And looking, I saw a form like fire; from the middle of his body and down there was fire: and up from the middle of his body a sort of shining, like electrum.

³And he put out the form of a hand and took me by the hair of my head; and the wind, lifting me up between the earth and the heaven, took me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the way into the inner door facing to the north; where was the seat of the image of envy.

⁴And I saw the glory of the Lord there, as in the vision which I saw in the valley.

⁵Then he said to me, Son of man, now let your eyes be lifted up in the direction of the north; and on looking in the direction of the north, to the north of the doorway of the altar, I saw this image of envy by the way in.

⁶And he said to me, Son of man, do you see what they are doing? even the very disgusting things which the children of Israel are doing here, causing me to go far away from my holy place? but you will see other most disgusting things.

⁷And he took me to the door of the open place; and looking, I saw a hole in the wall.

⁸And he said to me, Son of man, make a hole in the wall: and after making a hole in the wall I saw a door.

⁹And he said to me, Go in and see the evil and disgusting things which they are doing here.

¹⁰So I went in and saw; and there every sort of living thing which goes flat on the earth, and unclean beasts, and all the images of the children of Israel, were pictured round about on the wall.

¹¹And before them seventy of the responsible men of the children of Israel had taken their places, every man with a vessel for burning perfumes in his hand, and in the middle of them was Jaazaniah, the son of Shaphan; and a cloud of smoke went up from the burning perfume.

¹²And he said to me, Son of man, have you seen what the responsible men of the children of Israel do in the dark, every man in his room of pictured images? for they say, The Lord does not see us; the Lord has gone away from the land.

¹³Then he said to me, You will see even more disgusting things which they do.

¹⁴Then he took me to the door of the way into the Lord's house looking to the north; and there women were seated weeping for Tammuz.

¹⁵Then he said to me, Have you seen this, O son of man? you will see even more disgusting things than these.

¹⁶And he took me into the inner square of the Lord's house, and at the door of the Temple of the Lord, between the covered way and the altar, there were about twenty-five men with their backs turned to the Temple of the Lord and their faces turned to the east; and they were worshipping the sun, turning to the east.

¹⁷Then he said to me, Have you seen this, O son of man? is it a small thing to the children of Judah that they do the disgusting things which they are doing here? for they have made the land full of violent behaviour, making me angry again and again: and see, they put the branch to my nose.

¹⁸For this reason I will let loose my wrath: my eye will not have mercy, and I will have no pity.

9Then crying out in my hearing in a loud voice, he said, Let the overseers of the town come near, every man armed.

²And six men came from the way of the higher doorway looking to the north, every man with his axe in his hand: and one man among them was clothed in linen, with a writer's inkpot at his side. And they went in and took their places by the brass altar.

³And the glory of the God of Israel had gone up from the winged ones on which it was resting, to the doorstep of the house. And crying out to the man clothed in linen who had the writer's inkpot at his side,

⁴The Lord said to him, Go through the town, through the middle of Jerusalem, and put a mark on the brows of the men who are sorrowing and crying for all the disgusting things which are done in it.

⁵And to these he said in my hearing, Go through the town after him using your axes: do not let your eyes have mercy, and have no pity:

⁶Give up to destruction old men and young men and virgins, little children and women: but do not come near any man who has the mark on him: and make a start at my holy place. So they made a start with the old men who were before the house.

⁷And he said to them, Make the house unclean, make the open places full of dead: go forward and send destruction on the town.

⁸Now while they were doing so, and I was untouched, I went down on my face, and crying out, I said, Ah, Lord! will you give all the rest of Israel to destruction in letting loose your wrath on Jerusalem?

⁹Then he said to me, The sin of the children of Israel and Judah is very, very great, and the land is full of blood and the town full of evil ways: for they say, The Lord has gone away from the land, and the Lord does not see.

¹⁰And as for me, my eye will not have mercy, and I will have no pity, but I will send the punishment of their ways on their heads.

¹¹Then the man clothed in linen, who had the inkpot at his side, came back and said, I have done what you gave me orders to do.

10Then looking, I saw that on the arch which was over the head of the winged ones there was seen over them what seemed like a sapphire stone, having the form of a king's seat.

²And he said to the man clothed in linen, Go in between the wheels, under the winged ones, and get your two hands full of burning coals from between the winged ones and send them in a shower over the town. And he went in before my eyes.

³Now the winged ones were stationed on the right side of the house when the man went in; and the inner square was full of the cloud.

⁴And the glory of the Lord went up from the winged ones and came to rest over the doorstep of the house; and the house was full of the cloud and the open square was full of the shining of the Lord's glory.

⁵And the sound of the wings of the winged ones was clear even in the outer square, like the voice of the Ruler of all.

⁶And when he gave orders to the man clothed in linen, saying, Take fire from between the wheels, from between the winged ones, then he went in and took his place at the side of a wheel.

⁷And stretching out his hand to the fire which was between the winged ones, he took some of it and went out.

⁸And I saw the form of a man's hands among the winged ones under their wings.

⁹And looking, I saw four wheels by the side of the winged ones, one wheel by the side of a winged one and another wheel by the side of another: and the wheels were like the colour of a beryl stone to the eye.

¹⁰In form the four of them were all the same, they seemed like a wheel inside a wheel.

¹¹When they were moving, they went on their four sides without turning; they went after the head in the direction in which it was looking; they went without turning.

¹²And the edges of the four wheels were full of eyes round about.

¹³As for the wheels, they were named in my hearing, the circling wheels.

¹⁴And every one had four faces: the first face was the face of a winged one, and the second was the face of a man, and the third the face of a lion, and the fourth the face of an eagle.

¹⁵And the winged ones went up on high: this is the living being which I saw by the river Chebar.

¹⁶And when the winged ones went, the wheels went by their side: and when their wings were lifted to take them up from the earth, the wheels were not turned from their side.

¹⁷When they were at rest in their place, these were at rest; when they were lifted up, these went up with them: for the spirit of life was in them.

¹⁸Then the glory of the Lord went out from the doorstep of the house, and came to rest over the winged ones.

¹⁹And the winged ones, lifting up their wings, went up from the earth before my eyes, with the wheels by their side: and they came to rest at the east doorway of the Lord's house; and the glory of the God of Israel was over them on high.

²⁰This is the living being which I saw under the God of Israel by the river Chebar; and it was clear to me that they were the winged ones.

²¹Every one had four faces and every one had four wings; and hands like a man's hands were under their wings.

²²As for the form of their faces, they were the faces whose form I saw by the river Chebar; when they went, every one of them went straight forward.

11And the wind, lifting me up, took me to the east doorway of the Lord's house, looking to the east: and at the door I saw twenty-five men; and among them I saw Jaazaniah, the son of Azzur, and Pelatiah, the son of Benaiah, rulers of the people.

²Then he said to me, Son of man, these are the men who are designing evil, who are teaching evil ways in this town:

³Who say, This is not the time for building houses: this town is the cooking-pot and we are the flesh.

⁴For this cause be a prophet against them, be a prophet, O son of man.

⁵And the spirit of the Lord came on me, and he said to me, Say, These are the words of the Lord: This is what you have said, O children of Israel; what comes into your mind is clear to me.

⁶You have made great the number of your dead in this town, you have made its streets full of dead men.

⁷For this reason the Lord has said: Your dead whom you have put down in its streets, they are the flesh, and this town is the cooking-pot: but I will make you come out from inside it.

⁸You have been fearing the sword, and I will send the sword on you, says the Lord.

⁹I will make you come out from inside the town and will give you up into the hands of men from other lands, and will be judge among you.

¹⁰You will come to your death by the sword; and I will be your judge in the land of Israel; and you will be certain that I am the Lord.

¹¹This town will not be your cooking-pot, and you will not be the flesh inside it; I will be your judge at the limit of the land of Israel;

¹²And you will be certain that I am the Lord: for you have not been guided by my rules or given effect to my orders, but you have been living by the orders of the nations round about you.

¹³Now while I was saying these things, death came to Pelatiah, the son of Benaiah. Then falling down on my face and crying out with a loud voice, I said, Ah, Lord! will you put an end to all the rest of Israel?

¹⁴And the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

¹⁵Son of man, your countrymen, your relations, and all the children of Israel, all of them, are those to whom the people of Jerusalem have said, Go far from the Lord; this land is given to us for a heritage:

¹⁶For this reason say, This is what the Lord has said: Though I have had them moved far off among the nations, and though I have sent them wandering among the countries, still I have been a safe place for them for a little time in the countries where they have come.

¹⁷Then say, This is what the Lord has said: I will get you together from the peoples, and make you come out of the countries where you have been sent in flight, and I will give you the land of Israel.

¹⁸And they will come there, and take away all the hated and disgusting things from it.

¹⁹And I will give them a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in them; and I will take the heart of stone out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh:

²⁰So that they may be guided by my rules and keep my orders and do them: and they will be to me a people, and I will be to them a God.

²¹But as for those whose heart goes after their hated and disgusting things, I will send on their heads the punishment of their ways, says the Lord.

²²Then the wings of the winged ones were lifted up, and the wheels were by their side; and the glory of the God of Israel was over them on high.

²³And the glory of the Lord went up from inside the town, and came to rest on the mountain on the east side of the town.

²⁴And the wind, lifting me up, took me in the visions of God into Chaldaea, to those who had been taken away as prisoners. So the vision which I had seen went away from me.

²⁵Then I gave an account to those who had been taken prisoners of all the things which the Lord had made me see.

12And the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

²Son of man, you are living among an uncontrolled people, who have eyes to see but see not, and ears for hearing but they do not give ear; for they are an uncontrolled people.

³And you, O son of man, by day, before their eyes, get ready the vessels of one who is taken away, and go away from your place to another place before their eyes: it may be that they will see, though they are an uncontrolled people.

⁴By day, before their eyes, take out your vessels like those of one who is taken away: and go out in the evening before their eyes, like those who are taken away as prisoners.

⁵Make a hole in the wall, before their eyes, and go out through it.

⁶And before their eyes, take your goods on your back and go out in the dark; go with your face covered: for I have made you a sign to the children of Israel.

⁷And I did as I was ordered: I took out my vessels by day, like those of one who is taken away, and in the evening I made a hole through the wall with a tent-pin; and in the dark I went out, taking my things on my back before their eyes.

⁸And in the morning the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

⁹Son of man, has not Israel, the uncontrolled people, said to you, What are you doing?

¹⁰You are to say to them, This is what the Lord has said: This word has to do with the ruler in Jerusalem and all the children of Israel in it.

¹¹Say, I am your sign: as I have done, so will it be done to them: they will go away as prisoners.

¹²And the ruler who is among them will take his goods on his back in the dark and go out: he will make a hole in the wall through which to go out: he will have his face covered so that he may not be seen.

¹³And my net will be stretched out on him, and he will be taken in my cords: and I will take him to Babylon to the land of the Chaldaeans; but he will not see it, and there death will come to him.

¹⁴And all his helpers round about him and all his armies I will send in flight to every wind; and I will let loose a sword after them.

¹⁵And they will be certain that I am the Lord, when I send them in flight among the nations, driving them out through the countries.

¹⁶But a small number of them I will keep from the sword, from the need of food, and from disease, so that they may make clear all their disgusting ways among the nations where they come; and they will be certain that I am the Lord.

¹⁷Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

¹⁸Son of man, take your food with shaking fear, and your water with trouble and care;

¹⁹And say to the people of the land, This is what the Lord has said about the people of Jerusalem and the land of Israel: They will take their food with care and their drink with wonder, so that all the wealth of their land may be taken from it because of the violent ways of the people living in it.

²⁰And the peopled towns will be made waste, and the land will become a wonder; and you will be certain that I am the Lord.

²¹And the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

²²Son of man, what is this saying which you have about the land of Israel, The time is long and every vision comes to nothing?

²³For this cause say to them, This is what the Lord has said: I have made this saying come to an end, and it will no longer be used as a common saying in Israel; but say to them, The days are near, and the effect of every vision.

²⁴For there will be no more false visions or smooth use of secret arts in Israel.

²⁵For I am the Lord; I will say the word and what I say I will do; it will not be put off: for in your days, O uncontrolled people, I will say the word and do it, says the Lord.

²⁶Again the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

²⁷Son of man, see, the children of Israel say, The vision which he sees is for the days which are a long way off, and his words are of times still far away.

²⁸Say to them then, This is what the Lord has said: Not one of my words will be put off any longer, but what I say I will do, says the Lord.

13And the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

²Son of man, be a prophet against the prophets of Israel, and say to those prophets whose words are the invention of their hearts, Give ear to the word of the Lord;

³This is what the Lord has said: A curse on the foolish prophets who go after the spirit which is in them and have seen nothing!

⁴O Israel, your prophets have been like jackals in the waste places.

⁵You have not gone up into the broken places or made up the wall for the children of Israel to take your place in the fight in the day of the Lord.

⁶They have seen visions without substance and made use of secret arts, who say, The Lord has said; and the Lord has not sent them: hoping that the word would have effect.

⁷Have you not seen a vision without substance and have you not falsely made use of secret arts, when you say, The Lord has said; though I have said nothing?

⁸So this is what the Lord has said: Because your words are without substance and your visions are false, see, I am against you, says the Lord.

⁹And my hand will be against the prophets who see visions without substance and who make false use of secret arts: they will not be in the secret of my people, and they will not be recorded in the list of the children of Israel, and they will not come into the land of Israel; and it will be clear to you that I am the Lord.

¹⁰Because, even because they have been guiding my people into error, saying, Peace; when there is no peace; and in the building of a division wall they put whitewash on it:

¹¹Say to those who put whitewash on it, There will be an overflowing shower; and you, O ice-drops, will come raining down; and it will be broken in two by the storm-wind.

¹²And when the wall has come down, will they not say to you, Where is the whitewash which you put on it?

¹³For this reason, the Lord has said: I will have it broken in two by a storm-wind in my passion; and there will be an overflowing shower in my wrath, and you, O ice-drops, will come raining angrily down.

¹⁴So I will let the wall, which you were covering with whitewash, be broken down; I will have it levelled to the earth so that its base is uncovered: it will come down, and destruction will come on you with it; and it will be clear to you that I am the Lord.

¹⁵So I will let loose my passion on the wall in full measure, and on those who put whitewash on it; and I will say to you, Where is the wall, and where are those who put whitewash on it?

¹⁶Even the prophets of Israel who say words to Jerusalem, who see visions of peace for her when there is no peace, says the Lord.

¹⁷And you, son of man, let your face be turned against the daughters of your people, who are acting the part of prophets at their pleasure; be a prophet against them, and say,

¹⁸This is what the Lord has said: A curse is on the women who are stitching bands on all arms and putting veils on the heads of those of every size, so that they may go after souls! Will you go after the souls of my people and keep yourselves safe from death?

¹⁹And you have put me to shame among my people for a little barley and some bits of bread, sending death on souls for whom there is no cause of death, and keeping those souls living who have no right to life, by the false words you say to my people who give ear to what is false.

²⁰For this cause the Lord has said: See, I am against your bands with which you go after souls, and I will violently take them off their arms; and I will let loose the souls, even the souls whom you go after freely.

²¹And I will have your veils violently parted in two, and will make my people free from your hands, and they will no longer be in your power for you to go after them; and you will be certain that I am the Lord.

²²Because with your false words you have given pain to the heart of the upright man when I had not made him sad; in order to make strong the hands of the evil-doer so that he may not be turned from his evil way and get life:

²³For this cause you will see no more foolish visions or make false use of secret arts: and I will make my people free from your power; and you will be certain that I am the Lord.

14Then certain of the responsible men of Israel came to me and took their seats before me.

²And the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

³Son of man, these men have taken their false gods into their hearts and put before their faces the sin which is the cause of their fall: am I to give ear when they come to me for directions?

⁴For this cause say to them, These are the words of the Lord: Every man of Israel who has taken his false god into his heart, and put before his face the sin which is the cause of his fall, and comes to the prophet; I the Lord will give him an answer by myself in agreement with the number of his false gods;

⁵So as to take the children of Israel in the thoughts of their hearts, because they have become strange to me through their false gods.

⁶For this cause say to the children of Israel, These are the words of the Lord: Come back and give up your false gods and let your faces be turned from your disgusting things.

⁷When any one of the men of Israel, or of those from other lands who are living in Israel, who has become strange to me, and takes his false gods into his heart, and puts before his face the sin which is the cause of his fall, comes to the prophet to get directions from me; I the Lord will give him an answer by myself:

⁸And my face will be turned against that man, and I will make him a sign and a common saying, cutting him off from among my people; and you will be certain that I am the Lord.

⁹And if the prophet, tricked by deceit, says anything, it is I the Lord by whom he has been tricked, and I will put out my hand against him, and he will be cut off from among my people Israel.

¹⁰And the punishment of their sin will be on them: the sin of the prophet will be the same as the sin of him who goes to him for directions;

¹¹So that the children of Israel may no longer go wandering away from me, or make themselves unclean with all their wrongdoing; but they will be my people, and I will be their God, says the Lord.

¹²And the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

¹³Son of man, when a land, sinning against me, does wrong, and my hand is stretched out against it, and the support of its bread is broken, and I make it short of food, cutting off man and beast from it:

¹⁴Even if these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, only themselves would they keep safe by their righteousness, says the Lord.

¹⁵Or if I send evil beasts through the land causing destruction and making it waste, so that no man may go through because of the beasts:

¹⁶Even if these three men were in it, by my life, says the Lord, they would not keep safe their sons or daughters, but only themselves, and the land would be made waste.

¹⁷Or if I send a sword against that land, and say, Sword, go through the land, cutting off from it man and beast:

¹⁸Even if these three men were in it, by my life, says the Lord, they would not keep safe their sons or daughters, but only themselves.

¹⁹Or if I send disease into that land, letting loose my wrath on it in blood, cutting off from it man and beast:

²⁰Even if Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it, by my life, says the Lord, they would not keep son or daughter safe; only themselves would they keep safe through their righteousness.

²¹For this is what the Lord has said: How much more when I send my four bitter punishments on Jerusalem, the sword and need of food and evil beasts and disease, cutting off from it man and beast?

²²But truly, there will still be a small band who will be safe, even sons and daughters: and they will come out to you, and you will see their ways and their doings: and you will be comforted about the evil which I have sent on Jerusalem, even about everything I have sent on it.

²³They will give you comfort when you see their ways and their doings: and you will be certain that not for nothing have I done all the things I have done in it, says the Lord.

15And the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

²Son of man, what is the vine-tree more than any branching tree which is among the trees of the woods?

³Will its wood be used for any work? do men make of it a pin for hanging any vessel on?

⁴See, it is put into the fire for burning: the fire has made a meal of its two ends and the middle part of it is burned; is it good for any work?

⁵Truly, before it was cut down, it was not used for any purpose: how much less, when the fire has made a meal of it and it is burned, will it be made into anything?

⁶For this cause the Lord has said: Like the vine-tree among the trees of the woods which I have given to the fire for burning, so will I give the people of Jerusalem.

⁷And my face will be turned against them; and though they have come out of the fire they will be burned up by it; and it will be clear to you that I am the Lord when my face is turned against them.

⁸And I will make the land a waste because they have done evil, says the Lord.

16And the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

²Son of man, make clear to Jerusalem her disgusting ways,

³And say, This is what the Lord has said to Jerusalem: Your start and your birth was from the land of the Canaanite; an Amorite was your father and your mother was a Hittite.

⁴As for your birth, on the day of your birth your cord was not cut and you were not washed in water to make you clean; you were not salted or folded in linen bands.

⁵No eye had pity on you to do any of these things to you or to be kind to you; but you were put out into the open country, because your life was hated at the time of your birth.

⁶And when I went past you and saw you stretched out in your blood, I said to you, Though you are stretched out in your blood, have life;

⁷And be increased in number like the buds of the field; and you were increased and became great, and you came to the time of love: your breasts were formed and your hair was long; but you were uncovered and without clothing.

⁸Now when I went past you, looking at you, I saw that your time was the time of love; and I put my skirts over you, covering your unclothed body: and I gave you my oath and made an agreement with you, says the Lord, and you became mine.

⁹Then I had you washed with water, washing away all your blood and rubbing you with oil.

¹⁰And I had you clothed with needlework, and put leather shoes on your feet, folding fair linen about you and covering you with silk.

¹¹And I made you fair with ornaments and put jewels on your hands and a chain on your neck.

¹²And I put a ring in your nose and ear-rings in your ears and a beautiful crown on your head.

¹³So you were made beautiful with gold and silver; and your clothing was of the best linen and silk and needlework; your food was the best meal and honey and oil: and you were very beautiful.

¹⁴You were so beautiful that the story of you went out into all nations; you were completely beautiful because of my glory which I had put on you, says the Lord.

¹⁵But you put your faith in the fact that you were beautiful, acting like a loose woman because you were widely talked of, and offering your cheap love to everyone who went by, whoever it might be.

¹⁶And you took your robes and made high places for yourself ornamented with every colour, acting like a loose woman on them, without shame or fear.

¹⁷And you took the fair jewels, my silver and gold which I had given to you, and made for yourself male images, acting like a loose woman with them;

¹⁸And you took your robes of needlework for their clothing, and put my oil and my perfume before them.

¹⁹And my bread which I gave you, the best meal and oil and honey which I gave you for your food, you put it before them for a sweet smell, says the Lord.

²⁰And you took your sons and your daughters whom I had by you, offering even these to them to be their food. Was your loose behaviour so small a thing,

²¹That you put my children to death and gave them up to go through the fire to them?

²²And in all your disgusting and false behaviour you had no memory of your early days, when you were uncovered and without clothing, stretched out in your blood.

²³And it came about, after all your evil-doing, says the Lord,

²⁴That you made for yourself an arched room in every open place.

²⁵You put up your high places at the top of every street, and made the grace of your form a disgusting thing, opening your feet to everyone who went by, increasing your loose ways.

²⁶And you went with the Egyptians, your neighbours, great of flesh; increasing your loose ways, moving me to wrath.

²⁷Now, then, my hand is stretched out against you, cutting down your fixed amount, and I have given you up to the desire of your haters, the daughters of the Philistines who are shamed by your loose ways.

²⁸And you went with the Assyrians, because of your desire which was without measure; you were acting like a loose woman with them, and still you had not enough.

²⁹And you went on in your loose ways, even as far as the land of Chaldaea, and still you had not enough.

³⁰How feeble is your heart, says the Lord, seeing that you do all these things, the work of a loose and overruling woman;

³¹For you have made your arched room at the top of every street, and your high place in every open place; though you were not like a loose woman in getting together your payment.

³²The untrue wife who takes strange lovers in place of her husband!

³³They give payment to all loose women: but you give rewards to your lovers, offering them payment so that they may come to you on every side for your cheap love.

³⁴And in your loose behaviour you are different from other women, for no one goes after you to make love to you: and because you give payment and no payment is given to you, in this you are different from them.

³⁵For this cause, O loose woman, give ear to the voice of the Lord:

³⁶This is what the Lord has said: Because your unclean behaviour was let loose and your body uncovered in your loose ways with your lovers and with your disgusting images, and for the blood of your children which you gave to them;

³⁷For this cause I will get together all your lovers with whom you have taken your pleasure, and all those to whom you have given your love, with all those who were hated by you; I will even make them come together against you on every side, and I will have you uncovered before them so that they may see your shame.

³⁸And you will be judged by me as women are judged who have been untrue to their husbands and have taken life; and I will let loose against you passion and bitter feeling.

³⁹I will give you into their hands, and your arched room will be overturned and your high places broken down; they will take your clothing off you and take away your fair jewels: and when they have done, you will be uncovered and shamed.

⁴⁰And they will get together a meeting against you, stoning you with stones and wounding you with their swords.

⁴¹And they will have you burned with fire, sending punishments on you before the eyes of great numbers of women; and I will put an end to your loose ways, and you will no longer give payment.

⁴²And the heat of my wrath against you will have an end, and my bitter feeling will be turned away from you, and I will be quiet and will be angry no longer.

⁴³Because you have not kept in mind the days when you were young, but have been troubling me with all these things; for this reason I will make the punishment of your ways come on your head, says the Lord, because you have done this evil thing in addition to all your disgusting acts.

⁴⁴See, in every common saying about you it will be said, As the mother is, so is her daughter.

⁴⁵You are the daughter of your mother whose soul is turned in disgust from her husband and her children; and you are the sister of your sisters who were turned in disgust from their husbands and their children: your mother was a Hittite and your father an Amorite.

⁴⁶Your older sister is Samaria, living at your left hand, she and her daughters: and your younger sister, living at your right hand, is Sodom and her daughters.

⁴⁷Still you have not gone in their ways or done the disgusting things which they have done; but, as if that was only a little thing, you have gone deeper in evil than they in all your ways.

⁴⁸By my life, says the Lord, Sodom your sister never did, she or her daughters, what you and your daughters have done.

⁴⁹Truly, this was the sin of your sister Sodom: pride, a full measure of food, and the comforts of wealth in peace, were seen in her and her daughters, and she gave no help to the poor or to those in need.

⁵⁰They were full of pride and did what was disgusting to me: and so I took them away as you have seen.

⁵¹And Samaria has not done half your sins; but you have made the number of your disgusting acts greater than theirs, making your sisters seem more upright than you by all the disgusting things which you have done.

⁵²And you yourself will be put to shame, in that you have given the decision for your sisters; through your sins, which are more disgusting than theirs, they are more upright than you: truly, you will be shamed and made low, for you have made your sisters seem upright.

⁵³And I will let their fate be changed, the fate of Sodom and her daughters, and the fate of Samaria and her daughters, and your fate with theirs.

⁵⁴So that you will be shamed and made low because of all you have done, when I have mercy on you.

⁵⁵And your sisters, Sodom and her daughters, will go back to their first condition, and Samaria and her daughters will go back to their first condition, and you and your daughters will go back to your first condition.

⁵⁶Was not your sister Sodom an oath in your mouth in the day of your pride,

⁵⁷Before your shame was uncovered? Now you have become like her a word of shame to the daughters of Edom and all who are round about you, the daughters of the Philistines who put shame on you round about.

⁵⁸The reward of your evil designs and your disgusting ways has come on you, says the Lord.

⁵⁹For this is what the Lord has said: I will do to you as you have done, you who, putting the oath on one side, have let the agreement be broken.

⁶⁰But still I will keep in mind the agreement made with you in the days when you were young, and I will make with you an eternal agreement.

⁶¹Then at the memory of your ways you will be overcome with shame, when I take your sisters, the older and the younger, and give them to you for daughters, but not by your agreement.

⁶²And I will make my agreement with you; and you will be certain that I am the Lord:

⁶³So that, at the memory of these things, you may be at a loss, never opening your mouth because of your shame; when you have my forgiveness for all you have done, says the Lord.

17And the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

²Son of man, give out a dark saying, and make a comparison for the children of Israel,

³And say, This is what the Lord has said: A great eagle with great wings, full of long feathers of different colours, came to Lebanon, and took the top of the cedar:

⁴Biting off the highest of its young branches, he took it to the land of Canaan, and put it in a town of traders.

⁵And he took some of the seed of the land, planting it in fertile earth, placing it by great waters; he put it in like a willow-tree.

⁶And its growth went on and it became a vine, low and widely stretching, whose branches were turned to him and its roots were under him: so it became a vine, putting out branches and young leaves.

⁷And there was another eagle with great wings and thick feathers: and now this vine, pushing out its roots to him, sent out its branches in his direction from the bed where it was planted, so that he might give it water.

⁸He had it planted in a good field by great waters so that it might put out branches and have fruit and be a strong vine.

⁹Say, This is what the Lord has said: Will it do well? will he not have its roots pulled up and its branches cut off, so that all its young leaves may become dry and it may be pulled up by its roots?

¹⁰And if it is planted will it do well? will it not become quite dry at the touch of the east wind, drying up in the bed where it was planted?

¹¹Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

¹²Say now to this uncontrolled people, Are these things not clear to you? Say to them, See, the king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and took its king and its rulers away with him to Babylon;

¹³And he took one of the sons of the king and made an agreement with him; and he put him under an oath, and took away the great men of the land:

¹⁴So that the kingdom might be made low with no power of lifting itself up, but might keep his agreement to be his servants.

¹⁵But he went against his authority in sending representatives to Egypt to get from them horses and a great army. Will he do well? will he be safe who does such things? if the agreement is broken will he be safe?

¹⁶By my life, says the Lord, truly in the place of the king who made him king, whose oath he put on one side and let his agreement with him be broken, even in Babylon he will come to his death.

¹⁷And Pharaoh with his strong army and great forces will be no help to him in the war, when they put up earthworks and make strong walls for the cutting off of lives:

¹⁸For he put his oath on one side in letting the agreement be broken; and though he had given his hand to it, he did all these things; he will not get away safe.

¹⁹And so the Lord has said, By my life, truly, for my oath which he put on one side, and my agreement which has been broken, I will send punishment on his head.

²⁰My net will be stretched out over him, and he will be taken in my cords, and I will send him to Babylon, and there I will be his judge for the wrong which he has done against me.

²¹All his best fighting-men will be put to the sword, and the rest will be sent away to every wind: and you will be certain that I the Lord have said it.

²²This is what the Lord has said: Further, I will take the highest top of the cedar and put it in the earth; cutting off from the highest of his young branches a soft one, I will have it planted on a high and great mountain;

²³It will be planted on the high mountain of Israel: it will put out branches and have fruit and be a fair cedar: under it all birds of every sort will make their living-place, resting in the shade of its branches.

²⁴And it will be clear to all the trees of the field that I the Lord have made low the high tree and made high the low tree, drying up the green tree and making the dry tree full of growth; I the Lord have said it and have done it.

18The word of the Lord came to me again, saying,

²Why do you make use of this saying about the land of Israel, The fathers have been tasting bitter grapes and the children's teeth are on edge?

³By my life, says the Lord, you will no longer have this saying in Israel.

⁴See, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so the soul of the son is mine: death will be the fate of the sinner's soul.

⁵But if a man is upright, living rightly and doing righteousness,

⁶And has not taken flesh with the blood for food, or given worship to the images of the children of Israel; if he has not had connection with his neighbour's wife, or come near to a woman at the time when she is unclean;

⁷And has done no wrong to any, but has given back to the debtor what is his, and has taken no one's goods by force, and has given food to him who was in need of it, and clothing to him who was without it;

⁸And has not given his money out at interest or taken great profits, and, turning his hand from evil-doing, has kept faith between man and man,

⁹And has been guided by my rules and has kept my laws and done them: he is upright, life will certainly be his, says the Lord.

¹⁰If he has a son who is a thief, a taker of life, who does any of these things,

¹¹Who has taken flesh with the blood as food, and has had connection with his neighbour's wife,

¹²Has done wrong to the poor and to him who is in need, and taken property by force, and has not given back to one in his debt what is his, and has given worship to images and has done disgusting things,

¹³And has given out his money at interest and taken great profits: he will certainly not go on living: he has done all these disgusting things: death will certainly be his fate; his blood will be on him.

¹⁴Now if he has a son who sees all his father's sins which he has done, and in fear does not do the same:

¹⁵Who has not taken the flesh with the blood for food, or given worship to the images of the children of Israel, and has not had connection with his neighbour's wife,

¹⁶Or done wrong to any, or taken anything from one in his debt, or taken goods by force, but has given food to him who was in need of it, and clothing to him who was without it;

¹⁷Who has kept his hand from evil-doing and has not taken interest or great profits, who has done my orders and been guided by my rules: he will certainly not be put to death for the evil-doing of his father; life will certainly be his.

¹⁸As for his father, because he was cruel, took goods by force, and did what is not good among his people, truly, death will overtake him in his evil-doing.

¹⁹But you say, Why does not the son undergo punishment for the evil-doing of the father? When the son has done what is ordered and right, and has kept my rules and done them, life will certainly be his.

²⁰The soul which does sin will be put to death: the son will not be made responsible for the evil-doing of the father, or the father for the evil-doing of the son; the righteousness of the upright will be on himself, and the evil-doing of the evil-doer on himself.

²¹But if the evil-doer, turning away from all the sins which he has done, keeps my rules and does what is ordered and right, life will certainly be his; death will not be his fate.

²²Not one of the sins which he has done will be kept in memory against him: in the righteousness which he has done he will have life.

²³Have I any pleasure in the death of the evil-doer? says the Lord: am I not pleased if he is turned from his way so that he may have life?

²⁴But when the upright man, turning away from his righteousness, does evil, like all the disgusting things which the evil man does, will he have life? Not one of his upright acts will be kept in memory: in the wrong which he has done and in his sin death will overtake him.

²⁵But you say, The way of the Lord is not equal. Give ear, now, O children of Israel; is my way not equal? are not your ways unequal?

²⁶When the upright man, turning away from his righteousness, does evil, death will overtake him; in the evil which he has done death will overtake him.

²⁷Again, when the evil-doer, turning away from the evil he has done, does what is ordered and right, he will have life for his soul.

²⁸Because he had fear and was turned away from all the wrong which he had done, life will certainly be his, death will not be his fate.

²⁹But still the children of Israel say, The way of the Lord is not equal. O children of Israel, are my ways not equal? are not your ways unequal?

³⁰For this cause I will be your judge, O children of Israel, judging every man by his ways, says the Lord. Come back and be turned from all your sins; so that they may not be the cause of your falling into evil.

³¹Put away all your evil-doing in which you have done sin; and make for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit: why are you desiring death, O children of Israel?

³²For I have no pleasure in the death of him on whom death comes, says the Lord: be turned back then, and have life.

19Take up now a song of grief for the ruler of Israel, and say,

²What was your mother? Like a she-lion among lions, stretched out among the young lions she gave food to her little ones.

³And one of her little ones came to growth under her care, and became a young lion, learning to go after beasts for his food; and he took men for his meat.

⁴And the nations had news of him; he was taken in the hole they had made: and, pulling him with hooks, they took him into the land of Egypt.

⁵Now when she saw that her hope was made foolish and gone, she took another of her little ones and made him into a young lion.

⁶And he went up and down among the lions and became a young lion, learning to go after beasts for his food; and he took men for his meat.

⁷And he sent destruction on their widows and made waste their towns; and the land and everything in it became waste because of the loud sound of his voice.

⁸Then the nations came against him from the kingdoms round about: their net was stretched over him and he was taken in the hole they had made.

⁹They made him a prisoner with hooks, and took him to the king of Babylon; they put him in the strong place so that his voice might be sounding no longer on the mountains of Israel.

¹⁰Your mother was in comparison like a vine, planted by the waters: she was fertile and full of branches because of the great waters.

¹¹And she had a strong rod for a rod of authority for the rulers, and it became tall among the clouds and it was seen lifted up among the number of its branches.

¹²But she was uprooted in burning wrath, and made low on the earth; the east wind came, drying her up, and her branches were broken off; her strong rod became dry, the fire made a meal of it.

¹³And now she is planted in the waste land, in a dry and unwatered country.

¹⁴And fire has gone out from her rod, causing the destruction of her branches, so that there is no strong rod in her to be the ruler's rod of authority. This is a song of grief, and it was for a song of grief.

20Now it came about in the seventh year, in the fifth month, on the tenth day of the month, that certain of the responsible men of Israel came to get directions from the Lord and were seated before me.

²Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

³Son of man, say to the responsible men of Israel, This is what the Lord has said: Have you come to get directions from me? By my life, says the Lord, you will get no directions from me.

⁴Will you be their judge, O son of man, will you be their judge? make clear to them the disgusting ways of their fathers,

⁵And say to them, This is what the Lord has said: In the day when I took Israel for myself, when I made an oath to the seed of the family of Jacob, and I gave them knowledge of myself in the land of Egypt, saying to them with an oath, I am the Lord your God;

⁶In that day I gave my oath to take them out of the land of Egypt into a land which I had been searching out for them, a land flowing with milk and honey, the glory of all lands:

⁷And I said to them, Let every man among you put away the disgusting things to which his eyes are turned, and do not make yourselves unclean with the images of Egypt; I am the Lord your God.

⁸But they would not be controlled by me, and did not give ear to me; they did not put away the disgusting things to which their eyes were turned, or give up the images of Egypt: then I said I would let loose my passion on them to give full effect to my wrath against them in the land of Egypt.

⁹And I was acting for the honour of my name, so that it might not be made unclean before the eyes of the nations among whom they were, and before whose eyes I gave them knowledge of myself, by taking them out of the land of Egypt.

¹⁰So I made them go out of the land of Egypt and took them into the waste land.

¹¹And I gave them my rules and made clear to them my orders, which, if a man keeps them, will be life to him.

¹²And further, I gave them my Sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, so that it might be clear that I, who make them holy, am the Lord.

¹³But the children of Israel would not be controlled by me in the waste land: they were not guided by my rules, and they were turned away from my orders, which, if a man does them, will be life to him; and they had no respect for my Sabbaths: then I said that I would let loose my passion on them in the waste land, and put an end to them.

¹⁴And I was acting for the honour of my name, so that it might not be made unclean in the eyes of the nations, before whose eyes I had taken them out.

¹⁵And further, I gave my oath to them in the waste land, that I would not take them into the land which I had given them, a land flowing with milk and honey, the glory of all lands;

¹⁶Because they were turned away from my orders, and were not guided by my rules, and had no respect for my Sabbaths: for their hearts went after their images.

¹⁷But still my eye had pity on them and I kept them from destruction and did not put an end to them completely in the waste land.

¹⁸And I said to their children in the waste land, Do not be guided by the rules of your fathers or keep their orders or make yourselves unclean with their images:

¹⁹I am the Lord your God; be guided by my rules and keep my orders and do them:

²⁰And keep my Sabbaths holy; and they will be a sign between me and you so that it may be clear to you that I am the Lord your God.

²¹But the children would not be controlled by me; they were not guided by my rules, and they did not keep and do my orders, which, if a man does them, will be life to him; and they had no respect for my Sabbaths: then I said I would let loose my passion on them to give full effect to my wrath against them in the waste land.

²²And I was acting for the honour of my name, so that it might not be made unclean in the eyes of the nations, before whose eyes I had taken them out.

²³Further, I gave my oath to them in the waste land that I would send them wandering among the nations, driving them out among the countries;

²⁴Because they had not done my orders, but had been turned away from my rules, and had not given respect to my Sabbaths, and their eyes were turned to the images of their fathers.

²⁵And further, I gave them rules which were not good and orders in which there was no life for them;

²⁶I made them unclean in the offerings they gave, causing them to make every first child go through the fire, so that I might put an end to them.

²⁷For this cause, son of man, say to the children of Israel, This is what the Lord has said: In this your fathers have further put shame on my name by doing wrong against me.

²⁸For when I had taken them into the land which I made an oath to give to them, then they saw every high hill and every branching tree and made their offerings there, moving me to wrath by their offerings; and there the sweet smell of their offerings went up and their drink offerings were drained out.

²⁹Then I said to them, What is this high place where you go to no purpose? And it is named Bamah to this day.

³⁰For this cause say to the children of Israel, This is what the Lord has said: Are you making yourselves unclean as your fathers did? are you being untrue to me by going after their disgusting works?

³¹And when you give your offerings, causing your sons to go through the fire, you make yourselves unclean with all your images to this day; and will you come to me for directions, O children of Israel? By my life, says the Lord, you will get no direction from me.

³²And that which comes into your minds will never take place; when you say, We will be like the nations, like the families of the countries, servants of wood and stone;

³³By my life, says the Lord, truly, with a strong hand and with an outstretched arm and with burning wrath let loose, I will be King over you:

³⁴And I will take you out from the peoples and get you together out of the countries where you are wandering, with a strong hand and with an outstretched arm and with burning wrath let loose:

³⁵And I will take you into the waste land of the peoples, and there I will take up the cause with you face to face.

³⁶As I took up the cause with your fathers in the waste land of the land of Egypt, so will I take up the cause with you says the Lord.

³⁷And I will make you go under the rod and will make you small in number:

³⁸Clearing out from among you all those who are uncontrolled and who are sinning against me; I will take them out of the land where they are living, but they will not come into the land of Israel: and you will be certain that I am the Lord.

³⁹As for you, O children of Israel, the Lord has said: Let every man completely put away his images and give ear to me: and let my holy name no longer be shamed by your offerings and your images.

⁴⁰For in my holy mountain, in the high mountain of Israel, says the Lord, there all the children of Israel, all of them, will be my servants in the land; there I will take pleasure in them, and there I will be worshipped with your offerings and the first-fruits of the things you give, and with all your holy things.

⁴¹I will take pleasure in you as in a sweet smell, when I take you out from the peoples and get you together from the countries where you have been sent in flight; and I will make myself holy in you before the eyes of the nations.

⁴²And you will be certain that I am the Lord, when I take you into the land of Israel, into the country which I made an oath to give to your fathers.

⁴³And there, at the memory of your ways and of all the things you did to make yourselves unclean, you will have bitter hate for yourselves because of all the evil things you have done.

⁴⁴And you will be certain that I am the Lord, when I take you in hand for the honour of my name, and not for your evil ways or your unclean doings, O children of Israel, says the Lord.

⁴⁵Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

⁴⁶Son of man, let your face be turned to the south, let your words be dropped to the south, and be a prophet against the woodland of the South;

⁴⁷And say to the woodland of the South, Give ear to the words of the Lord: this is what the Lord has said: See, I will have a fire lighted in you, for the destruction of every green tree in you and every dry tree: the flaming flame will not be put out, and all faces from the south to the north will be burned by it.

⁴⁸And all flesh will see that I the Lord have had it lighted: it will not be put out.

⁴⁹Then I said, Ah, Lord! they say of me, Is he not a maker of stories?

21And the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

²Son of man, let your face be turned to Jerusalem, let your words be dropped in the direction of her holy place, and be a prophet against the land of Israel;

³And say to the land of Israel, These are the words of the Lord: See, I am against you, and I will take my sword out of its cover, cutting off from you the upright and the evil.

⁴Because I am going to have the upright and the evil cut off from you, for this cause my sword will go out from its cover against all flesh from the south to the north:

⁵And all flesh will see that I the Lord have taken my sword out of its cover: and it will never go back.

⁶Make sounds of grief, son of man; with body bent and a bitter heart make sounds of grief before their eyes.

⁷And when they say to you, Why are you making sounds of grief? then say, Because of the news, for it is coming: and every heart will become soft, and all hands will be feeble, and every spirit will be burning low, and all knees will be turned to water: see, it is coming and it will be done, says the Lord.

⁸And the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

⁹Son of man, say as a prophet, These are the words of the Lord: Say, A sword, a sword which has been made sharp and polished:

¹⁰It has been made sharp to give death; it is polished so that it may be like a thunder-flame: ...

¹¹And I have given it to the polisher so that it may be taken in the hand: he has made the sword sharp, he has had it polished, to put it into the hand of him who gives death.

¹²Give loud cries and make sounds of grief, O son of man: for it has come on my people, it has come on all the rulers of Israel: fear of the sword has come on my people: for this cause give signs of grief.

¹³...

¹⁴So then, son of man, be a prophet, and put your hands together with a loud sound, and give two blows with the sword, and even three; it is the sword of those who are wounded, even the sword of the wounded; the great sword which goes round about them.

¹⁵In order that hearts may become soft, and the number of those who are falling may be increased, I have sent death by the sword against all their doors: you are made like a flame, you are polished for death.

¹⁶Be pointed to the right, to the left, wherever your edge is ordered.

¹⁷And I will put my hands together with a loud sound, and I will let my wrath have rest: I the Lord have said it.

¹⁸And the word of the Lord came to me again, saying,

¹⁹And you, son of man, have two ways marked out, so that the sword of the king of Babylon may come; let the two of them come out of one land: and let there be a pillar at the top of the road:

²⁰Put a pillar at the top of the road for the sword to come to Rabbah in the land of the children of Ammon, and to Judah and to Jerusalem in the middle of her.

²¹For the king of Babylon took his place at the parting of the ways, at the top of the two roads, to make use of secret arts: shaking the arrows this way and that, he put questions to the images of his gods, he took note of the inner parts of dead beasts.

²²At his right hand was the fate of Jerusalem, to give orders for destruction, to send up the war-cry, to put engines of war against the doors, lifting up earthworks, building walls.

²³And this answer given by secret arts will seem false to those who have given their oaths and have let them be broken: but he will keep the memory of evil-doing so that they may be taken.

²⁴For this cause the Lord has said: Because you have made your evil-doing come to mind by the uncovering of your wrongdoing, causing your sins to be seen in all your evil-doings; because you have come to mind, you will be taken in them.

²⁵And you, O evil one, wounded to death, O ruler of Israel, whose day has come in the time of the last punishment;

²⁶This is what the Lord has said: Take away the holy head-dress, take off the crown: this will not be again: let that which is low be lifted up, and that which is high be made low.

²⁷I will let it be overturned, overturned, overturned: this will not be again till he comes whose right it is; and I will give it to him.

²⁸And you, son of man, say as a prophet, This is what the Lord has said about the children of Ammon and about their shame: Say, A sword, even a sword let loose, polished for death, to make it shining so that it may be like a flame:

²⁹Your vision is to no purpose, your use of secret arts gives a false answer, to put it on the necks of evil-doers who are wounded to death, whose day has come, in the time of the last punishment.

³⁰Go back into your cover. In the place where you were made, in the land from which you were taken, I will be your judge.

³¹And I will let loose my burning passion on you, breathing out on you the fire of my wrath: and I will give you up into the hands of men like beasts, trained to destruction.

³²You will be food for the fire; your blood will be drained out in the land; there will be no more memory of you: for I the Lord have said it.

22And the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

²And you, son of man, will you be a judge, will you be a judge of the town of blood? then make clear to her all her disgusting ways.

³And you are to say, This is what the Lord has said: A town causing blood to be drained out in her streets so that her time may come, and making images in her to make her unclean!

⁴You are responsible for the blood drained out by you, and you are unclean through the images which you have made; and you have made your day come near, and the time of your judging has come; for this cause I have made you a name of shame to the nations and a cause of laughing to all countries.

⁵Those who are near and those who are far from you will make sport of you; your name is unclean, you are full of sounds of fear.

⁶See, the rulers of Israel, every one in his family, have been causing death in you.

⁷In you they have had no respect for father and mother; in you they have been cruel to the man from a strange land; in you they have done wrong to the child without a father and to the widow.

⁸You have made little of my holy things, and have made my Sabbaths unclean.

⁹In you there are men who say evil of others, causing death; in you they have taken the flesh with the blood for food; in your streets they have put evil designs into effect.

¹⁰In you they have let the shame of their fathers be seen; in you they have done wrong to a woman at the time when she was unclean.

¹¹And in you one man has done what was disgusting with his neighbour's wife; and another has made his daughter-in-law unclean; and another has done wrong to his sister, his father's daughter.

¹²In you they have taken rewards as the price of blood; you have taken interest and great profits, and you have taken away your neighbours' goods by force, and have not kept me in mind, says the Lord.

¹³See, then, I have made my hands come together in wrath against your taking of goods by force and against the blood which has been flowing in you.

¹⁴Will your heart be high or your hands strong in the days when I take you in hand? I the Lord have said it and will do it.

¹⁵And I will send you in flight among the nations and wandering among the countries; and I will completely take away out of you everything which is unclean.

¹⁶And you will be made low before the eyes of the nations; and it will be clear to you that I am the Lord.

¹⁷And the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

¹⁸Son of man, the children of Israel have become like the poorest sort of waste metal to me: they are all silver and brass and tin and iron and lead mixed with waste.

¹⁹For this cause the Lord has said: Because you have all become waste metal, see, I will get you together inside Jerusalem.

²⁰As they put silver and brass and iron and lead and tin together inside the oven, heating up the fire on it to make it soft; so will I get you together in my wrath and in my passion, and, heating the fire with my breath, will make you soft.

²¹Yes, I will take you, breathing on you the fire of my wrath, and you will become soft in it.

²²As silver becomes soft in the oven, so you will become soft in it; and you will be certain that I the Lord have let loose my passion on you.

²³And the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

²⁴Son of man, say to her, You are a land on which no rain or thunderstorm has come in the day of wrath.

²⁵Her rulers in her are like a loud-voiced lion violently taking his food; they have made a meal of souls; they have taken wealth and valued property; they have made great the number of widows in her.

²⁶Her priests have been acting violently against my law; they have made my holy things unclean: they have made no division between what is holy and what is common, and they have not made it clear that the unclean is different from the clean, and their eyes have been shut to my Sabbaths, and I am not honoured among them.

²⁷Her rulers in her are like wolves violently taking their food; putting men to death and causing the destruction of souls, so that they may get their profit.

²⁸And her prophets have been using whitewash, seeing foolish visions and making false use of secret arts, saying, This is what the Lord has said, when the Lord has said nothing.

²⁹The people of the land have been acting cruelly, taking men's goods by force; they have been hard on the poor and those in need, and have done wrong to the man from a strange land.

³⁰And I was looking for a man among them who would make up the wall and take his station in the broken place before me for the land, so that I might not send destruction on it: but there was no one.

³¹And I let loose my passion on them, and have put an end to them in the fire of my wrath: I have made the punishment of their ways come on their heads, says the Lord.

23The word of the Lord came to me again, saying,

²Son of man, there were two women, daughters of one mother:

³They were acting like loose women in Egypt; when they were young their behaviour was loose: there their breasts were crushed, even the points of their young breasts were crushed.

⁴Their names were Oholah, the older, and Oholibah, her sister: and they became mine, and gave birth to sons and daughters. As for their names, Samaria is Oholah, and Jerusalem, Oholibah.

⁵And Oholah was untrue to me when she was mine; she was full of desire for her lovers, even for the Assyrians, her neighbours,

⁶Who were clothed in blue, captains and rulers, all of them young men to be desired, horsemen seated on horses.

⁷And she gave her unclean love to them, all of them the noblest men of Assyria: and she made herself unclean with the images of all who were desired by her.

⁸And she has not given up her loose ways from the time when she was in Egypt; for when she was young they were her lovers, and by them her young breasts were crushed, and they let loose on her their unclean desire.

⁹For this cause I gave her up into the hands of her lovers, into the hands of the Assyrians on whom her desire was fixed.

¹⁰By these her shame was uncovered: they took her sons and daughters and put her to death with the sword: and she became a cause of wonder to women; for they gave her the punishment which was right.

¹¹And her sister Oholibah saw this, but her desire was even more unmeasured, and her loose behaviour was worse than that of her sister.

¹²She was full of desire for the Assyrians, captains and rulers, her neighbours, clothed in blue, horsemen going on horses, all of them young men to be desired.

¹³And I saw that she had become unclean; the two of them went the same way.

¹⁴And her loose behaviour became worse; for she saw men pictured on a wall, pictures of the Chaldaeans painted in bright red,

¹⁵With bands round their bodies and with head-dresses hanging round their heads, all of them looking like rulers, like the Babylonians, the land of whose birth is Chaldaea.

¹⁶And when she saw them she was full of desire for them, and sent servants to them in Chaldaea.

¹⁷And the Babylonians came to her, into the bed of love, and made her unclean with their loose desire, and she became unclean with them, and her soul was turned from them.

¹⁸So her loose behaviour was clearly seen and her shame uncovered: then my soul was turned from her as it had been turned from her sister.

¹⁹But still she went on the more with her loose behaviour, keeping in mind the early days when she had been a loose woman in the land of Egypt.

²⁰And she was full of desire for her lovers, whose flesh is like the flesh of asses and whose seed is like the seed of horses.

²¹And she made the memory of the loose ways of her early years come back to mind, when her young breasts were crushed by the Egyptians.

²²For this cause, O Oholibah, this is what the Lord has said: See, I will make your lovers come up against you, even those from whom your soul is turned away in disgust; and I will make them come up against you on every side;

²³The Babylonians and all the Chaldaeans, Pekod and Shoa and Koa, and all the Assyrians with them: young men to be desired, captains and rulers all of them, and chiefs, her neighbours, all of them on horseback.

²⁴And they will come against you from the north on horseback, with war-carriages and a great band of peoples; they will put themselves in order against you with breastplate and body-cover and metal head-dress round about you: and I will make them your judges, and they will give their decision against you as seems right to them.

²⁵And my bitter feeling will be working against you, and they will take you in hand with passion; they will take away your nose and your ears, and the rest of you will be put to the sword: they will take your sons and daughters, and the rest of you will be burned up in the fire.

²⁶And they will take all your clothing off you and take away your ornaments.

²⁷So I will put an end to your evil ways and your loose behaviour which came from the land of Egypt: and your eyes will never be lifted up to them again, and you will have no more memory of Egypt.

²⁸For this is what the Lord has said: See, I will give you up into the hands of those who are hated by you, into the hands of those from whom your soul is turned away in disgust:

²⁹And they will take you in hand with hate, and take away all the fruit of your work, and let you be unveiled and without clothing: and the shame of your loose behaviour will be uncovered, your evil designs and your loose ways.

³⁰They will do these things to you because you have been untrue to me, and have gone after the nations, and have become unclean with their images.

³¹You have gone in the way of your sister; and I will give her cup into your hand.

³²This is what the Lord has said: You will take a drink from your sister's cup, which is deep and wide: you will be laughed at and looked down on, more than you are able to undergo.

³³You will be broken and full of sorrow, with the cup of wonder and destruction, with the cup of your sister Samaria.

³⁴And after drinking it and draining it out, you will take the last drops of it to the end, pulling off your breasts: for I have said it, says the Lord.

³⁵So this is what the Lord has said: Because you have not kept me in your memory, and because your back has been turned to me, you will even undergo the punishment of your evil designs and your loose ways.

³⁶Then the Lord said to me: Son of man, will you be the judge of Oholibah? then make clear to her the disgusting things she has done.

³⁷For she has been false to me, and blood is on her hands, and with her images she has been untrue; and more than this, she made her sons, whom she had by me, go through the fire to them to be burned up.

³⁸Further, this is what she has done to me: she has made my holy place unclean and has made my Sabbaths unclean.

³⁹For when she had made an offering of her children to her images, she came into my holy place to make it unclean; see, this is what she has done inside my house.

⁴⁰And she even sent for men to come from far away, to whom a servant was sent, and they came: for whom she was washing her body and painting her eyes and making herself fair with ornaments.

⁴¹And she took her seat on a great bed, with a table put ready before it on which she put my perfume and my oil.

⁴²... and they put jewels on her hands and beautiful crowns on her head.

⁴³Then I said ... now she will go on with her loose ways.

⁴⁴And they went in to her, as men go to a loose woman: so they went in to Oholibah, the loose woman.

⁴⁵And upright men will be her judges, judging her as false wives and women who take lives are judged; because she has been untrue to me and blood is on her hands.

⁴⁶For this is what the Lord has said: I will make a great meeting of the people come together against her, and will send on her shaking fear and take everything from her.

⁴⁷And the meeting, after stoning her with stones, will put an end to her with their swords; they will put her sons and daughters to death and have her house burned up with fire.

⁴⁸And I will put an end to evil in all the land, teaching all women not to do as you have done.

⁴⁹And I will send on you the punishment of your evil ways, and you will be rewarded for your sins with your images: and you will be certain that I am the Lord.

24And the word of the Lord came to me in the ninth year, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, saying,

²Son of man, put down in writing this very day: The king of Babylon let loose the weight of his attack against Jerusalem on this very day.

³And make a comparison for this uncontrolled people, and say to them, This is what the Lord has said: Put on the cooking-pot, put it on the fire and put water in it:

⁴And get the bits together, the fat tail, every good part, the leg and the top part of it: make it full of the best bones.

⁵Take the best of the flock, put much wood under it: see that its bits are boiling well; let the bones be cooked inside it.

⁶For this is what the Lord has said: A curse is on the town of blood, the cooking-pot which is unclean inside, which has never been made clean! take out its bits; its fate is still to come on it.

⁷For her blood is in her; she has put it on the open rock not draining it on to the earth so that it might be covered with dust;

⁸In order that it might make wrath come up to give punishment, she has put her blood on the open rock, so that it may not be covered.

⁹For this cause the Lord has said: A curse is on the town of blood! and I will make great the burning mass.

¹⁰Put on much wood, heating up the fire, boiling the flesh well, and making the soup thick, and let the bones be burned.

¹¹And I will put her on the coals so that she may be heated and her brass burned, so that what is unclean in her may become soft and her waste be completely taken away.

¹²I have made myself tired to no purpose: still all the waste which is in her has not come out, it has an evil smell.

¹³As for your unclean purpose: because I have been attempting to make you clean, but you have not been made clean from it, you will not be made clean till I have let loose my passion on you in full measure.

¹⁴I the Lord have said the word and I will do it; I will not go back or have mercy, and my purpose will not be changed; in the measure of your ways and of your evil doings you will be judged, says the Lord.

¹⁵And the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

¹⁶Son of man, see, I am taking away the desire of your eyes by disease: but let there be no sorrow or weeping or drops running from your eyes.

¹⁷Let there be no sound of sorrow; make no weeping for your dead, put on your head-dress and your shoes on your feet, let not your lips be covered, and do not take the food of those in grief.

¹⁸So in the morning I was teaching the people and in the evening death took my wife; and in the morning I did what I had been ordered to do.

¹⁹And the people said to me, Will you not make clear to us the sense of these things; is it for us you do them?

²⁰Then I said to them, The word of the Lord came to me, saying,

²¹Say to the people of Israel, The Lord has said, See, I will make my holy place unclean, the pride of your strength, the pleasure of your eyes, and the desire of your soul; and your sons and daughters, who did not come with you here, will be put to the sword.

²²And you will do as I have done, not covering your lips or taking the food of those in grief.

²³And your head-dresses will be on your heads and your shoes on your feet: there will be no sorrow or weeping; but you will be wasting away in the punishment of your evil-doing, and you will be looking at one another in wonder.

²⁴And Ezekiel will be a sign to you; everything he has done you will do: when this takes place, you will be certain that I am the Lord.

²⁵And as for you, son of man, your mouth will be shut in the day when I take from them their strength, the joy of their glory, the desire of their eyes, and that on which their hearts are fixed, and their sons and daughters.

²⁶In that day, one who has got away safe will come to you to give you news of it.

²⁷In that day your mouth will be open to him who has got away safe, and you will say words to him and your lips will no longer be shut: so you will be a sign to them and they will be certain that I am the Lord.

25And the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

²Son of man, let your face be turned to the children of Ammon, and be a prophet against them:

³And say to the children of Ammon, Give ear to the word of the Lord; this is what the Lord has said: Because you said, Aha! against my holy place when it was made unclean, and against the land of Israel when it was made waste, and against the people of Judah when they were taken away as prisoners;

⁴For this cause I will give you up to the children of the east for their heritage, and they will put their tent-circles in you and make their houses in you; they will take your fruit for their food and your milk for their drink.

⁵And I will make Rabbah a place for housing camels, and the children of Ammon a resting-place for flocks: and you will be certain that I am the Lord.

⁶For the Lord has said, Because you have made sounds of joy with your hands, stamping your feet, and have been glad, putting shame with all your soul on the land of Israel;

⁷For this cause my hand has been stretched out against you, and I will give up your goods to be taken by the nations; I will have you cut off from the peoples and will put an end to you among the countries: I will give you up to destruction; and you will be certain that I am the Lord.

⁸This is what the Lord has said: Because Moab and Seir are saying, See, the people of Judah are like all the nations;

⁹For this cause, I will let the side of Moab be uncovered, and his towns on every side, the glory of the land, Beth-jeshimoth, Baal-meon and as far as Kiriathaim.

¹⁰To the children of the east I have given her for a heritage, as well as the children of Ammon, so that there may be no memory of her among the nations:

¹¹And I will be the judge of Moab; and they will see that I am the Lord.

¹²This is what the Lord has said: Because Edom has taken his payment from the people of Judah, and has done great wrong in taking payment from them;

¹³The Lord has said, My hand will be stretched out against Edom, cutting off from it man and beast: and I will make it waste, from Teman even as far as Dedan they will be put to the sword.

¹⁴I will take payment from Edom because of my people Israel; and I will take Edom in hand in my wrath and in my passion: and they will have experience of my reward, says the Lord.

¹⁵This is what the Lord has said: Because the Philistines have taken payment, with the purpose of causing shame and destruction with unending hate;

¹⁶The Lord has said, See, my hand will be stretched out against the Philistines, cutting off the Cherethites and sending destruction on the rest of the sea-land.

¹⁷And I will take great payment from them with acts of wrath; and they will be certain that I am the Lord when I send my punishment on them.

26Now in the eleventh year, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

²Son of man, because Tyre has said against Jerusalem, Aha, she who was the doorway of the peoples is broken; she is turned over to them; she who was full is made waste;

³For this cause the Lord has said, See, I am against you, O Tyre, and will send up a number of nations against you as the sea sends up its waves.

⁴And they will give the walls of Tyre to destruction and have its towers broken: and I will take even her dust away from her, and make her an uncovered rock

⁵She will be a place for the stretching out of nets in the middle of the sea; for I have said it, says the Lord: and her goods will be given over to the nations.

⁶And her daughters in the open country will be put to the sword: and they will be certain that I am the Lord.

⁷For this is what the Lord has said: See, I will send up from the north Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, king of kings, against Tyre, with horses and war-carriages and with an army and great numbers of people.

⁸He will put to the sword your daughters in the open country: he will make strong walls against you and put up an earthwork against you, arming himself for war against you.

⁹He will put up his engines of war against your walls, and your towers will be broken down by his axes.

¹⁰Because of the number of his horses you will be covered with their dust: your walls will be shaking at the noise of the horsemen and of the wheels and of the war-carriages, when he comes through your doorways, as into a town which has been broken open.

¹¹Your streets will be stamped down by the feet of his horses: he will put your people to the sword, and will send down the pillars of your strength to the earth.

¹²They will take by force all your wealth and go off with the goods with which you do trade: they will have your walls broken down and all the houses of your desire given up to destruction: they will put your stones and your wood and your dust deep in the water.

¹³I will put an end to the noise of your songs, and the sound of your instruments of music will be gone for ever.

¹⁴I will make you an uncovered rock: you will be a place for the stretching out of nets; there will be no building you up again: for I the Lord have said it, says the Lord.

¹⁵This is what the Lord has said to Tyre: Will not the sea-lands be shaking at the sound of your fall, when the wounded give cries of pain, when men are put to the sword in you?

¹⁶Then all the rulers of the sea will come down from their high seats, and put away their robes and take off their clothing of needlework: they will put on the clothing of grief, they will take their seats on the earth, shaking with fear every minute and overcome with wonder at you.

¹⁷And they will send up a song of grief for you, and say to you, What destruction has come on you, how are you cut off from the sea, the noted town, which was strong in the sea, she and her people, causing the fear of them to come on all the dry land!

¹⁸Now the sea-lands will be shaking in the day of your fall; and all the ships on the sea will be overcome with fear at your going.

¹⁹For this is what the Lord has said: I will make you a waste town, like the towns which are unpeopled; when I make the deep come upon you, covering you with great waters.

²⁰Then I will make you go down with those who go down into the underworld, to the people of the past, causing your living-place to be in the deepest parts of the earth, in places long unpeopled, with those who go down into the deep, so that there will be no one living in you; and you will have no glory in the land of the living.

²¹I will make you a thing of fear, and you will come to an end: even if you are looked for, you will not be seen again for ever, says the Lord.

27The word of the Lord came to me again, saying,

²And you, son of man, make a song of grief for Tyre;

³And say to Tyre, O you who are seated at the doorway of the sea, trading for the peoples with the great sea-lands, these are the words of the Lord: You, O Tyre, have said, I am a ship completely beautiful.

⁴Your builders have made your outlines in the heart of the seas, they have made you completely beautiful.

⁵They have made all your boards of fir-trees from Senir: they have taken cedars from Lebanon to make the supports for your sails.

⁶Of oak-trees from Bashan they have made your driving blades; they have made your floors of ivory and boxwood from the sea-lands of Kittim.

⁷The best linen with needlework from Egypt was your sail, stretched out to be a flag for you; blue and purple from the sea-lands of Elishah gave you shade.

⁸The people of Zidon and Arvad were your boatmen; the wise men of Zemer were in you; they were guiding your ships;

⁹The responsible men of Gebal and its wise men were in you, making your boards watertight: all the ships of the sea with their seamen were in you trading in your goods.

¹⁰Cush and Lud and Put were in your army, your men of war, hanging up their body-covers and head-dresses of war in you: they gave you your glory.

¹¹The men of Arvad in your army were on your walls, and were watchmen in your towers, hanging up their arms on your walls round about; they made you completely beautiful.

¹²Tarshish did business with you because of the great amount of your wealth; they gave silver, iron, tin, and lead for your goods.

¹³Javan, Tubal, and Meshech were your traders; they gave living men and brass vessels for your goods.

¹⁴The people of Togarmah gave horses and war-horses and transport beasts for your goods.

¹⁵The men of Rodan were your traders: a great number of sea-lands did business with you: they gave you horns of ivory and ebony as an offering.

¹⁶Edom did business with you because of the great number of things which you made; they gave emeralds, purple, and needlework, and the best linen and coral and rubies for your goods.

¹⁷Judah and the land of Israel were your traders; they gave grain of Minnith and sweet cakes and honey and oil and perfume for your goods.

¹⁸Damascus did business with you because of the great amount of your wealth, with wine of Helbon and white wool.

¹⁹... for your goods: they gave polished iron and spices for your goods.

²⁰Dedan did trade with you in cloths for the backs of horses.

²¹Arabia and all the rulers of Kedar did business with you; in lambs and sheep and goats, in these they did business with you.

²²The traders of Sheba and Raamah did trade with you; they gave the best of all sorts of spices and all sorts of stones of great price and gold for your goods.

²³Haran and Canneh and Eden, the traders of Asshur and all the Medes:

²⁴These were your traders in beautiful robes, in rolls of blue and needlework, and in chests of coloured cloth, corded with cords and made of cedar-wood, in them they did trade with you.

²⁵Tarshish ships did business for you in your goods: and you were made full, and great was your glory in the heart of the seas.

²⁶Your boatmen have taken you into great waters: you have been broken by the east wind in the heart of the seas.

²⁷Your wealth and your goods, the things in which you do trade, your seamen and those guiding your ships, those who make your boards watertight, and those who do business with your goods, and all your men of war who are in you, with all who have come together in you, will go down into the heart of the seas in the day of your downfall.

²⁸At the sound of the cry of your ships' guides, the boards of the ship will be shaking.

²⁹And all the boatmen, the seamen and those who are expert at guiding a ship through the sea, will come down from their ships and take their places on the land;

³⁰And their voices will be sounding over you, and crying bitterly they will put dust on their heads, rolling themselves in the dust:

³¹And they will have the hair of their heads cut off because of you, and will put haircloth on their bodies, weeping for you with bitter grief in their souls, even with bitter sorrow.

³²And in their weeping they will make a song of grief for you, sorrowing over you and saying, Who is like Tyre, who has come to an end in the deep sea?

³³When your goods went out over the seas, you made numbers of peoples full; the wealth of the kings of the earth was increased with your great wealth and all your goods.

³⁴Now that you are broken by the seas in the deep waters, your goods and all your people will go down with you.

³⁵All the people of the sea-lands are overcome with wonder at you, and their kings are full of fear, their faces are troubled.

³⁶Those who do business among the peoples make sounds of surprise at you; you have become a thing of fear, you have come to an end for ever.

28The word of the Lord came to me again, saying,

²Son of man, say to the ruler of Tyre, This is what the Lord has said: Because your heart has been lifted up, and you have said, I am a god, I am seated on the seat of God in the heart of the seas; but you are man and not God, though you have made your heart as the heart of God:

³See, you are wiser than Daniel; there is no secret which is deeper than your knowledge:

⁴By your wisdom and deep knowledge you have got power for yourself, and put silver and gold in your store-houses:

⁵By your great wisdom and by your trade your power is increased, and your heart is lifted up because of your power:

⁶For this cause the Lord has said: Because you have made your heart as the heart of God,

⁷See, I am sending against you strange men, feared among the nations: they will let loose their swords against your bright wisdom, they will make your glory a common thing.

⁸They will send you down to the underworld, and your death will be the death of those who are put to the sword in the heart of the seas.

⁹Will you say, in the face of those who are taking your life, I am God? but you are man and not God in the hands of those who are wounding you.

¹⁰Your death will be the death of those who are without circumcision, by the hands of men from strange lands: for I have said it, says the Lord.

¹¹Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

¹²Son of man, make a song of grief for the king of Tyre, and say to him, This is what the Lord has said: You are all-wise and completely beautiful;

¹³You were in Eden, the garden of God; every stone of great price was your clothing, the sardius, the topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the emerald and the carbuncle: your store-houses were full of gold, and things of great price were in you; in the day when you were made they were got ready.

¹⁴I gave you your place with the winged one; I put you on the mountain of God; you went up and down among the stones of fire.

¹⁵There has been no evil in your ways from the day when you were made, till sin was seen in you.

¹⁶Through all your trading you have become full of violent ways, and have done evil: so I sent you out shamed from the mountain of God; the winged one put an end to you from among the stones of fire.

¹⁷Your heart was lifted up because you were beautiful, you made your wisdom evil through your sin: I have sent you down, even to the earth; I have made you low before kings, so that they may see you.

¹⁸By all your sin, even by your evil trading, you have made your holy places unclean; so I will make a fire come out from you, it will make a meal of you, and I will make you as dust on the earth before the eyes of all who see you.

¹⁹All who have knowledge of you among the peoples will be overcome with wonder at you: you have become a thing of fear, and you will never be seen again.

²⁰And the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

²¹Son of man, let your face be turned to Zidon, and be a prophet against it, and say,

²²These are the words of the Lord: See, I am against you, O Zidon; and I will get glory for myself in you: and they will be certain that I am the Lord, when I send my punishments on her, and I will be seen to be holy in her.

²³And I will send on her disease and blood in her streets; and the wounded will be falling in the middle of her, and the sword will be against her on every side; and they will be certain that I am the Lord.

²⁴And there will no longer be a plant with sharp points wounding the children of Israel, or a thorn troubling them among any who are round about them, who put shame on them; and they will be certain that I am the Lord.

²⁵This is what the Lord has said: When I have got together the children of Israel from the peoples among whom they are wandering, and have been made holy among them before the eyes of the nations, then they will have rest in the land which is theirs, which I gave to my servant Jacob

²⁶And they will be safe there, building houses and planting vine-gardens and living without fear; when I have sent my punishments on all those who put shame on them round about them; and they will be certain that I am the Lord their God.

29In the tenth year, in the tenth month, on the twelfth day of the month, the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

²Son of man, let your face be turned against Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and be a prophet against him and against all Egypt:

³Say to them, These are the words of the Lord: See, I am against you, Pharaoh, king of Egypt, the great river-beast stretched out among his Nile streams, who has said, The Nile is mine, and I have made it for myself.

⁴And I will put hooks in your mouth, and the fish of your streams will be hanging from your skin; and I will make you come up out of your streams, with all the fish of your streams hanging from your skin.

⁵And I will let you be in the waste land, you and all the fish of your streams: you will go down on the face of the land; you will not be taken up or put to rest in the earth; I have given you for food to the beasts of the field and the birds of the heaven.

⁶And it will be clear to all the people of Egypt that I am the Lord, because you have been a false support to the children of Israel.

⁷When they took a grip of you in their hands, you were crushed so that their arms were broken: and when they put their weight on you for support, you were broken and all their muscles gave way.

⁸For this cause the Lord has said: See, I am sending a sword on you, cutting off from you man and beast.

⁹And the land of Egypt will be an unpeopled waste; and they will be certain that I am the Lord: because he has said, The Nile is mine, and I made it.

¹⁰See, then, I am against you and against your streams, and I will make the land of Egypt an unpeopled waste, from Migdol to Syene, even as far as the edge of Ethiopia.

¹¹No foot of man will go through it and no foot of beast, and it will be unpeopled for forty years.

¹²I will make the land of Egypt a waste among the countries which are made waste, and her towns will be unpeopled among the towns which have been made waste, for forty years: and I will send the Egyptians in flight among the nations and wandering through the countries.

¹³For this is what the Lord has said: At the end of forty years I will get the Egyptians together from the peoples where they have gone in flight:

¹⁴I will let the fate of Egypt be changed, and will make them come back into the land of Pathros, into the land from which they came; and there they will be an unimportant kingdom.

¹⁵It will be the lowest of the kingdoms, and never again will it be lifted up over the nations: I will make them small, so that they may not have rule over the nations.

¹⁶And Egypt will no longer be the hope of the children of Israel, causing sin to come to mind when their eyes are turned to them: and they will be certain that I am the Lord.

¹⁷Now in the twenty-seventh year, in the first month, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

¹⁸Son of man, Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, made his army do hard work against Tyre, and the hair came off every head and every arm was rubbed smooth: but he and his army got no payment out of Tyre for the hard work which he had done against it.

¹⁹For this cause the Lord has said: See, I am giving the land of Egypt to Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon: he will take away her wealth, and take her goods by force and everything which is there; and this will be the payment for his army.

²⁰I have given him the land of Egypt as the reward for his hard work, because they were working for me, says the Lord.

²¹In that day I will make a horn put out buds for the children of Israel, and I will let your words come freely among them, and they will be certain that I am the Lord.

30The word of the Lord came to me again, saying,

²Son of man, be a prophet, and say, These are the words of the Lord: Give a cry, Aha, for the day!

³For the day is near, the day of the Lord is near, a day of cloud; it will be the time of the nations.

⁴And a sword will come on Egypt, and cruel pain will be in Ethiopia, when they are falling by the sword in Egypt; and they will take away her wealth and her bases will be broken down.

⁵Ethiopia and Put and Lud and all the mixed people and Libya and the children of the land of the Cherethites will all be put to death with them by the sword.

⁶This is what the Lord has said: The supporters of Egypt will have a fall, and the pride of her power will come down: from Migdol to Syene they will be put to the sword in it, says the Lord.

⁷And she will be made waste among the countries which have been made waste, and her towns will be among the towns which are unpeopled.

⁸And they will be certain that I am the Lord, when I have put a fire in Egypt and all her helpers are broken.

⁹In that day men will go out quickly to take the news, causing fear in untroubled Ethiopia; and bitter pain will come on them as in the day of Egypt; for see, it is coming.

¹⁰This is what the Lord has said: I will put an end to great numbers of the people of Egypt by the hand of Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon.

¹¹He and the people with him, causing fear among the nations, will be sent for the destruction of the land; their swords will be let loose against Egypt and the land will be full of dead.

¹²And I will make the Nile streams dry, and will give the land into the hands of evil men, causing the land and everything in it to be wasted by the hands of men from a strange country: I the Lord have said it.

¹³This is what the Lord has said: In addition to this, I will give up the images to destruction and put an end to the false gods in Noph; never again will there be a ruler in the land of Egypt: and I will put a fear in the land of Egypt.

¹⁴And I will make Pathros a waste, and put a fire in Zoan, and send my punishments on No.

¹⁵I will let loose my wrath on Sin, the strong place of Egypt, cutting off the mass of the people of No.

¹⁶And I will put a fire in Egypt; Syene will be twisting in pain, and No will be broken into, as by the onrush of waters.

¹⁷The young men of On and Pi-beseth will be put to the sword: and these towns will be taken away prisoners.

¹⁸And at Tehaphnehes the day will become dark, when the yoke of Egypt is broken there, and the pride of her power comes to an end: as for her, she will be covered with a cloud, and her daughters will be taken away prisoners.

¹⁹And I will send my punishments on Egypt: and they will be certain that I am the Lord.

²⁰Now in the eleventh year, in the first month, on the seventh day of the month, the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

²¹Son of man, the arm of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, has been broken by me, and no band has been put round it to make it well, no band has been twisted round it to make it strong for gripping the sword.

²²For this cause the Lord has said: See, I am against Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and by me his strong arm will be broken; and I will make the sword go out of his hand.

²³And I will send the Egyptians in flight among the nations and wandering through the countries.

²⁴And I will make the arms of the king of Babylon strong, and will put my sword in his hand: but Pharaoh's arms will be broken, and he will give cries of pain before him like the cries of a man wounded to death.

²⁵And I will make the arms of the king of Babylon strong, and the arms of Pharaoh will be hanging down; and they will be certain that I am the Lord, when I put my sword into the hand of the king of Babylon and it is stretched out against the land of Egypt.

²⁶And I will send the Egyptians in flight among the nations and wandering through the countries; and they will be certain that I am the Lord.

31Now in the eleventh year, in the third month, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

²Son of man, say to Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and to his people; Whom are you like in your great power?

³See, a pine-tree with beautiful branches and thick growth, giving shade and very tall; and its top was among the clouds.

⁴It got strength from the waters and the deep made it tall: its streams went round about its planted land and it sent out its waterways to all the trees of the field.

⁵In this way it became taller than all the trees of the field; and its branches were increased and its arms became long because of the great waters.

⁶In its branches all the birds of heaven came to rest, and under its arms all the beasts of the field gave birth to their young, and great nations were living in its shade.

⁷So it was beautiful, being so tall and its branches so long, for its root was by great waters.

⁸No cedars were equal to it in the garden of God; the fir-trees were not like its branches, and plane-trees were as nothing in comparison with its arms; no tree in the garden of God was so beautiful.

⁹I made it beautiful with its mass of branches: so that all the trees in the garden of God were full of envy of it.

¹⁰For this cause the Lord has said: Because he is tall, and has put his top among the clouds, and his heart is full of pride because he is so high,

¹¹I have given him up into the hands of a strong one of the nations; he will certainly give him the reward of his sin, driving him out.

¹²And men from strange lands, who are to be feared among the nations, after cutting him off, have let him be: on the mountains and in all the valleys his branches have come down; his arms are broken by all the waterways of the land; all the peoples of the earth have gone from his shade, and have let him be.

¹³All the birds of heaven have come to rest on his broken stem where it is stretched on the earth, and all the beasts of the field will be on his branches:

¹⁴In order that no trees by the waters may be lifted up in their growth, putting their tops among the clouds; and that no trees which are watered may take their place on high: for they are all given up to death, to the lowest parts of the earth among the children of men, with those who go down to the underworld.

¹⁵This is what the Lord has said: The day when he goes down to the underworld, I will make the deep full of grief for him; I will keep back her streams and the great waters will be stopped: I will make Lebanon dark for him, and all the trees of the field will be feeble because of him.

¹⁶I will send shaking on the nations at the sound of his fall, when I send him down to the underworld with those who go down into the deep: and on earth they will be comforting themselves, all the trees of Eden, the best of Lebanon, even all the watered ones.

¹⁷And they will go down with him to the underworld, to those who have been put to the sword; even those who were his helpers, living under his shade among the nations

¹⁸Whom then are you like? for you will be sent down with the trees of Eden into the lowest parts of the earth: there you will be stretched out among those without circumcision, with those who were put to the sword. This is Pharaoh and all his people, says the Lord.

32And it came about in the twelfth year, in the twelfth month, on the first day of the month, that the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

²Son of man, make a song of grief for Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and say to him, Young lion of the nations, destruction has come on you; and you were like a sea-beast in the seas, sending out bursts of water, troubling the waters with your feet, making their streams dirty.

³This is what the Lord has said: My net will be stretched out over you, and I will take you up in my fishing-net.

⁴And I will let you be stretched on the land; I will send you out violently into the open field; I will let all the birds of heaven come to rest on you and will make the beasts of all the earth full of you.

⁵And I will put your flesh on the mountains, and make the valleys full of your blood.

⁶And the land will be watered with your blood, and the waterways will be full of you.

⁷And when I put out your life, the heaven will be covered and its stars made dark; I will let the sun be covered with a cloud and the moon will not give her light.

⁸All the bright lights of heaven I will make dark over you, and put dark night on your land, says the Lord.

⁹And the hearts of numbers of peoples will be troubled, when I send your prisoners among the nations, into a country which is strange to you.

¹⁰And I will make a number of peoples overcome with wonder at you, and their kings will be full of fear because of you, when my sword is waved before them: they will be shaking every minute, every man fearing for his life, in the day of your fall.

¹¹For this is what the Lord has said: The sword of the king of Babylon will come on you.

¹²I will let the swords of the strong be the cause of the fall of your people; all of them men to be feared among the nations: and they will make waste the pride of Egypt, and all its people will come to destruction.

¹³And I will put an end to all her beasts which are by the great waters, and they will never again be troubled by the foot of man or by the feet of beasts.

¹⁴Then I will make their waters clear and their rivers will be flowing like oil, says the Lord.

¹⁵When I make Egypt an unpeopled waste, cutting off from the land all the things in it; when I send punishment on all those living in it, then it will be clear to them that I am the Lord.

¹⁶It is a song of grief, and people will give voice to it, the daughters of the nations will give voice to it, even for Egypt and all her people, says the Lord.

¹⁷And in the twelfth year, on the fifteenth day of the month, the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

¹⁸Son of man, let your voice be loud in sorrow for the people of Egypt and send them down, even you and the daughters of the nations; I will send them down into the lowest parts of the earth, with those who go down into the underworld.

¹⁹Are you more beautiful than any? go down, and take your rest among those without circumcision,

²⁰Among those who have been put to the sword: they will give a resting-place with them to all their people.

²¹The strong among the great ones will say to him from the underworld, Are you more beautiful than any? go down, you and your helpers, and take your rest among those without circumcision, and those who have been put to the sword.

²²There is Asshur and all her army, round about her last resting-place: all of them put to death by the sword:

²³Whose resting-places are in the inmost parts of the underworld, who were a cause of fear in the land of the living.

²⁴There is Elam and all her people, round about her last resting-place: all of them put to death by the sword, who have gone down without circumcision into the lowest parts of the earth, who were a cause of fear in the land of the living, and are put to shame with those who go down to the underworld:

²⁵They have made a bed for her among the dead, and all her people are round about her resting-place: all of them without circumcision, put to death with the sword; for they were a cause of fear in the land of the living, and are put to shame with those who go down to the underworld: they have been given a place among those who have been put to the sword.

²⁶There is Meshech, Tubal, and all her people, round about her last resting-place: all of them without circumcision, put to death by the sword; for they were a cause of fear in the land of the living.

²⁷And they have been put to rest with the fighting men who came to their end in days long past, who went down to the underworld with their instruments of war, placing their swords under their heads, and their body-covers are over their bones; for their strength was a cause of fear in the land of the living.

²⁸But you will have your bed among those without circumcision, and will be put to rest with those who have been put to death with the sword.

²⁹There is Edom, her kings and all her princes, who have been given a resting-place with those who were put to the sword: they will be resting among those without circumcision, even with those who go down to the underworld.

³⁰There are the chiefs of the north, all of them, and all the Zidonians, who have gone down with those who have been put to the sword: they are shamed on account of all the fear caused by their strength; they are resting there without circumcision, among those who have been put to the sword, and are put to shame with those who go down to the underworld.

³¹Pharaoh will see them and be comforted on account of all his people: even Pharaoh and all his army, put to death by the sword, says the Lord.

³²For he put his fear in the land of the living: and he will be put to rest among those without circumcision, with those who have been put to death with the sword, even Pharaoh and all his people, says the Lord.

33And the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

²Son of man, give a word to the children of your people, and say to them, When I make the sword come on a land, if the people of the land take a man from among their number and make him their watchman:

³If, when he sees the sword coming on the land, by sounding the horn he gives the people news of their danger;

⁴Then anyone who, hearing the sound of the horn, does not take note of it, will himself be responsible for his death, if the sword comes and takes him away.

⁵On hearing the sound of the horn, he did not take note; his blood will be on him; for if he had taken note his life would have been safe.

⁶But if the watchman sees the sword coming, and does not give a note on the horn, and the people have no word of the danger, and the sword comes and takes any person from among them; he will be taken away in his sin, but I will make the watchman responsible for his blood.

⁷So you, son of man, I have made you a watchman for the children of Israel; and you are to give ear to the word of my mouth and give them news from me of their danger.

⁸When I say to the evil-doer, Death will certainly overtake you; and you say nothing to make clear to the evil-doer the danger of his way; death will overtake that evil man in his evil-doing, but I will make you responsible for his blood.

⁹But if you make clear to the evil-doer the danger of his way for the purpose of turning him from it, and he is not turned from his way, death will overtake him in his evil-doing, but your life will be safe.

¹⁰And you, son of man, say to the children of Israel, You say, Our wrongdoing and our sins are on us and we are wasting away in them; how then may we have life?

¹¹Say to them, By my life, says the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the evil-doer; it is more pleasing to me if he is turned from his way and has life: be turned, be turned from your evil ways; why are you looking for death, O children of Israel?

¹²And you, son of man, say to the children of your people, The righteousness of the upright man will not make him safe in the day when he does wrong; and the evil-doing of the evil man will not be the cause of his fall in the day when he is turned from his evil-doing; and the upright man will not have life because of his righteousness in the day when he does evil.

¹³When I say to the upright that life will certainly be his; if he puts his faith in his righteousness and does evil, not one of his upright acts will be kept in memory; but in the evil he has done, death will overtake him.

¹⁴And when I say to the evil-doer, Death will certainly be your fate; if he is turned from his sin and does what is ordered and right;

¹⁵If the evil-doer lets one who is in his debt have back what is his, and gives back what he had taken by force, and is guided by the rules of life, doing no evil; life will certainly be his, death will not overtake him.

¹⁶Not one of the sins which he has done will be kept in mind against him: he has done what is ordered and right, life will certainly be his.

¹⁷But the children of your people say, The way of the Lord is not equal: when it is they whose way is not equal.

¹⁸When the upright man, turning away from his righteousness, does evil, death will overtake him in it.

¹⁹And when the evil man, turning away from his evil-doing, does what is ordered and right, he will get life by it.

²⁰And still you say, The way of the Lord is not equal. O children of Israel, I will be your judge, giving to everyone the reward of his ways.

²¹Now in the twelfth year after we had been taken away prisoners, in the tenth month, on the fifth day of the month, one who had got away in flight from Jerusalem came to me, saying, The town has been taken.

²²Now the hand of the Lord had been on me in the evening, before the man who had got away came to me; and he made my mouth open, ready for his coming to me in the morning; and my mouth was open and I was no longer without voice.

²³And the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

²⁴Son of man, those who are living in these waste places in the land of Israel say, Abraham was but one, and he had land for his heritage: but we are a great number; the land is given to us for our heritage.

²⁵For this cause say to them, This is what the Lord has said: You take your meat with the blood, your eyes are lifted up to your images, and you are takers of life: are you to have the land for your heritage?

²⁶You put your faith in your swords, you do disgusting things, everyone takes his neighbour's wife: are you to have the land for your heritage?

²⁷This is what you are to say to them: The Lord has said, By my life, truly, those who are in the waste places will be put to the sword, and him who is in the open field I will give to the beasts for their food, and those who are in the strong places and in holes in the rocks will come to their death by disease.

²⁸And I will make the land a waste and a cause of wonder, and the pride of her strength will come to an end; and the mountains of Israel will be made waste so that no one will go through.

²⁹Then they will be certain that I am the Lord, when I have made the land a waste and a cause of wonder, because of all the disgusting things which they have done,

³⁰And as for you, son of man, the children of your people are talking together about you by the walls and in the doorways of the houses, saying to one another, Come now, give ear to the word which comes from the Lord.

³¹And they come to you as my people come, and are seated before you as my people, hearing your words but doing them not: for deceit is in their mouth and their heart goes after profit for themselves.

³²And truly you are to them like a love song by one who has a very pleasing voice and is an expert player on an instrument: for they give ear to your words but do them not.

³³And when this comes about (see, it is coming), then it will be clear to them that a prophet has been among them.

34And the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

²Son of man, be a prophet against the keepers of the flock of Israel, and say to them, O keepers of the sheep! this is the word of the Lord: A curse is on the keepers of the flock of Israel who take the food for themselves! is it not right for the keepers to give the food to the sheep?

³You take the milk and are clothed with the wool, you put the fat beasts to death, but you give the sheep no food.

⁴You have not made the diseased ones strong or made well that which was ill; you have not put bands on the broken or got back that which had been sent away or made search for the wandering ones; and the strong you have been ruling cruelly.

⁵And they were wandering in every direction because there was no keeper: and they became food for all the beasts of the field.

⁶And my sheep went out of the way, wandering through all the mountains and on every high hill: my sheep went here and there over all the face of the earth; and no one was troubled about them or went in search of them.

⁷For this cause, O keepers of the flock, give ear to the word of the Lord:

⁸By my life, says the Lord, truly, because my sheep have been taken away, and my sheep became food for all the beasts of the field, because there was no keeper, and my keepers did not go in search of the sheep, but the keepers took food for themselves and gave my sheep no food;

⁹For this reason, O you keepers of the flock, give ear to the word of the Lord;

¹⁰This is what the Lord has said: See I am against the keepers of the flock, and I will make search and see what they have done with my sheep, and will let them be keepers of my sheep no longer; and the keepers will no longer get food for themselves; I will take my sheep out of their mouths so that they may not be food for them.

¹¹For this is what the Lord has said: Truly, I, even I, will go searching and looking for my sheep.

¹²As the keeper goes looking for his flock when he is among his wandering sheep, so I will go looking for my sheep, and will get them safely out of all the places where they have been sent wandering in the day of clouds and black night.

¹³And I will take them out from among the peoples, and get them together from the countries, and will take them into their land; and I will give them food on the mountains of Israel by the water-streams and wherever men are living in the country.

¹⁴I will give them good grass-land for their food, and their safe place will be the mountains of the high place of Israel: there they will take their rest in a good place, and on fat grass-land they will take their food on the mountains of Israel.

¹⁵I myself will give food to my flock, and I will give them rest, says the Lord.

¹⁶I will go in search of that which had gone wandering from the way, and will get back that which had been sent in flight, and will put bands on that which was broken, and give strength to that which was ill: but the fat and the strong I will give up to destruction; I will give them for their food the punishment which is theirs by right.

¹⁷And as for you, O my flock, says the Lord, truly, I will be judge between sheep and sheep, the he-sheep and the he-goats.

¹⁸Does it seem a small thing to you to have taken your food on good grass-land while the rest of your grass-land is stamped down under your feet? and that after drinking from clear waters you make the rest of the waters dirty with your feet?

¹⁹And as for my sheep, their food is the grass which has been stamped on by your feet, and their drink the water which has been made dirty by your feet.

²⁰For this reason the Lord has said to them, Truly, I, even I, will be judge between the fat sheep and the thin sheep.

²¹Because you have been pushing with side and leg, pushing the diseased with your horns till they were sent away in every direction;

²²I will make my flock safe, and they will no longer be taken away, and I will be judge between sheep and sheep.

²³And I will put over them one keeper, and he will give them food, even my servant David; he will give them food and be their keeper.

²⁴And I the Lord will be their God and my servant David their ruler; I the Lord have said it.

²⁵And I will make with them an agreement of peace, and will put an end to evil beasts through all the land: and they will be living safely in the waste land, sleeping in the woods.

²⁶And I will give the rain at the right time, and I will make the shower come down at the right time; there will be showers of blessing.

²⁷And the tree of the field will give its fruit and the earth will give its increase, and they will be safe in their land; and they will be certain that I am the Lord, when I have had their yoke broken and have given them salvation from the hands of those who made them servants.

²⁸And their goods will no longer be taken by the nations, and they will not again be food for the beasts of the earth; but they will be living safely and no one will be a cause of fear to them.

²⁹And I will give them planting-places of peace, and they will no longer be wasted from need of food or put to shame by the nations.

³⁰And they will be certain that I the Lord their God am with them, and that they, the children of Israel, are my people, says the Lord.

³¹And you are my sheep, the sheep of my grass-lands, and I am your God, says the Lord.

35Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

²Son of man, let your face be turned to Mount Seir, and be a prophet against it,

³And say to it, This is what the Lord has said: See, I am against you, O Mount Seir, and my hand will be stretched out against you, and I will make you a waste and a cause for wonder.

⁴I will make your towns unpeopled and you will be a waste; and you will be certain that I am the Lord.

⁵Because yours has been a hate without end, and you have given up the children of Israel to the power of the sword in the time of their trouble, in the time of the punishment of the end:

⁶For this cause, by my life, says the Lord, because you have been sinning through blood, blood will come after you.

⁷And I will make Mount Seir a cause for wonder and a waste, cutting off from it all comings and goings.

⁸I will make his mountains full of those who have been put to death; in your valleys and in all your water-streams men will be falling by the sword.

⁹I will make you waste for ever, and your towns will be unpeopled: and you will be certain that I am the Lord.

¹⁰Because you have said, The two nations and the two countries are to be mine, and we will take them for our heritage; though the Lord was there:

¹¹For this cause, by my life, says the Lord, I will do to you as you have done in your wrath and in your envy, which you have made clear in your hate for them; and I will make clear to you who I am when you are judged by me.

¹²And you will see that I the Lord have had knowledge of all the bitter things which you have said against the mountains of Israel, saying, They have been made waste, they are given to us to take for our heritage.

¹³And you have made yourselves great against me with your mouths, increasing your words against me; and it has come to my ears.

¹⁴This is what the Lord has said: Because you were glad over my land when it was a waste, so will I do to you:

¹⁵You will become a waste, O Mount Seir, and all Edom, even all of it: and you will be certain that I am the Lord.

36And you, son of man, be a prophet about the mountains of Israel, and say, You mountains of Israel, give ear to the word of the Lord:

²This is what the Lord has said: Because your hater has said against you, Aha! and, The old waste places are our heritage, we have taken them:

³For this cause be a prophet, and say, This is what the Lord has said: Because, even because they have been glad over you and put you to shame on every side, because you have become a heritage for the rest of the nations, and you are taken up on the lips of talkers and in the evil talk of the people:

⁴For this reason, you mountains of Israel, give ear to the word of the Lord; this is what the Lord has said to the mountains and to the hills, to the streams and to the valleys, to the unpeopled wastes and to the towns where no one is living, from which the goods have been taken and which have been put to shame by the rest of the nations who are round about:

⁵For this cause the Lord has said: Truly, in the heat of my bitter feeling I have said things against the rest of the nations and against all Edom, who have taken my land as a heritage for themselves with the joy of all their heart, and with bitter envy of soul have made attacks on it:

⁶For this cause be a prophet about the land of Israel, and say to the mountains and to the hills, to the streams and to the valleys, This is what the Lord has said: Truly, in my bitter feeling and in my wrath I have said these things, because you have undergone the shame of the nations:

⁷For this cause the Lord has said, See, I have taken an oath that the nations which are round about you are themselves to undergo the shame which they have put on you.

⁸But you, O mountains of Israel, will put out your branches and give your fruit to my people Israel; for they are ready to come.

⁹For truly I am for you, and I will be turned to you, and you will be ploughed and planted:

¹⁰And I will let your numbers be increased, all the children of Israel, even all of them: and the towns will be peopled and the waste places will have buildings;

¹¹Man and beast will be increased in you, and they will have offspring and be fertile: I will make you thickly peopled as you were before, and will do more for you than at the first: and you will be certain that I am the Lord.

¹²Yes, I will have you walked on by the feet of men, even my people Israel; they will have you for a heritage and you will be theirs, and never again will you take their children from them.

¹³This is what the Lord has said: Because they say to you, You, O land, are the destruction of men, causing loss of children to your nation;

¹⁴For this reason you will no longer take the lives of men and will never again be the cause of loss of children to your nation, says the Lord.

¹⁵And I will not let the shaming of the nations come to your ears, and no longer will you be looked down on by the peoples, says the Lord.

¹⁶Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

¹⁷Son of man, when the children of Israel were living in their land, they made it unclean by their way and their acts: their way before me was as when a woman is unclean at the time when she is kept separate.

¹⁸So I let loose my wrath on them because of those whom they had violently put to death in the land, and because they had made it unclean with their images:

¹⁹And I sent them in flight among the nations and wandering through the countries: I was their judge, rewarding them for their way and their acts.

²⁰And when they came among the nations, wherever they went, they made my holy name unclean, when it was said of them, These are the people of the Lord who have gone out from his land.

²¹But I had pity for my holy name which the children of Israel had made unclean wherever they went.

²²For this cause say to the children of Israel, This is what the Lord has said: I am doing this, not because of you, O children of Israel, but because of my holy name, which you have made unclean among the nations wherever you went.

²³And I will make holy my great name which has been made unclean among the nations, which you have made unclean among them; and it will be clear to the nations that I am the Lord, says the Lord, when I make myself holy in you before their eyes.

²⁴For I will take you out from among the nations, and get you together from all the countries, and take you into your land.

²⁵And I will put clean water on you so that you may be clean: from all your unclean ways and from all your images I will make you clean.

²⁶And I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you: I will take away the heart of stone from your flesh, and give you a heart of flesh.

²⁷And I will put my spirit in you, causing you to be guided by my rules, and you will keep my orders and do them.

²⁸So that you may go on living in the land which I gave to your fathers; and you will be to me a people, and I will be to you a God.

²⁹And I will make you free from all your unclean ways: and at my voice the grain will come up and be increased, and I will not let you be short of food.

³⁰And I will make the tree give more fruit and the field fuller produce, and no longer will you be shamed among the nations for need of food.

³¹And at the memory of your evil ways and your wrongdoings, you will have bitter hate for yourselves because of your evil-doings and your disgusting ways, O children of Israel.

³²Not because of you am I doing it, says the Lord; let it be clear to you, and be shamed and made low because of your ways, O children of Israel.

³³This is what the Lord has said: In the day when I make you clean from all your evil-doings I will let the towns be peopled and there will be building on the waste places.

³⁴And the land which was waste will be farmed, in place of being a waste in the eyes of everyone who went by.

³⁵And they will say, This land which was waste has become like the garden of Eden; and the towns which were unpeopled and wasted and pulled down are walled and peopled.

³⁶Then the rest of the nations round about you will be certain that I the Lord am the builder of the places which were pulled down and the planter of that which was waste: I the Lord have said it, and I will do it.

³⁷This is what the Lord has said: The children of Israel will again make prayer to me for this, that I may do it for them; I will make them increased with men like a flock.

³⁸Like sheep for the offerings, like the sheep of Jerusalem at her fixed feasts, so the unpeopled towns will be made full of men: and they will be certain that I am the Lord.

37The hand of the Lord had been on me, and he took me out in the spirit of the Lord and put me down in the middle of the valley; and it was full of bones;

²And he made me go past them round about: and I saw that there was a very great number of them on the face of the wide valley, and they were very dry.

³And he said to me, Son of man, is it possible for these bones to come to life? And I made answer, and said, It is for you to say, O Lord.

⁴And again he said to me, Be a prophet to these bones, and say to them, O you dry bones, give ear to the word of the Lord.

⁵This is what the Lord has said to these bones: See, I will make breath come into you so that you may come to life;

⁶And I will put muscles on you and make flesh come on you, and put skin over you, and breath into you, so that you may have life; and you will be certain that I am the Lord.

⁷So I gave the word as I was ordered: and at my words there was a shaking of the earth, and the bones came together, bone to bone.

⁸And looking I saw that there were muscles on them and flesh came up, and they were covered with skin: but there was no breath in them.

⁹And he said to me, Be a prophet to the wind, be a prophet, son of man, and say to the wind, The Lord has said: Come from the four winds, O wind, breathing on these dead so that they may come to life.

¹⁰And I gave the word at his orders, and breath came into them, and they came to life and got up on their feet, a very great army.

¹¹Then he said to me, Son of man, these bones are all the children of Israel: and see, they are saying, Our bones have become dry our hope is gone, we are cut off completely.

¹²For this cause be a prophet to them, and say, This is what the Lord has said: See, I am opening the resting-places of your dead, and I will make you come up out of your resting-places, O my people; and I will take you into the land of Israel.

¹³And you will be certain that I am the Lord by my opening the resting-places of your dead and making you come up out of your resting-places, O my people.

¹⁴And I will put my spirit in you, so that you may come to life, and I will give you a rest in your land: and you will be certain that I the Lord have said it and have done it, says the Lord.

¹⁵And the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

¹⁶And you, son of man, take one stick, writing on it, For Judah and for the children of Israel who are in his company: then take another stick, writing on it, For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and all the children of Israel who are in his company:

¹⁷Then, joining them one to another, make them one stick, so that they may be one in your hand.

¹⁸And when the children of your people say to you, Will you not make clear to us what these things have to do with us?

¹⁹Then say to them, This is what the Lord has said: See, I am taking the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel who are in his company; and I will put it on the stick of Judah and make them one stick, and they will be one in my hand.

²⁰And the sticks with your writing on them will be in your hand before their eyes.

²¹And say to them, These are the words of the Lord: See, I am taking the children of Israel from among the nations where they have gone, and will get them together on every side, and take them into their land:

²²And I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel; and one king will be king over them all: and they will no longer be two nations, and will no longer be parted into two kingdoms:

²³And they will no longer make themselves unclean with their images or with their hated things or with any of their sins: but I will give them salvation from all their turning away in which they have done evil, and will make them clean; and they will be to me a people, and I will be to them a God.

²⁴And my servant David will be king over them; and they will all have one keeper: and they will be guided by my orders and will keep my rules and do them.

²⁵And they will be living in the land which I gave to Jacob, my servant, in which your fathers were living; and they will go on living there, they and their children and their children's children, for ever: and David, my servant, will be their ruler for ever.

²⁶And I will make an agreement of peace with them: it will be an eternal agreement with them: and I will have mercy on them and make their numbers great, and will put my holy place among them for ever.

²⁷And my House will be over them; and I will be to them a God, and they will be to me a people.

²⁸And the nations will be certain that I who make Israel holy am the Lord, when my holy place is among them for ever.

38And the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

²Son of man, let your face be turned against Gog, of the land of Magog, the ruler of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal, and be a prophet against him,

³And say, This is what the Lord has said: See, I am against you, O Gog, ruler of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal:

⁴And turning you round, I will put hooks in your mouth and make you come out with all your army, horses and horsemen, all of them in full war-dress, a great force with breastplate and body-cover, all of them armed with swords:

⁵Persia, Cush, and Put with them; all of them with body-cover and metal head-dress:

⁶Gomer and all her forces; the people of Togarmah in the inmost parts of the north, with all his forces: a great number of peoples with you.

⁷Be ready, make yourself ready, you and all the forces who are with you, and be ready for my orders.

⁸After a long time you will get your orders: in the last years you will come into the land which has been given back from the sword, which has been got together out of a great number of peoples, on the mountains of Israel which have ever been a waste: but it has been taken out from the peoples and they will be living, all of them, without fear of danger.

⁹And you will go up, you will come like a storm, you will be like a cloud covering the land, you and all your forces, and a great number of peoples with you.

¹⁰This is what the Lord has said: In that day it will come about that things will come into your mind, and you will have thoughts of an evil design:

¹¹And you will say, I will go up to the land of small unwalled towns; I will go to those who are quiet, living, all of them, without fear of danger, without walls or locks or doors:

¹²To take their property by force and go off with their goods; turning your hand against the waste places which now are peopled, and against the people who have been got together out of the nations, who have got cattle and goods for themselves, who are living in the middle of the earth.

¹³Sheba, and Dedan and her traders, Tarshish with all her traders, will say to you, Have you come to take our goods? have you got your armies together to take away our property by force? to take away silver and gold, cattle and goods, to go off with great wealth?

¹⁴For this cause, son of man, be a prophet and say to Gog, These are the words of the Lord: In that day, when my people Israel are living without fear of danger, will you not be moved against them?

¹⁵And you will come from your place in the inmost parts of the north, you and a great number of peoples with you, all of them on horseback, a great force and a strong army:

¹⁶And you will come up against my people Israel, like a cloud covering the land; and it will come about, in the last days, that I will make you come against my land, so that the nations may have knowledge of me when I make myself holy in you, O Gog, before their eyes.

¹⁷This is what the Lord has said: You are he of whom I gave them word in earlier times by my servants, the prophets of Israel, who in those days went on saying, year after year, that I would make you come up against them.

¹⁸And it will come about in that day, when Gog comes up against the land of Israel, says the Lord, that my wrath will come up, and my passion and my bitter feeling.

¹⁹For in the fire of my wrath I have said, Truly, in that day there will be a great shaking in the land of Israel;

²⁰So that the fish of the sea and the birds of heaven and the beasts of the field and everything moving on the earth, and all the men who are on the face of the earth, will be shaking before me, and the mountains will be overturned and the high places will come down, and every wall will come falling down to the earth.

²¹And I will send to all my mountains for a sword against him, says the Lord: every man's sword will be against his brother.

²²And I will take up my cause against him with disease and with blood; and I will send down on him and on his forces and on the peoples who are with him, an overflowing shower and great ice-drops, fire, and burning.

²³And I will make my name great and make myself holy, and I will make myself clear to a number of nations; and they will be certain that I am the Lord.

39And you, son of man, be a prophet against Gog, and say, These are the words of the Lord: See, I am against you, O Gog, ruler of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal:

²And turning you round, I will be your guide, and make you come up from the inmost parts of the north; I will make you come on to the mountains of Israel:

³And with a blow I will send your bow out of your left hand and your arrows falling from your right hand.

⁴On the mountains of Israel you will come down, you and all your forces and the peoples who are with you: I will give you to cruel birds of every sort and to the beasts of the field to be their food.

⁵You will come down in the open field: for I have said it, says the Lord.

⁶And I will send a fire on Magog, and on those who are living in the sea-lands without fear: and they will be certain that I am the Lord.

⁷And I will make clear my holy name among my people Israel; I will no longer let my holy name be made unclean: and the nations will be certain that I am the Lord, the Holy One in Israel.

⁸See, it is coming and it will be done, says the Lord; this is the day of which I have given word.

⁹And those who are living in the towns of Israel will go out and make fires of the instruments of war, burning the body-covers and the breastplates, the bows and the arrows and the sticks and the spears, and for seven years they will make fires of them:

¹⁰And they will take no wood out of the field or have any cut down in the woods; for they will make their fires of the instruments of war: and they will take by force the property of those who took their property, and go off with the goods of those who took their goods, says the Lord.

¹¹And it will come about in those days, that I will give to Gog a last resting-place there in Israel, in the valley of Abarim on the east of the sea: and those who go through will be stopped: and there Gog and all his people will be put to rest, and the place will be named, The valley of Hamon-gog.

¹²And the children of Israel will be seven months putting them in the earth, so as to make the land clean.

¹³And all the people of the land will put them in the earth; and it will be to their honour in the day when I let my glory be seen, says the Lord.

¹⁴And they will put on one side men to do no other work but to go through the land and put in the earth the rest of those who are still on the face of the land, to make it clean: after seven months are ended they are to make a search.

¹⁵And while they go through the land, if anyone sees a man's bone, he is to put up a sign by the place till those who are doing the work have put it in the earth in the valley of Hamon-gog.

¹⁶And there they will put all the army of Gog in the earth. So they will make the land clean.

¹⁷And you, son of man, this is what the Lord has said: Say to the birds of every sort and to all the beasts of the field, Get together and come; come together on every side to the offering which I am putting to death for you, a great offering on the mountains of Israel, so that you may have flesh for your food and blood for your drink.

¹⁸The flesh of the men of war will be your food, and your drink the blood of the princes of the earth, of sheep and lambs, of he-goats, of oxen, all of them fat beasts of Bashan.

¹⁹You will go on feasting on the fat till you are full, and drinking the blood till you are overcome with it, of my offering which I have put to death for you.

²⁰At my table you will have food in full measure, horses and war-carriages, great men and all the men of war, says the Lord.

²¹And I will put my glory among the nations, and all the nations will see my punishments which I have put into effect, and my hand which I have put on them.

²²So the children of Israel will be certain that I am the Lord their God, from that day and for the future.

²³And it will be clear to the nations that the children of Israel were taken away prisoners for their evil-doing; because they did wrong against me, and my face was covered from them: so I gave them up into the hands of their attackers, and they all came to their end by the sword.

²⁴In the measure of their unclean ways and their sins, so I did to them; and I kept my face covered from them.

²⁵For this cause the Lord has said, Now I will let the fate of Jacob be changed, and I will have mercy on all the children of Israel, and will take care of the honour of my holy name.

²⁶And they will be conscious of their shame and of all the wrong which they have done against me, when they are living in their land with no sense of danger and with no one to be a cause of fear to them;

²⁷When I have taken them back from among the peoples and got them together out of the lands of their haters, and have made myself holy in them before the eyes of a great number of nations.

²⁸And they will be certain that I am the Lord their God, because I sent them away as prisoners among the nations, and have taken them together back to their land; and I have not let one of them be there any longer.

²⁹And my face will no longer be covered from them: for I have sent the out-flowing of my spirit on the children of Israel, says the Lord.

40In the twenty-fifth year after we had been taken away prisoners, in the first month of the year, on the tenth day of the month, in the fourteenth year after the town was taken, on the very same day, the hand of the Lord was on me, and he took me there.

²In the visions of God he took me into the land of Israel, and put me down on a very high mountain, on which there was, as it seemed, a building like a town opposite me.

³He took me there, and I saw a man, looking like brass, with a linen cord in his hand and a measuring rod: and he was stationed in the doorway.

⁴And the man said to me, Son of man, see with your eyes and give hearing with your ears, and take to heart everything I am going to let you see; for in order that I might let you see them, you have come here: and give an account of all you see to the children of Israel.

⁵And there was a wall on the outside of the house all round, and in the man's hand there was a measuring rod six cubits long by a cubit and a hand's measure: so he took the measure of the building from side to side, one rod; and from base to top, one rod.

⁶Then he came to the doorway looking to the east, and went up by its steps; and he took the measure of the doorstep, one rod wide.

⁷And the watchmen's rooms were one rod long and one rod wide; and the space between the rooms was five cubits; the doorstep of the doorway, by the covered way of the doorway inside, was one rod.

⁸And he took the measure of the covered way of the doorway inside,

⁹Eight cubits; and its uprights, two cubits; the covered way of the doorway was inside.

¹⁰And the rooms of the doorway on the east were three on this side and three on that; all three were of the same size; and the uprights on this side and on that were of the same size.

¹¹And he took the measure of the opening of the doorway, ten cubits wide; and the way down the doorway was thirteen cubits;

¹²And the space in front of the rooms, a cubit on this side and a cubit on that side; and the rooms six cubits on this side and six cubits on that.

¹³And he took the measure of the doorway from the back of one room to the back of the other, twenty-five cubits across, from door to door.

¹⁴And he took the measure of the covered way, twenty cubits; and opening from the covered way of the doorway was the open square round about.

¹⁵And from before the opening of the doorway to before the inner covered way of the doorway was fifty cubits.

¹⁶And the rooms and their uprights had sloping windows inside the doorway all round, and in the same way the covered way had windows all round on the inside: and on every upright there were palm-trees.

¹⁷Then he took me into the outer square, and there were rooms and a stone floor made for the open square all round: there were thirty rooms on the stone floor.

¹⁸And the stone floor was by the side of the doorways, and was as wide as the doorways were long, even the lower floor.

¹⁹Then he took the measure of the square across, from before the lower doorway inside to before the inner doorway outside, one hundred cubits. And he took me in the direction of the north,

²⁰And there was a doorway to the outer square, looking to the north; and he took the measure of it to see how wide and how long it was.

²¹And it had three rooms on this side of it and three on that; its uprights and its covered ways were the same size as those of the first doorway: it was fifty cubits long and twenty-five cubits wide.

²²And its windows, and the windows of its covered ways, and its palm-trees, were the same as those of the doorway looking to the east; and there were seven steps up to it; and the covered way went inside.

²³And there was a doorway to the inner square opposite the doorway on the north, like the doorway on the east; and he took the measure from doorway to doorway, a hundred cubits.

²⁴And he took me to the south, and I saw a doorway looking to the south: and he took the measure of its rooms and its uprights and its covered ways by these measures.

²⁵And there were windows in it and in the covered way all round, like the other windows: it was fifty cubits long and twenty-five cubits wide.

²⁶And there were seven steps up to it, and its covered way went inside: and it had palm-trees, one on this side and one on that, on its uprights.

²⁷And there was a doorway to the inner square looking to the south: he took the measure from doorway to doorway to the south, a hundred cubits.

²⁸Then he took me to the inner square by the south doorway: and he took the measure of the south doorway by these measures;

²⁹And the rooms in it and the uprights and the covered ways, by these measures:

³⁰And there were windows in it and in the covered way all round: it was fifty cubits long and twenty-five cubits wide.

³¹The covered way was on the side nearest the outer square; and there were palm-trees on the uprights: and there were eight steps going up to it.

³²And he took me into the inner square facing the east: and he took the measure of the doorway by these measures;

³³And of the rooms in it and its uprights and its covered ways, by these measures: and there were windows in it and in the covered way round about: it was fifty cubits long and twenty-five cubits wide.

³⁴And the covered way was on the side nearest the outer square; there were palm-trees on the uprights, on this side and on that: and there were eight steps going up to it.

³⁵And he took me to the north doorway: and he took the measure of it by these measures;

³⁶Its rooms, its uprights, and its covered way had the same measures, and its covered way had windows all round: it was fifty cubits long and twenty-five cubits wide.

³⁷Its uprights were on the side nearest to the outer square; there were palm-trees on the uprights, on this side and on that: and there were eight steps going up to it.

³⁸And there was a room with a door in the covered way of the doorway, where the burned offering was washed.

³⁹And in the covered way of the doorway there were two tables on this side and two tables on that side, on which the burned offering and the sin-offering and the offering for error were put to death:

⁴⁰On the outer side, to the north, as one goes up to the opening of the doorway, were two tables.

⁴¹There were four tables on one side and four tables on the other, by the side of the doorway; eight tables, on which they put to death the beasts for the offerings.

⁴²And there were four tables for the burned offering, made of cut stone, one and a half cubits long, one and a half cubits wide and a cubit high, where the instruments were placed which were used for putting to death the burned offering and the beasts for the offerings.

⁴³And they had edges all round as wide as a man's hand: and on the tables was the flesh of the offerings.

⁴⁴And he took me into the inner square, and there were two rooms in the inner square, one at the side of the north doorway, facing south; and one at the side of the south doorway, facing north.

⁴⁵And he said to me, This room, facing south, is for the priests who have the care of the house.

⁴⁶And the room facing north is for the priests who have the care of the altar: these are the sons of Zadok, who, from among the sons of Levi, come near to the Lord to do the work of his house.

⁴⁷And he took the measure of the open square, a hundred cubits long and a hundred cubits wide, being square; and the altar was in front of the house.

⁴⁸Then he took me to the covered way before the house, and took the measure of its uprights, five cubits on one side and five cubits on the other: and the doorway was fourteen cubits wide; and the side-walls of the doorway were three cubits on one side and three cubits on the other.

⁴⁹The covered way was twenty cubits long and twelve cubits wide, and they went up to it by ten steps; and there were pillars by the uprights, one on one side and one on the other.

41And he took me to the Temple, and took the measure of the uprights, six cubits wide on one side and six cubits wide on the other.

²And the door-opening was ten cubits wide; and the side walls of the door-opening were five cubits on one side and five cubits on the other: and it was forty cubits long and twenty cubits wide.

³And he went inside and took the measure of the uprights of the door-opening, two cubits: and the door-opening, six cubits; and the side-walls of the door-opening were seven cubits on one side and seven cubits on the other.

⁴And by his measure it was twenty cubits long and twenty cubits wide in front of the Temple: and he said to me, This is the most holy place.

⁵Then he took the measure of the wall of the house, which was six cubits; and of the side-rooms round the house, which were four cubits wide.

⁶And the side-rooms, room over room, were three times thirty; there were inlets in the wall of the house for the side-rooms round about, for supports in the wall of the house.

⁷The side-rooms became wider as they went higher up the house, by the amount of the space let into the wall up round about the house, because of the inlets in the house; and one went up from the lowest floor by steps to the middle, and from the middle to the upper floor.

⁸And I saw that the house had a stone floor all round; the bases of the side-rooms were a full rod of six great cubits high.

⁹The wall supporting the side-rooms on the outside was five cubits thick: and there was a free space of five cubits between the side-rooms of the house.

¹⁰And between the rooms was a space twenty cubits wide all round the house.

¹¹And the free space had doors opening from the side-rooms, one door on the north and one door on the south: and the free space was five cubits wide all round.

¹²And the building which was in front of the separate place at the side to the west was seventy cubits wide; the wall of the building was five cubits thick all round and ninety cubits long.

¹³And he took the measure of the house; it was a hundred cubits long; and the separate place and the building with its walls was a hundred cubits long;

¹⁴And the east front of the house and of the separate place was a hundred cubits wide.

¹⁵And he took the measure of the building in front of the separate place which was at the back of it, and the pillared walks on one side and on the other side; they were a hundred cubits long; and the Temple and the inner part and its outer covered way were covered in;

¹⁶And the sloping windows and the covered ways round all three of them were of shakiph-wood all round from the level of the earth up to the windows;

¹⁷And there was a roof over the doorway and as far as the inner house, and to the outside and on the wall all round, inside and outside.

¹⁸And it had pictured forms of winged beings and palm-trees; a palm-tree between two winged ones, and every winged one had two faces;

¹⁹So that there was the face of a man turned to the palm-tree on one side, and the face of a young lion on the other side: so it was made all round the house.

²⁰From earth level up to the windows there were winged ones and palm-trees pictured on the wall.

²¹...

²²The altar was made of wood, and was three cubits high and two cubits long; it had angles, and its base and sides were of wood; and he said to me, This is the table which is before the Lord.

²³The Temple had two doors.

²⁴And the holy place had two doors, and the doors had two turning leaves, two for one and two for the other.

²⁵And on them were pictured winged ones and palm-trees, as on the walls; and a ... of wood was on the front of the covered way outside.

²⁶And there were sloping windows and palm-trees on one side and on the other, on the sides of the covered way: and the side-rooms of the house and the ...

42And he took me out into the inner square in the direction of the north: and he took me into the rooms which were opposite the separate place and opposite the building to the north.

²On the north side it was a hundred cubits long and fifty cubits wide,

³Opposite the space of twenty cubits which was part of the inner square, and opposite the stone floor of the outer square. There were covered ways facing one another on the third floor.

⁴And in front of the rooms was a walk, ten cubits wide and a hundred cubits long; and their doors were facing north.

⁵And the higher rooms were shorter: for the covered ways took up more space from these than from the lower and middle rooms.

⁶For they were on three floors, and they had no pillars like the pillars of the outer square; so the highest was narrower than the lowest and middle floors from the earth level.

⁷And the wall which went outside by the side of the rooms, in the direction of the outer square in front of the rooms, was fifty cubits long.

⁸For the rooms in the outer square were fifty cubits long: and in front of the Temple was a space of a hundred cubits.

⁹And under these rooms was the way in from the east side, as one goes into them from the outer square at the head of the outer wall.

¹⁰(And he took me) to the south, and in front of the separate place and in front of the building there were rooms.

¹¹And there was a walk in front of them like that by the rooms on the north; they were equally long and wide; and the ways out of them were the same in design and had the same sort of doors.

¹²And under the rooms on the south was a door at the head of the outer wall in the direction of the east as one goes in.

¹³And he said to me, The north rooms and the south rooms in front of the separate place are the holy rooms, where the priests who come near the Lord take the most holy things for their food: there the most holy things are placed, with the meal offering and the sin-offering and the offering for error; for the place is holy.

¹⁴When the priests go in, they may not go out of the holy place into the outer square, and there they are to put the robes in which they do the work of the Lord's house, for they are holy: and they have to put on other clothing before they come near that which has to do with the people.

¹⁵And when he had come to the end of measuring the inner house, he took me out to the doorway looking to the east, and took its measure all round.

¹⁶He went round and took the measure of it on the east side with the measuring rod, five hundred, measured with the rod all round.

¹⁷And he went round and took the measure of it on the north side with the measuring rod, five hundred, measured with the rod all round.

¹⁸And he went round and took the measure of it on the south side with the measuring rod, five hundred, measured with the rod all round.

¹⁹And he went round and took the measure of it on the west side with the measuring rod, five hundred, measured with the rod all round.

²⁰He took its measure on the four sides: and it had a wall all round, five hundred long and five hundred wide, separating what was holy from what was common.

43And he took me to the doorway looking to the east:

²And there was the glory of the God of Israel coming from the way of the east: and his voice was like the sound of great waters, and the earth was shining with his glory.

³And the vision which I saw was like the vision I had seen when he came for the destruction of the town: and like the vision which I saw by the river Chebar; and I went down on my face.

⁴And the glory of the Lord came into the house by the way of the doorway looking to the east.

⁵And the spirit, lifting me up, took me into the inner square; and I saw that the house was full of the glory of the Lord.

⁶And the voice of one talking to me came to my ears from inside the house; and the man was by my side.

⁷And he said to me, Son of man, this is the place where the seat of my power is and the resting-place of my feet, where I will be among the children of Israel for ever: and no longer will the people of Israel make my holy name unclean, they or their kings, by their loose ways and by the dead bodies of their kings;

⁸By putting their doorstep by my doorstep, and the pillar of their door by the pillar of my door, with only a wall between me and them; and they have made my holy name unclean by the disgusting things which they have done: so in my wrath I sent destruction on them.

⁹Now let them put their loose ways and the dead bodies of their kings far from me, and I will be among them for ever.

¹⁰You, son of man, give the children of Israel an account of this house, so that they may be shamed because of their evil-doing: and let them see the vision of it and its image.

¹¹And they will be shamed by what they have done; so give them the knowledge of the form of the house and its structure, and the ways out of it and into it, and all its laws and its rules, writing it down for them: so that they may keep all its laws and do them.

¹²This is the law of the house: On the top of the mountain all the space round it on every side will be most holy. See, this is the law of the house.

¹³And these are the measures of the altar in cubits: (the cubit being a cubit and a hand's measure;) its hollow base is a cubit high and a cubit wide, and it has an overhanging edge as wide as a hand-stretch all round it:

¹⁴And from the base on the earth level to the lower shelf, the altar is two cubits high and a cubit wide; and from the smaller shelf to the greater shelf it is four cubits high and a cubit wide.

¹⁵And the fireplace is four cubits high: and coming up from the fireplace are the horns, a cubit high.

¹⁶And the fireplace is twelve cubits long and twelve cubits wide, square on its four sides.

¹⁷And the shelf is fourteen cubits long and fourteen cubits wide, on its four sides; the edge round it is half a cubit; the base of it is a cubit all round, and its steps are facing the east.

¹⁸And he said to me, Son of man, the Lord God has said, These are the rules for the altar, when they make it, for the offering of burned offerings on it and the draining out of the blood.

¹⁹You are to give to the priests, the Levites of the seed of Zadok, who come near to me, says the Lord God, to do my work, a young ox for a sin-offering.

²⁰You are to take some of its blood and put it on the four horns and on the four angles of the shelf and on the edge all round: and you are to make it clean and free from sin.

²¹And you are to take the ox of the sin-offering, and have it burned in the special place ordered for it in the house, outside the holy place.

²²And on the second day you are to have a he-goat without any mark on it offered for a sin-offering; and they are to make the altar clean as they did with the young ox.

²³And after you have made it clean, let a young ox without a mark be offered, and a male sheep from the flock without a mark.

²⁴And you are to take them before the Lord, and the priests will put salt on them, offering them up for a burned offering to the Lord.

²⁵Every day for seven days you are to give a goat for a sin-offering: and let them give in addition a young ox and a male sheep from the flock without any mark on them.

²⁶For seven days they are to make offerings to take away sin from the altar and to make it clean; so they are to make it holy.

²⁷And when these days have come to an end, then on the eighth day and after, the priests will make your burned offerings on the altar and your peace-offerings; and I will take pleasure in you, says the Lord.

44And he took me back to the outer doorway of the holy place, looking to the east; and it was shut.

²And the Lord said to me, This doorway is to be shut, it is not to be open, and no man is to go in by it, because the Lord, the God of Israel, has gone in by it; and it is to be shut.

³But the ruler will be seated there to take his food before the Lord; he will go in by the covered way to the door, and will come out by the same way.

⁴And he took me to the north doorway in front of the house; and, looking, I saw that the house of the Lord was full of the glory of the Lord; and I went down on my face.

⁵And the Lord said to me, Son of man, take to heart, and let your eyes see and your ears be open to everything I say to you about all the rules of the house of the Lord and all its laws; and take note of the ways into the house and all the ways out of the holy place.

⁶And say to the uncontrolled children of Israel, This is what the Lord has said: O you children of Israel, let it be enough for you, among the disgusting things which you have done,

⁷To have let men from strange lands, without circumcision of heart or flesh, come into my holy place, making my house unclean; and to have made the offering of my food, even the fat and the blood; and in addition to all your disgusting ways, you have let my agreement be broken.

⁸And you have not taken care of my holy things; but you have put them as keepers to take care of my work in my holy place.

⁹For this cause the Lord has said, No man from a strange land, without circumcision of heart and flesh, of all those who are living among the children of Israel, is to come into my holy place.

¹⁰But as for the Levites, who went far from me, when Israel went out of the right way, turning away from me to go after their images; their punishment will come on them.

¹¹But they may be caretakers in my holy place, and overseers at the doors of the house, doing the work of the house: they will put to death the burned offering and the beasts offered for the people, and they will take their place before them as their servants.

¹²Because they did this work for them before their images, and became a cause of sin to the children of Israel; for this cause my hand has been lifted up against them, says the Lord, and their punishment will be on them.

¹³And they will not come near me to do the work of priests to me, or come near any of my holy things, or the things which are most holy: but their shame will be on them, and the punishment for the disgusting things which they have done.

¹⁴But I will make them responsible for the care of the house and all its work and everything which is done in it.

¹⁵But as for the priests, the sons of Zadok, who took care of my holy place when the children of Israel were turned away from me, they are to come near me to do my work, they will take their places before me, offering to me the fat and the blood, says the Lord;

¹⁶They are to come into my holy place and they are to come near to my table, to do my work and have the care of my house.

¹⁷And when they come in by the doorways of the inner square, they are to be clothed in linen robes; there is to be no wool on them while they are doing my work in the doorway of the inner square and inside the house.

¹⁸They are to have linen head-dresses on their heads and linen trousers on their legs, and they are to have nothing round them to make their skin wet with heat.

¹⁹And when they go out into the outer square to the people, they are to take off the robes in which they do the work of priests, and put them away in the holy rooms, and put on other clothing, so that the people may not be made holy by their robes.

²⁰They are not to have all the hair cut off their heads, and they are not to let their hair get long, but they are to have the ends of their hair cut.

²¹The priests are not to take wine when they go into the inner square.

²²And they are not to take as wives any widow or woman whose husband has put her away: but they may take virgins of the seed of Israel, or a widow who is the widow of a priest.

²³And they are to make clear to my people the division between what is holy and what is common, and to give them the knowledge of what is clean and what is unclean.

²⁴In any cause, they are to be in the position of judges, judging in harmony with my decisions: they are to keep my laws and my rules in all my fixed feasts; and they are to keep my Sabbaths holy.

²⁵They are not to come near any dead person so as to become unclean: but for a father or mother or son or daughter or brother or for a sister who has no husband, they may make themselves unclean.

²⁶And after he has been made clean, seven days are to be numbered for him.

²⁷And on the day when he goes into the inner square, to do the work of the holy place, he is to make his sin-offering, says the Lord.

²⁸And they are to have no heritage; I am their heritage: you are to give them no property in Israel; I am their property.

²⁹Their food is to be the meal offering and the sin-offering and the offering for error; and everything given specially to the Lord in Israel will be theirs.

³⁰And the best of all the first-fruits of everything, and every offering which is lifted up of all your offerings, will be for the priests: and you are to give the priest the first of your bread-making, so causing a blessing to come on your house.

³¹The priests may not take for food any bird or beast which has come to a natural death or whose death has been caused by another animal.

45And when you are making a distribution of the land, by the decision of the Lord, for your heritage, you are to make an offering to the Lord of a part of the land as holy: it is to be twenty-five thousand long and twenty thousand wide: all the land inside these limits is to be holy.

²Of this, a square five hundred long and five hundred wide is to be for the holy place, with a space of fifty cubits all round it.

³And of this measure, let a space be measured, twenty-five thousand long and ten thousand wide: in it there will be the holy place, even the most holy.

⁴This holy part of the land is to be for the priests, the servants of the holy place, who come near to the Lord to do his work; it is to be a place for their houses and for grass-land and for cattle.

⁵A space of land twenty-five thousand long and ten thousand wide is to be for the Levites, the servants of the house, a property for themselves, for towns for their living-places.

⁶And as the property for the town you are to have a part five thousand wide and twenty-five thousand long, by the side of the offering of the holy part of the land: this is to be for all the children of Israel.

⁷And for the ruler there is to be a part on one side and on the other side of the holy offering and of the property of the town, in front of the holy offering and in front of the property of the town on the west of it and on the east: measured in the same line as one of the parts of the land, from its limit on the west to its limit on the east of the land.

⁸And this will be his heritage in Israel: and my rulers will no longer be cruel masters to my people; but they will give the land as a heritage to the children of Israel by their tribes.

⁹This is what the Lord has said: Let this be enough for you, O rulers of Israel: let there be an end of violent behaviour and wasting; do what is right, judging uprightly; let there be no more driving out of my people, says the Lord.

¹⁰Have true scales and a true ephah and a true bath.

¹¹The ephah and the bath are to be of the same measure, so that the bath is equal to a tenth of a homer, and the ephah to a tenth of a homer: the unit of measure is to be a homer.

¹²And the shekel is to be twenty gerahs: five shekels are five, and ten shekels are ten, and your maneh is to be fifty shekels

¹³This is the offering you are to give: a sixth of an ephah out of a homer of wheat, and a sixth of an ephah out of a homer of barley;

¹⁴And the fixed measure of oil is to be a tenth of a bath from the cor, for ten baths make up the cor;

¹⁵And one lamb from the flock out of every two hundred, from all the families of Israel, for a meal offering and for a burned offering and for peace-offerings, to take away their sin, says the Lord.

¹⁶All the people are to give this offering to the ruler.

¹⁷And the ruler will be responsible for the burned offering and the meal offering and the drink offering, at the feasts and the new moons and the Sabbaths, at all the fixed feasts of the children of Israel: he will give the sin-offering and meal offering and burned offering and the peace-offerings, to take away the sin of the children of Israel.

¹⁸This is what the Lord has said: In the first month, on the first day of the month, you are to take a young ox without any mark on him, and you are to make the holy place clean.

¹⁹And the priest is to take some of the blood of the sin-offering and put it on the uprights at the sides of the doors of the house, and on the four angles of the shelf of the altar, and on the sides of the doorway of the inner square.

²⁰And this you are to do on the seventh day of the month for everyone who is in error and for the feeble-minded: you are to make the house free from sin.

²¹In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, you are to have the Passover, a feast of seven days; unleavened bread is to be your food.

²²And on that day the ruler is to give for himself and for all the people of the land an ox for a sin-offering.

²³And on the seven days of the feast he is to give a burned offering to the Lord, seven oxen and seven sheep without any mark on them, every day for seven days; and a he-goat every day for a sin-offering.

²⁴And he is to give a meal offering, an ephah for every ox and an ephah for every sheep and a hin of oil to every ephah.

²⁵In the seventh month, on the fifteenth day of the month, at the feast, he is to give the same for seven days; the sin-offering, the burned offering, the meal offering, and the oil as before.

46This is what the Lord has said: The doorway of the inner square looking to the east is to be shut on the six working days; but on the Sabbath it is to be open, and at the time of the new moon it is to be open.

²And the ruler is to go in through the covered way of the outer doorway outside, and take his place by the pillar of the doorway, and the priests will make his burned offering and his peace-offerings and he will give worship at the doorstep of the doorway; then he will go out, and the door will not be shut till the evening.

³And the people of the land are to give worship at the door of that doorway before the Lord on the Sabbaths and at the new moons.

⁴And the burned offering offered to the Lord by the ruler on the Sabbath day is to be six lambs without a mark on them and a male sheep without a mark;

⁵And the meal offering is to be an ephah for the sheep, and for the lambs whatever he is able to give, and a hin of oil to an ephah.

⁶And at the time of the new moon it is to be a young ox of the herd without a mark on him, and six lambs and a male sheep, all without a mark:

⁷And he is to give a meal offering, an ephah for the ox and an ephah for the sheep, and for the lambs whatever he is able to give, and a hin of oil to an ephah.

⁸And when the ruler comes in, he is to go in through the covered way of the doorway, and he is to go out by the same way.

⁹But when the people of the land come before the Lord at the fixed feasts, he who comes in by the north doorway to give worship is to go out by the south doorway; and he who comes in by the south doorway is to go out by the north doorway: he is not to come back by the doorway through which he went in, but is to go straight before him.

¹⁰And the ruler, when they come in, is to come among them, and is to go out when they go out.

¹¹At the feasts and the fixed meetings the meal offerings are to be an ephah for an ox, and an ephah for a male sheep, and for the lambs whatever he is able to give, and a hin of oil to an ephah.

¹²And when the ruler makes a free offering, a burned offering or a peace-offering freely given to the Lord, the doorway looking to the east is to be made open for him, and he is to make his burned offering and his peace-offerings as he does on the Sabbath day: and he will go out; and the door will be shut after he has gone out.

¹³And you are to give a lamb a year old without any mark on it for a burned offering to the Lord every day: morning by morning you are to give it.

¹⁴And you are to give, morning by morning, a meal offering with it, a sixth of an ephah and a third of a hin of oil dropped on the best meal; a meal offering offered to the Lord at all times by an eternal order.

¹⁵And they are to give the lamb and the meal offering and the oil, morning by morning, for a burned offering at all times.

¹⁶This is what the Lord has said: If the ruler gives a property to any of his sons, it is his heritage and will be the property of his sons; it is theirs for their heritage.

¹⁷And if he gives a part of his heritage to one of his servants, it will be his till the year of making free, and then it will go back to the ruler; for it is his sons' heritage, and is to be theirs.

¹⁸And the ruler is not to take the heritage of any of the people, driving them out of their property; he is to give a heritage to his sons out of the property which is his: so that my people may not be sent away from their property.

¹⁹And he took me through by the way in at the side of the doorway into the holy rooms which are the priests', looking to the north: and I saw a place at the side of them to the west.

²⁰And he said to me, This is the place where the offering for error and the sin-offering are to be cooked in water by the priests, and where the meal offering is to be cooked in the oven; so that they may not be taken out into the outer square to make the people holy.

²¹And he took me out into the outer square and made me go by the four angles of the square; and I saw that in every angle of the open square there was a space shut in.

²²In the four angles there were spaces walled in, forty cubits long and thirty wide; the four were of the same size.

²³And there was a line of wall all round inside them, round all four, and boiling-places were made under it all round about.

²⁴And he said to me, These are the boiling-rooms, where the offering of the people is cooked by the servants of the house.

47And he took me back to the door of the house; and I saw that waters were flowing out from under the doorstep of the house on the east, for the house was facing east: and the waters came down from under, from the right side of the house, on the south side of the altar.

²And he took me out by the north doorway, and made me go round to the outside of the doorway looking to the east; and I saw waters running slowly out on the south side.

³And the man went out to the east with the line in his hand, and after measuring a thousand cubits, he made me go through the waters, which came over my feet.

⁴And again, measuring a thousand cubits, he made me go through the waters which came up to my knees. Again, measuring a thousand, he made me go through the waters up to the middle of my body.

⁵Again, after his measuring a thousand, it became a river which it was not possible to go through: for the waters had become deep enough for swimming, a river it was not possible to go through.

⁶And he said to me, Son of man, have you seen this? Then he took me to the river's edge.

⁷And he took me back, and I saw at the edge of the river a very great number of trees on this side and on that.

⁸And he said to me, These waters are flowing out to the east part of the land and down into the Arabah; and they will go to the sea, and the waters will be made sweet.

⁹And it will come about that every living and moving thing, wherever their streams come, will have life; and there will be very much fish because these waters have come there and have been made sweet: and everything wherever the river comes will have life.

¹⁰And fishermen will take up their places by it: from En-gedi as far as En-eglaim will be a place for the stretching out of nets; the fish will be of every sort, like the fish of the Great Sea, a very great number.

¹¹The wet places and the pools will not be made sweet; they will be given up to salt.

¹²And by the edge of the river, on this side and on that, will come up every tree used for food, whose leaves will ever be green and its fruit will not come to an end: it will have new fruit every month, because its waters come out from the holy place: the fruit will be for food and the leaf will make well those who are ill.

¹³This is what the Lord has said: These are the limits by which you will take up your heritage in the land among the twelve tribes of Israel: Joseph is to have two parts.

¹⁴And you are to make an equal division of it; as I gave my oath to your fathers to give it to you: for this land is to be your heritage.

¹⁵And this is to be the limit of the land: on the north side, from the Great Sea, in the direction of Hethlon, as far as the way into Hamath;

¹⁶To Zedad, Berothah, Sibraim, which is between the limit of Damascus and the limit of Hazar-hatticon, which is on the limit of Hauran.

¹⁷And this is the limit from the sea in the direction of Hazar-enon; and the limit of Damascus is to the north, and on the north is the limit of Hamath. This is the north side.

¹⁸And the east side will be from Hazar-enon, which is between Hauran and Damascus; and between Gilead and the land of Israel the Jordan will be the limit, to the east sea, to Tamar. This is the east side.

¹⁹And the south side to the south will be from Tamar as far as the waters of Meribath-kadesh, to the stream of Egypt, to the Great Sea. This is the south side, on the south.

²⁰And the west side will be the Great Sea, from the limit on the south to a point opposite the way into Hamath. This is the west side.

²¹You will make a division of the land among you, tribe by tribe.

²²And you are to make a distribution of it, by the decision of the Lord, for a heritage to you and to the men from other lands who are living among you and who have children in your land: they will be the same to you as if they were Israelites by birth, they will have their heritage with you among the tribes of Israel.

²³In whatever tribe the man from a strange land is living, there you are to give him his heritage, says the Lord.

48Now these are the names of the tribes: from the north end, from the west on the way of Hethlon to the way into Hamath, in the direction of Hazar-enon, with the limit of Damascus to the north, by Hamath; and on the limit from the east side to the west side: Dan, one part.

²And on the limit of Dan, from the east side to the west side: Asher, one part.

³And on the limit of Asher, from the east side to the west side: Naphtali, one part.

⁴And on the limit of Naphtali, from the east side to the west side: Manasseh, one part.

⁵And on the limit of Manasseh, from the east side to the west side: Ephraim, one part.

⁶And on the limit of Ephraim, from the east side to the west side: Reuben, one part.

⁷And on the limit of Reuben, from the east side to the west side: Judah, one part.

⁸And on the limit of Judah, from the east side to the west side, will be the offering which you are to make, twenty-five thousand wide, and as long as one of the parts, from the east side to the west side: and the holy place will be in the middle of it.

⁹The offering you will give to the Lord is to be twenty-five thousand long and twenty-five thousand wide.

¹⁰And for these, that is the priests, the holy offering is to be twenty-five thousand long to the north, ten thousand wide to the west, ten thousand wide to the east and twenty-five thousand long to the south; and the holy place of the Lord will be in the middle of it.

¹¹For the priests who have been made holy, those of the sons of Zadok who kept the orders I gave them, who did not go out of the right way when the children of Israel went from the way, as the Levites did,

¹²Even for them will be the offering from the offering of the land, a thing most holy, on the limit of the land given to the Levites.

¹³And the Levites are to have a part of the land equal to the limit of the priests', twenty-five thousand long and ten thousand wide, all of it together to be twenty-five thousand long and twenty thousand wide.

¹⁴And they are not to let any of it go for a price, or give it in exchange; and the part of the land given to the Lord is not to go into other hands: for it is holy to the Lord.

¹⁵And the other five thousand, measured from side to side, in front of the twenty-five thousand, is to be for common use, for the town, for living in and for a free space: and the town will be in the middle of it.

¹⁶And these will be its measures: the north side, four thousand five hundred, and the south side, four thousand five hundred, and on the east side, four thousand five hundred, and on the west side, four thousand five hundred.

¹⁷And the town will have a free space on the north of two hundred and fifty, on the south of two hundred and fifty, on the east of two hundred and fifty, and on the west of two hundred and fifty.

¹⁸And the rest, in measure as long as the holy offering, will be ten thousand to the east and ten thousand to the west: and its produce will be for food for the workers of the town.

¹⁹It will be farmed by workers of the town from all the tribes of Israel.

²⁰The size of the offering all together is to be twenty-five thousand by twenty-five thousand: you are to make the holy offering a square, together with the property of the town.

²¹And the rest is to be for the prince, on this side and on that side of the holy offering and of the property of the town, in front of the twenty-five thousand to the east, as far as the east limit, and to the west, in front of the twenty-five thousand, as far as the west limit, and of the same measure as those parts; it will be the property of the prince: and the holy offering and holy place of the house will be in the middle of it.

²²And the property of the Levites and the property of the town will be in the middle of the prince's property; between the limit of Judah's part and the limit of Benjamin's part will be for the prince.

²³And as for the rest of the tribes: from the east side to the west side: Benjamin, one part.

²⁴And on the limit of Benjamin, from the east side to the west side: Simeon, one part.

²⁵And on the limit of Simeon, from the east side to the west side: Issachar, one part.

²⁶And on the limit of Issachar, from the east side to the west side: Zebulun, one part.

²⁷And on the limit of Zebulun, from the east side to the west side: Gad one part.

²⁸And on the limit of Gad, on the south side and to the south of it, the limit will be from Tamar to the waters of Meribath-kadesh, to the stream, to the Great Sea.

²⁹This is the land of which distribution is to be made by the decision of the Lord, among the tribes of Israel for their heritage, and these are their heritages, says the Lord.

³⁰And these are the outskirts of the town: on the north side, four thousand five hundred by measure;

³¹And the doors of the town are to be named by the names of the tribes of Israel; three doors on the north, one for Reuben, one for Judah, one for Levi;

³²And at the east side, four thousand five hundred by measure, and three doors, one for Joseph, one for Benjamin, one for Dan;

³³And at the south side, four thousand five hundred by measure, and three doors, one for Simeon, one for Issachar, one for Zebulun;

³⁴At the west side, four thousand five hundred by measure, with their three doors, one for Gad, one for Asher, one for Naphtali.

³⁵It is to be eighteen thousand all round: and the name of the town from that day will be, The Lord is there.

1In the third year of the rule of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem, shutting it in with his forces.

²And the Lord gave into his hands Jehoiakim, king of Judah, with some of the vessels of the house of God; and he took them away into the land of Shinar to the house of his god; and he put the vessels into the store-house of his god.

³And the king gave orders to Ashpenaz, the captain of his unsexed servants, to take in some of the children of Israel, certain of the king's family, and those of high birth;

⁴Young men who were strong and healthy, good-looking, and trained in all wisdom, having a good education and much knowledge, and able to take positions in the king's house; and to have them trained in the writing and language of the Chaldaeans.

⁵And a regular amount of food and wine every day from the king's table was ordered for them by the king; and they were to be cared for for three years so that at the end of that time they might take their places before the king.

⁶And among these there were, of the children of Judah, Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.

⁷And the captain of the unsexed servants gave them names; to Daniel he gave the name of Belteshazzar, to Hananiah the name of Shadrach, to Mishael the name of Meshach, and to Azariah the name of Abed-nego.

⁸And Daniel had come to the decision that he would not make himself unclean with the king's food or wine; so he made a request to the captain of the unsexed servants that he might not make himself unclean.

⁹And God put into the heart of the captain of the unsexed servants kind feelings and pity for Daniel.

¹⁰And the captain of the unsexed servants said to Daniel, I am in fear of my lord the king, who has given orders about your food and your drink; what if he sees you looking less happy than the other young men of your generation? then you would have put my head in danger from the king.

¹¹Then Daniel said to the keeper in whose care the captain of the unsexed servants had put Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah:

¹²Put your servants to the test for ten days; let them give us grain for our food and water for our drink.

¹³Then take a look at our faces and the faces of the young men who have food from the king's table; and, having seen them, do to your servants as it seems right to you.

¹⁴So he gave ear to them in this thing and put them to the test for ten days.

¹⁵And at the end of ten days their faces seemed fairer and they were fatter in flesh than all the young men who had their food from the king's table.

¹⁶So the keeper regularly took away their meat and the wine which was to have been their drink, and gave them grain.

¹⁷Now as for these four young men, God gave them knowledge and made them expert in all book-learning and wisdom: and Daniel was wise in all visions and dreams.

¹⁸Now at the end of the time fixed by the king for them to go in, the captain of the unsexed servants took them in to Nebuchadnezzar.

¹⁹And the king had talk with them; and among them all there was no one like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah; so they were given places before the king.

²⁰And in any business needing wisdom and good sense, about which the king put questions to them, he saw that they were ten times better than all the wonder-workers and users of secret arts in all his kingdom.

²¹And Daniel went on till the first year of King Cyrus.

2In the second year of the rule of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar had dreams; and his spirit was troubled and his sleep went from him.

²Then the king gave orders that the wonder-workers, and the users of secret arts, and those who made use of evil powers, and the Chaldaeans, were to be sent for to make clear to the king his dreams. So they came and took their places before the king.

³And the king said to them, I have had a dream, and my spirit is troubled by the desire to have the dream made clear to me.

⁴Then the Chaldaeans said to the king in the Aramaean language, O King, have life for ever: give your servants an account of your dream, and we will make clear to you the sense of it.

⁵The king made answer and said to the Chaldaeans, This is my decision: if you do not make clear to me the dream and the sense of it, you will be cut in bits and your houses made waste.

⁶But if you make clear the dream and the sense of it, you will have from me offerings and rewards and great honour: so make clear to me the dream and the sense of it.

⁷A second time they said in answer, Let the king give his servants an account of his dream, and we will make clear the sense.

⁸The king made answer and said, I am certain that you are attempting to get more time, because you see that my decision is fixed;

⁹That if you do not make my dream clear to me there is only one fate for you: for you have made ready false and evil words to say before me till the times are changed: so give me an account of the dream, and I will be certain that you are able to make the sense of it clear.

¹⁰Then the Chaldaeans said to the king in answer, There is not a man on earth able to make clear the king's business; for no king, however great his power, has ever made such a request to any wonder-worker or user of secret arts or Chaldaean.

¹¹The king's request is a very hard one, and there is no other who is able to make it clear to the king, but the gods, whose living-place is not with flesh.

¹²Because of this the king was angry and full of wrath, and gave orders for the destruction of all the wise men of Babylon.

¹³So the order went out that the wise men were to be put to death; and they were looking for Daniel and his friends to put them to death.

¹⁴Then Daniel gave an answer with wisdom and good sense to Arioch, the captain of the king's armed men, who had gone out to put to death the wise men of Babylon;

¹⁵He made answer and said to Arioch, O captain of the king, why is the king's order so cruel? Then Arioch gave Daniel an account of the business.

¹⁶And Daniel went in and made a request to the king to give him time and he would make clear the sense of his dream to the king.

¹⁷And Daniel went to his house and gave his friends Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah the news:

¹⁸So that they might make a request for the mercy of the God of heaven in the question of this secret; so that Daniel and his friends might not come to destruction with the rest of the wise men of Babylon.

¹⁹Then the secret was made clear to Daniel in a vision of the night. And Daniel gave blessing to the God of heaven.

²⁰And Daniel said in answer, May the name of God be praised for ever and ever: for wisdom and strength are his:

²¹By him times and years are changed: by him kings are taken away and kings are lifted up: he gives wisdom to the wise, and knowledge to those whose minds are awake:

²²He is the unveiler of deep and secret things: he has knowledge of what is in the dark, and the light has its living-place with him.

²³I give you praise and worship, O God of my fathers, who have given me wisdom and strength, and have now made clear to me what we were requesting from you: for you have given us knowledge of the king's business.

²⁴For this reason Daniel went to Arioch, to whom the king had given orders for the destruction of the wise men of Babylon, and said to him, Do not put to death the wise men of Babylon: take me in before the king and I will make clear to him the sense of the dream.

²⁵Then Arioch quickly took Daniel in before the king, and said to him, Here is a man from among the prisoners of Judah, who will make clear to the king the sense of the dream.

²⁶The king made answer and said to Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, Are you able to make clear to me the dream which I saw and its sense?

²⁷Then Daniel said in answer to the king, No wise men, or users of secret arts, or wonder-workers, or readers of signs, are able to make clear to the king the secret he is searching for;

²⁸But there is a God in heaven, the unveiler of secrets, and he has given to King Nebuchadnezzar knowledge of what will take place in the last days. Your dreams and the visions of your head on your bed are these:

²⁹As for you, O King, the thoughts which came to you on your bed were of what will come about after this: and the unveiler of secrets has made clear to you what is to come.

³⁰As for me, this secret is not made clear to me because of any wisdom which I have more than any living man, but in order that the sense of the dream may be made clear to the king, and that you may have knowledge of the thoughts of your heart.

³¹You, O King, were looking, and a great image was there. This image, which was very great, and whose glory was very bright, was placed before you: its form sent fear into the heart.

³²As for this image, its head was made of the best gold, its breast and its arms were of silver, its middle and its sides were of brass,

³³Its legs of iron, its feet were in part of iron and in part of potter's earth.

³⁴While you were looking at it, a stone was cut out, but not by hands, and it gave the image a blow on its feet, which were of iron and earth, and they were broken in bits.

³⁵Then the iron and the earth, the brass and the silver and the gold, were smashed together, and became like the dust on the floors where grain is crushed in summer; and the wind took them away so that no sign of them was to be seen: and the stone which gave the image a blow became a great mountain, covering all the earth.

³⁶This is the dream; and we will make clear to the king the sense of it.

³⁷You, O King, king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, and the strength, and the glory,

³⁸Wherever the children of men are living; into whose hands he has given the beasts of the field and the birds of heaven, and has made you ruler over them all, you are the head of gold.

³⁹And after you another kingdom, lower than you, will come to power; and a third kingdom, of brass, ruling over all the earth.

⁴⁰And the fourth kingdom will be strong as iron: because, as all things are broken and overcome by iron, so it will have the power of crushing and smashing down all the earth.

⁴¹And as you saw the feet and toes, part of potter's work and part of iron, there will be a division in the kingdom; but there will be some of the strength of iron in it, because you saw the iron mixed with the potter's earth.

⁴²And as the toes of the feet were in part of iron and in part of earth, so part of the kingdom will be strong and part of it will readily be broken.

⁴³And as you saw the iron mixed with earth, they will give their daughters to one another as wives: but they will not be united one with another, even as iron is not mixed with earth.

⁴⁴And in the days of those kings, the God of heaven will put up a kingdom which will never come to destruction, and its power will never be given into the hands of another people, and all these kingdoms will be broken and overcome by it, but it will keep its place for ever.

⁴⁵Because you saw that a stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that by it the iron and the brass and the earth and the silver and the gold were broken to bits, a great God has given the king knowledge of what is to take place in the future: the dream is fixed, and its sense is certain.

⁴⁶Then King Nebuchadnezzar, falling down on his face, gave worship to Daniel, and gave orders for an offering and spices to be given to him;

⁴⁷And the king made answer to Daniel and said, Truly, your God is a God of gods and a Lord of kings, and an unveiler of secrets, for you have been able to make this secret clear.

⁴⁸Then the king made Daniel great, and gave him offerings in great number, and made him ruler over all the land of Babylon, and chief over all the wise men of Babylon.

⁴⁹And at Daniel's request, the king gave Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego authority over the business of the land of Babylon: but Daniel was kept near the king's person.

3Nebuchadnezzar the king made an image of gold, sixty cubits high and six cubits wide: he put it up in the valley of Dura, in the land of Babylon.

²And Nebuchadnezzar the king sent to get together all the captains, the chiefs, the rulers, the wise men, the keepers of public money, the judges, the overseers, and all the rulers of the divisions of the country, to come to see the unveiling of the image which Nebuchadnezzar the king had put up.

³Then the captains, the chiefs, the rulers, the wise men, the keepers of public money, the judges, the overseers, and all the rulers of the divisions of the country, came together to see the unveiling of the image which Nebuchadnezzar the king had put up; and they took their places before the image which Nebuchadnezzar had put up.

⁴Then one of the king's criers said in a loud voice, To you the order is given, O peoples, nations, and languages,

⁵That when the sound of the horn, pipe, harp, trigon, psaltery, bagpipe, and all sorts of instruments, comes to your ears, you are to go down on your faces in worship before the image of gold which Nebuchadnezzar the king has put up:

⁶And anyone not falling down and worshipping will that same hour be put into a burning and flaming fire.

⁷So at that time, all the people, when the sound of the horn, pipe, harp, trigon, psaltery, and all sorts of instruments, came to their ears, went down on their faces in worship before the image of gold which Nebuchadnezzar the king had put up.

⁸At that time certain Chaldaeans came near and made a statement against the Jews.

⁹They made answer and said to Nebuchadnezzar the king, O King, have life for ever.

¹⁰You, O King, have given an order that every man, when the sound of the horn, pipe, harp, trigon, psaltery, bagpipe, and all sorts of instruments, comes to his ears, is to go down on his face in worship before the image of gold:

¹¹And anyone not falling down and worshipping is to be put into a burning and flaming fire.

¹²There are certain Jews whom you have put over the business of the land of Babylon, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego; these men have not given attention to you, O King: they are not servants of your gods or worshippers of the gold image which you have put up.

¹³Then Nebuchadnezzar in his wrath and passion gave orders for Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego to be sent for. Then they made these men come in before the king.

¹⁴Nebuchadnezzar made answer and said to them, Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, that you will not be servants of my god or give worship to the image of gold which I have put up?

¹⁵Now if you are ready, on hearing the sound of the horn, pipe, harp, trigon, psaltery, bagpipe, and all sorts of instruments, to go down on your faces in worship before the image which I have made, it is well: but if you will not give worship, that same hour you will be put into a burning and flaming fire; and what god is there who will be able to take you out of my hands?

¹⁶Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, answering Nebuchadnezzar the king, said, There is no need for us to give you an answer to this question.

¹⁷If our God, whose servants we are, is able to keep us safe from the burning and flaming fire, and from your hands, O King, he will keep us safe.

¹⁸But if not, be certain, O King, that we will not be the servants of your gods, or give worship to the image of gold which you have put up.

¹⁹Then Nebuchadnezzar was full of wrath, and the form of his face was changed against Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego: and he gave orders that the fire was to be heated up seven times more than it was generally heated.

²⁰And he gave orders to certain strong men in his army to put cords on Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego and put them into the burning and flaming fire.

²¹Then these men had cords put round them as they were, in their coats, their trousers, their hats, and their clothing, and were dropped into the burning and flaming fire.

²²And because the king's order was not to be put on one side, and the heat of the fire was so great, the men who took up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego were burned to death by the flame of the fire.

²³And these three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, with the cords about them, went down into the burning and flaming fire.

²⁴Then King Nebuchadnezzar, full of fear and wonder, got up quickly, and said to his wise men, Did we not put three men in cords into the fire? and they made answer and said to the king, True, O King.

²⁵He made answer and said, Look! I see four men loose, walking in the middle of the fire, and they are not damaged; and the form of the fourth is like a son of the gods.

²⁶Then Nebuchadnezzar came near the door of the burning and flaming fire: he made answer and said, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, you servants of the Most High God, come out and come here. Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego came out of the fire.

²⁷And the captains, the chiefs, and the rulers, and the king's wise men who had come together, saw these men, over whose bodies the fire had no power, and not a hair of their heads was burned, and their coats were not changed, and there was no smell of fire about them.

²⁸Nebuchadnezzar made answer and said, Praise be to the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, who has sent his angel and kept his servants safe who had faith in him, and who put the king's word on one side and gave up their bodies to the fire, so that they might not be servants or worshippers of any other god but their God.

²⁹And it is my decision that any people, nation, or language saying evil against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, will be cut to bits and their houses made waste: because there is no other god who is able to give salvation such as this.

³⁰Then the king gave Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego even greater authority in the land of Babylon.

4Nebuchadnezzar the king, to all the peoples, nations, and languages living in all the earth: May your peace be increased.

²It has seemed good to me to make clear the signs and wonders which the Most High God has done with me.

³How great are his signs! and how full of power are his wonders! his kingdom is an eternal kingdom and his rule goes on from generation to generation.

⁴I, Nebuchadnezzar, was at rest in my place, and all things were going well for me in my great house:

⁵I saw a dream which was a cause of great fear to me; I was troubled by the images of my mind on my bed, and by the visions of my head.

⁶And I gave orders for all the wise men of Babylon to come in before me so that they might make clear to me the sense of my dream.

⁷Then the wonder-workers, the users of secret arts, the Chaldaeans, and the readers of signs came in to me: and I put the dream before them but they did not make clear the sense of it to me.

⁸But at last Daniel came in before me, he whose name was Belteshazzar, after the name of my god, and in whom is the spirit of the holy gods: and I put the dream before him, saying,

⁹O Belteshazzar, master of the wonder-workers, because I am certain that the spirit of the holy gods is in you, and you are troubled by no secret; this is the dream which I saw: make clear to me its sense.

¹⁰On my bed I saw a vision: there was a tree in the middle of the earth, and it was very high.

¹¹And the tree became tall and strong, stretching up to heaven, and to be seen from the ends of the earth:

¹²Its leaves were fair and it had much fruit, and in it was food enough for all: the beasts of the field had shade under it, and the birds of heaven were resting in its branches, and it gave food to all living things.

¹³In the visions of my head on my bed I saw a watcher, a holy one, coming down from heaven,

¹⁴Crying out with a loud voice; and this is what he said: Let the tree be cut down and its branches broken off; let its leaves be taken off and its fruit sent in every direction: let the beasts get away from under it and the birds from its branches:

¹⁵But keep its broken end and its roots still in the earth, even with a band of iron and brass; let him have the young grass of the field for food, and let him be wet with the dew of heaven, and let his part be with the beasts.

¹⁶Let his heart be changed from that of a man, and the heart of a beast be given to him; and let seven times go by him.

¹⁷This order is fixed by the watchers, and the decision is by the word of the holy ones: so that the living may be certain that the Most High is ruler over the kingdom of men, and gives it to any man at his pleasure, lifting up over it the lowest of men.

¹⁸This dream I, King Nebuchadnezzar, saw; and do you, O Belteshazzar, make clear the sense of it, for all the wise men of my kingdom are unable to make the sense of it clear to me; but you are able, for the spirit of the holy gods is in you.

¹⁹Then Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, was at a loss for a time, his thoughts troubling him. The king made answer and said, Belteshazzar, do not be troubled by the dream or by the sense of it. Belteshazzar, answering, said, My lord, may the dream be about your haters, and its sense about those who are against you.

²⁰The tree which you saw, which became tall and strong, stretching up to heaven and seen from the ends of the earth;

²¹Which had fair leaves and much fruit, and had in it food for all; under which the beasts of the field were living, and in the branches of which the birds of heaven had their resting-places:

²²It is you, O King, who have become great and strong: for your power is increased and stretching up to heaven, and your rule to the end of the earth.

²³And as for the vision which the king saw of a watcher, a holy one, coming down from heaven, saying, Let the tree be cut down and given to destruction;

²⁴This is the sense of it, O King, and it is the decision of the Most High which has come on my lord the king:

²⁵That they will send you out from among men, to be with the beasts of the field; they will give you grass for your food like the oxen, and you will be wet with the dew of heaven, and seven times will go by you, till you are certain that the Most High is ruler in the kingdom of men, and gives it to any man at his pleasure.

²⁶And as they gave orders to let the broken end and the roots of the tree be, so your kingdom will be safe for you after it is clear to you that the heavens are ruling.

²⁷For this cause, O King, let my suggestion be pleasing to you, and let your sins be covered by righteousness and your evil-doing by mercy to the poor, so that the time of your well-being may be longer.

²⁸All this came to King Nebuchadnezzar.

²⁹At the end of twelve months he was walking on the roof of his great house in Babylon.

³⁰The king made answer and said, Is this not great Babylon, which I have made for the living-place of kings, by the strength of my power and for the glory of my honour?

³¹While the word was still in the king's mouth, a voice came down from heaven, saying, O King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is said: The kingdom has gone from you:

³²And they will send you out from among men, to be with the beasts of the field; they will give you grass for your food like the oxen, and seven times will go by you, till you are certain that the Most High is ruler in the kingdom of men, and gives it to any man at his pleasure.

³³That very hour the order about Nebuchadnezzar was put into effect: and he was sent out from among men, and had grass for his food like the oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, till his hair became long as eagles' feathers and his nails like those of birds.

³⁴And at the end of the days, I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifting up my eyes to heaven, got back my reason, and, blessing the Most High, I gave praise and honour to him who is living for ever, whose rule is an eternal rule and whose kingdom goes on from generation to generation.

³⁵And all the people of the earth are as nothing: he does his pleasure in the army of heaven and among the people of the earth: and no one is able to keep back his hand, or say to him, What are you doing?

³⁶At the same time my reason came back to me; and for the glory of my kingdom, my honour and my great name came back to me; and my wise men and my lords were turned to me again; and I was made safe in my kingdom and had more power than before.

³⁷Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, give worship and praise and honour to the King of heaven; for all his works are true and his ways are right: and those who go in pride he is able to make low.

5Belshazzar the king made a great feast for a thousand of his lords, drinking wine before the thousand.

²Belshazzar, while he was overcome with wine, gave orders for them to put before him the gold and silver vessels which Nebuchadnezzar, his father, had taken from the Temple in Jerusalem; so that the king and his lords, his wives and his other women, might take their drink from them.

³Then they took in the gold and silver vessels which had been in the Temple of the house of God at Jerusalem; and the king and his lords, his wives and his other women, took wine from them.

⁴They took their wine and gave praise to the gods of gold and silver, of brass and iron and wood and stone.

⁵In that very hour the fingers of a man's hand were seen, writing opposite the support for the light on the white wall of the king's house, and the king saw the part of the hand which was writing.

⁶Then the colour went from the king's face, and he was troubled by his thoughts; strength went from his body, and his knees were shaking.

⁷The king, crying out with a loud voice, said that the users of secret arts, the Chaldaeans, and the readers of signs, were to be sent for. The king made answer and said to the wise men of Babylon, Whoever is able to make out this writing, and make clear to me the sense of it, will be clothed in purple and have a chain of gold round his neck, and will be a ruler of high authority in the kingdom.

⁸Then all the king's wise men came in: but they were not able to make out the writing or give the sense of it to the king.

⁹Then King Belshazzar was greatly troubled and the colour went from his face, and his lords were at a loss.

¹⁰The queen, because of the words of the king and his lords, came into the house of the feast: the queen made answer and said, O King, have life for ever; do not be troubled by your thoughts or let the colour go from your face:

¹¹There is a man in your kingdom in whom is the spirit of the holy gods; and in the days of your father, light and reason like the wisdom of the gods were seen in him: and King Nebuchadnezzar, your father, made him master of the wonder-workers, and the users of secret arts, and the Chaldaeans, and the readers of signs;

¹²Because a most special spirit, and knowledge and reason and the power of reading dreams and unfolding dark sayings and answering hard questions, were seen to be in him, even in Daniel (named Belteshazzar by the king): now let Daniel be sent for, and he will make clear the sense of the writing.

¹³Then they took Daniel in before the king; the king made answer and said to Daniel, So you are that Daniel, of the prisoners of Judah, whom my father took out of Judah.

¹⁴And I have had news of you, that the spirit of the gods is in you, and that light and reason and special wisdom have been seen in you.

¹⁵And now the wise men, the users of secret arts, have been sent in before me for the purpose of reading this writing and making clear to me the sense of it: but they are not able to make clear the sense of the thing:

¹⁶And I have had news of you, that you have the power of making things clear, and of answering hard questions: now if you are able to make out the writing and give me the sense of it, you will be clothed in purple and have a gold chain round your neck and be a ruler of high authority in the kingdom.

¹⁷Then Daniel made answer and said to the king, Keep your offerings for yourself, and give your rewards to another; but I, after reading the writing to the king, will give him the sense of it.

¹⁸As for you, O King, the Most High God gave to Nebuchadnezzar, your father, the kingdom and great power and glory and honour:

¹⁹And because of the great power he gave him, all peoples and nations and languages were shaking in fear before him: some he put to death and others he kept living, at his pleasure, lifting up some and putting others down as it pleased him.

²⁰But when his heart was lifted up and his spirit became hard with pride, he was put down from his place as king, and they took his glory from him:

²¹And he was sent out from among the sons of men; and his heart was made like the beasts', and he was living with the asses of the fields; he had grass for his food like the oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, till he was certain that the Most High is ruler in the kingdom of men, and gives power over it to anyone at his pleasure.

²²And you, his son, O Belshazzar, have not kept your heart free from pride, though you had knowledge of all this;

²³But you have been lifting yourself up against the Lord of heaven, and they have put the vessels of his house before you, and you and your lords, your wives and your women, have taken wine in them; and you have given praise to gods of silver and gold, of brass and iron and wood and stone, who are without the power of seeing or hearing, and without knowledge: and to the God in whose hand your breath is, and whose are all your ways, you have not given glory;

²⁴Then the part of the hand was sent out from before him, and this writing was recorded.

²⁵And this is the writing which was recorded, Mene, tekel, peres.

²⁶This is the sense of the words: Mene; your kingdom has been numbered by God and ended.

²⁷Tekel; you have been put in the scales and seen to be under weight.

²⁸Peres; your kingdom has been cut up and given to the Medes and Persians.

²⁹Then, by the order of Belshazzar, they put a purple robe on Daniel, and a gold chain round his neck, and a public statement was made that he was to be a ruler of high authority in the kingdom.

³⁰That very night Belshazzar, the king of the Chaldaeans, was put to death.

³¹And Darius the Mede took the kingdom, being then about sixty-two years old.

6Darius was pleased to put over the kingdom a hundred and twenty captains, who were to be all through the kingdom;

²And over them were three chief rulers, of whom Daniel was one; and the captains were to be responsible to the chief rulers, so that the king might undergo no loss.

³Then this Daniel did his work better than the chief rulers and the captains, because there was a special spirit in him; and it was the king's purpose to put him over all the kingdom.

⁴Then the chief rulers and the captains were looking for some cause for putting Daniel in the wrong in connection with the kingdom, but they were unable to put forward any wrongdoing or error against him; because he was true, and no error or wrong was to be seen in him.

⁵Then these men said, We will only get a reason for attacking Daniel in connection with the law of his God.

⁶Then these chief rulers and the captains came to the king and said to him, O King Darius, have life for ever.

⁷All the chief rulers of the kingdom, the chiefs and the captains, the wise men and the rulers, have made a common decision to put in force a law having the king's authority, and to give a strong order, that whoever makes any request to any god or man but you, O King, for thirty days, is to be put into the lions' hole.

⁸Now, O King, put the order in force, signing the writing so that it may not be changed, like the law of the Medes and Persians which may not come to an end.

⁹For this reason King Darius put his name on the writing and the order.

¹⁰And Daniel, on hearing that the writing had been signed, went into his house; (now he had windows in his room on the roof opening in the direction of Jerusalem;) and three times a day he went down on his knees in prayer and praise before his God, as he had done before.

¹¹Then these men were watching and saw Daniel making prayers and requesting grace before his God.

¹²Then they came near before the king and said, O King, have you not put your name to an order that any man who makes a request to any god or man but you, O King, for thirty days, is to be put into the lions' hole? The king made answer and said, The thing is fixed by the law of the Medes and Persians which may not come to an end.

¹³Then they made answer and said before the king, Daniel, one of the prisoners of Judah, has no respect for you, O King, or for the order signed by you, but three times a day he makes his prayer to God.

¹⁴When this thing came to the king's ears, it was very evil to him, and his heart was fixed on keeping Daniel safe, and till the going down of the sun he was doing everything in his power to get him free.

¹⁵Then these men said to the king, Be certain, O King, that by the law of the Medes and Persians no order or law which the king has put into force may be changed.

¹⁶Then the king gave the order, and they took Daniel and put him into the lions' hole. The king made answer and said to Daniel, Your God, whose servant you are at all times, will keep you safe.

¹⁷Then they got a stone and put it over the mouth of the hole, and it was stamped with the king's stamp and with the stamp of the lords, so that the decision about Daniel might not be changed.

¹⁸Then the king went to his great house, and took no food that night, and no ... were placed before him, and his sleep went from him.

¹⁹Then very early in the morning the king got up and went quickly to the lions' hole.

²⁰And when he came near the hole where Daniel was, he gave a loud cry of grief; the king made answer and said to Daniel, O Daniel, servant of the living God, is your God, whose servant you are at all times, able to keep you safe from the lions?

²¹Then Daniel said to the king, O King, have life for ever.

²²My God has sent his angel to keep the lions' mouths shut, and they have done me no damage: because I was seen to be without sin before him; and further, before you, O King, I have done no wrong.

²³Then the king was very glad, and gave orders for them to take Daniel up out of the hole. So Daniel was taken up out of the hole and he was seen to be untouched, because he had faith in his God.

²⁴And at the king's order, they took those men who had said evil against Daniel, and put them in the lions' hole, with their wives and their children; and they had not got to the floor of the hole before the lions overcame them and all their bones were broken.

²⁵Then King Darius sent a letter to all the peoples, nations, and languages, living in all the earth: May your peace be increased.

²⁶It is my order that in all the kingdom of which I am ruler, men are to be shaking with fear before the God of Daniel: for he is the living God, unchanging for ever, and his kingdom is one which will never come to destruction, his rule will go on to the end.

²⁷He gives salvation and makes men free from danger, and does signs and wonders in heaven and earth, who has kept Daniel safe from the power of the lions.

²⁸So this Daniel did well in the kingdom of Darius and in the kingdom of Cyrus the Persian.

7In the first year of Belshazzar, king of Babylon, Daniel saw a dream, and visions came into his head on his bed: then he put the dream in writing.

²I had a vision by night, and saw the four winds of heaven violently moving the great sea.

³And four great beasts came up from the sea, different one from another.

⁴The first was like a lion and had eagle's wings; while I was watching its wings were pulled off, and it was lifted up from the earth and placed on two feet like a man, and a man's heart was given to it.

⁵And I saw another beast, like a bear, and it was lifted up on one side, and three side-bones were in its mouth, between its teeth: and they said to it, Up! take much flesh.

⁶After this I saw another beast, like a leopard, which had on its back four wings like those of a bird; and the beast had four heads, and the power of a ruler was given to it.

⁷After this, in my vision of the night, I saw a fourth beast, a thing causing fear and very troubling, full of power and very strong; and it had great iron teeth: it took its food, crushing some of it to bits and stamping down the rest with its feet: it was different from all the beasts before it; and it had ten horns.

⁸I was watching the horns with care, and I saw another coming up among them, a little one, before which three of the first horns were pulled up by the roots: and there were eyes like a man's eyes in this horn, and a mouth saying great things.

⁹I went on looking till the seats of kings were placed, and one like a very old man took his seat: his clothing was white as snow, and the hair of his head was like clean wool; his seat was flames of fire and its wheels burning fire.

¹⁰A stream of fire was flowing and coming out from before him: a thousand thousands were his servants, and ten thousand times ten thousand were in their places before him: the judge was seated and the books were open.

¹¹Then I saw--because of the voice of the great words which the horn said--I saw till the beast was put to death, and its body was given to destruction, and the beast was given to the burning of fire.

¹²As for the rest of the beasts, their authority was taken away: but they let them go on living for a measure of time.

¹³I saw in visions of the night, and there was coming with the clouds of heaven one like a man, and he came to the one who was very old, and they took him near before him.

¹⁴And to him was given authority and glory and a kingdom; and all peoples, nations, and languages were his servants: his authority is an eternal authority which will not come to an end, and his kingdom is one which will not come to destruction.

¹⁵As for me, Daniel, my spirit was pained because of this, and the visions of my head were troubling me.

¹⁶I came near to one of those who were waiting there, questioning him about what all this was. And he said to me that he would make clear to me the sense of these things.

¹⁷These great beasts are four kings who will be cut off from the earth.

¹⁸But the saints of the Most High will take the kingdom, and it will be theirs for ever, even for ever and ever.

¹⁹Then it was my desire to have certain knowledge about the fourth beast, which was different from all the others, a cause of great fear, whose teeth were of iron and his nails of brass; who took his food, crushing some of it to bits and stamping on the rest with his feet;

²⁰And about the ten horns on his head and the other which came up, causing the fall of three; that horn which had eyes, and a mouth saying great things, which seemed to be greater than the other horns.

²¹And I saw how that horn made war on the saints and overcame them,

²²Till he came, who was very old, and the decision was made and the authority was given to the saints of the Most High; and the time came when the saints took the kingdom.

²³This is what he said: The fourth beast is a fourth kingdom which will come on earth, different from all the kingdoms, and it will overcome all the earth, crushing it down and smashing it.

²⁴And as for the ten horns, out of this kingdom ten kings will come to power; and after them another will come up: he will be different from the first ones and will put down three kings.

²⁵And he will say words against the Most High, attempting to put an end to the saints of the Most High; and he will have the idea of changing times and law; and the saints will be given into his hands for a time and times and half a time.

²⁶But the judge will be seated, and they will put an end to his authority, to overcome it and send complete destruction on it.

²⁷And the kingdom and the authority and the power of the kingdoms under all the heaven will be given to the people of the saints of the Most High: his kingdom is an eternal kingdom, and all powers will be his servants and do his pleasure.

²⁸Here is the end of the account. As for me, Daniel, I was greatly troubled by my thoughts, and the colour went from my face: but I kept the thing in my heart.

8In the third year of the rule of Belshazzar the king, a vision was seen by me, Daniel, after the one I saw at first.

²And I saw in the vision; and when I saw it, I was in the strong town Shushan, which is in the country of Elam; and in the vision I was by the water-door of the Ulai.

³And lifting up my eyes, I saw, there before the stream, a male sheep with two horns: and the two horns were high, but one was higher than the other, the higher one coming up last.

⁴I saw the sheep pushing to the west and to the north and to the south; and no beasts were able to keep their place before him, and no one was able to get people out of his power; but he did whatever his pleasure was and made himself great.

⁵And while I was giving thought to this, I saw a he-goat coming from the west over the face of all the earth without touching the earth: and the he-goat had a great horn between his eyes.

⁶And he came to the two-horned sheep which I saw before the stream, rushing at him in the heat of his power.

⁷And I saw him come right up to the sheep, and he was moved with wrath against him, attacking the sheep so that his two horns were broken; and the sheep had not strength to keep his place before him, but was pushed down on the earth and crushed under his feet: and there was no one to get the sheep out of his power.

⁸And the he-goat became very great: and when he was strong, the great horn was broken, and in its place came up four other horns turned to the four winds of heaven.

⁹And out of one of them came another horn, a little one, which became very great, stretching to the south and to the east and to the beautiful land.

¹⁰And it became great, even as high as the army of heaven, pulling down some of the army, even of the stars, to the earth and crushing them under its feet.

¹¹It made itself great, even as great as the lord of the army; and by it the regular burned offering was taken away, and the place overturned and the holy place made waste.

¹²... against the regular burned offering; and ... crushed down to the earth, and it did its pleasure and things went well for it.

¹³Then there came to my ears the voice of a holy one talking; and another holy one said to that certain one who was talking, How long will the vision be while the regular burned offering is taken away, and the unclean thing causing fear is put up, and the holy place crushed under foot?

¹⁴And he said to him, For two thousand, three hundred evenings and mornings; then the holy place will be made clean.

¹⁵And it came about that when I, Daniel, had seen this vision, I had a desire for the sense of it to be unfolded; and I saw one before me in the form of a man.

¹⁶And the voice of a man came to my ears between the sides of the Ulai, crying out and saying, Gabriel, make the vision clear to this man.

¹⁷So he came and took his place near where I was; and when he came, I was full of fear and went down on my face: but he said to me, Let it be clear to you, O son of man; for the vision has to do with the time of the end.

¹⁸Now while he was talking to me, I went into a deep sleep with my face to the earth: but touching me, he put me on my feet where I had been.

¹⁹And he said, See, I will make clear to you what is to come in the later time of the wrath: for it has to do with the fixed time of the end.

²⁰The sheep which you saw with two horns, they are the kings of Media and Persia.

²¹And the he-goat is the king of Greece: and the great horn between his eyes is the first king.

²²And as for that which was broken, in place of which four came up, four kingdoms will come up from his nation, but not with his power.

²³And in the later years of their kingdom, when their evil doings have become complete, there will come up a king full of pride and expert in dark sayings.

²⁴And his power will be great, and he will be purposing strange things. And all will go well for him and he will do his pleasure; and he will send destruction on the strong ones.

²⁵And his designs will be turned against the holy people, causing deceit to do well in his hand; in his heart he will make himself great, and send destruction on numbers who are living unconscious of their danger; and he will put himself up against the prince of princes; but he will be broken, though not by men's hands.

²⁶And the vision of evenings and mornings which has been talked of is true: and keep the vision secret; for it has to do with the far-off future.

²⁷And I, Daniel, was ill for some days; then I got up and did the king's business: and I was full of wonder at the vision, but no one was able to give the sense of it.

9In the first year of Darius, the son of Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes, who was made king over the kingdom of the Chaldaeans;

²In the first year of his rule, I, Daniel, saw clearly from the books the number of years given by the word of the Lord to the prophet Jeremiah, in which the making waste of Jerusalem was to be complete, that is, seventy years.

³And turning my face to the Lord God, I gave myself up to prayer, requesting his grace, going without food, in haircloth and dust.

⁴And I made prayer to the Lord my God, putting our sins before him, and said, O Lord, the great God, greatly to be feared. keeping your agreement and mercy with those who have love for you and do your orders;

⁵We are sinners, acting wrongly and doing evil; we have gone against you, turning away from your orders and from your laws:

⁶We have not given ear to your servants the prophets, who said words in your name to our kings and our rulers and our fathers and all the people of the land.

⁷O Lord, righteousness is yours, but shame is on us, even to this day; and on the men of Judah and the people of Jerusalem, and on all Israel, those who are near and those who are far off, in all the countries where you have sent them because of the sin which they have done against you.

⁸O Lord, shame is on us, on our kings and our rulers and our fathers, because of our sin against you.

⁹With the Lord our God are mercies and forgiveness, for we have gone against him;

¹⁰And have not given ear to the voice of the Lord our God to go in the way of his laws which he put before us by the mouth of his servants the prophets.

¹¹And all Israel have been sinners against your law, turning away so as not to give ear to your voice: and the curse has been let loose on us, and the oath recorded in the law of Moses, the servant of God, for we have done evil against him.

¹²And he has given effect to his words which he said against us and against those who were our judges, by sending a great evil on us: for under all heaven there has not been done what has been done to Jerusalem.

¹³As it was recorded in the law of Moses, all this evil has come on us: but we have made no prayer for grace from the Lord our God that we might be turned from our evil doings and come to true wisdom.

¹⁴So the Lord has been watching over this evil and has made it come on us: for the Lord our God is upright in all his acts which he has done, and we have not given ear to his voice.

¹⁵And now, O Lord our God, who took your people out of the land of Egypt with a strong hand and made a great name for yourself even to this day; we are sinners, we have done evil.

¹⁶O Lord, because of your righteousness, let your wrath and your passion be turned away from your town Jerusalem, your holy mountain: because, through our sins and the evil-doing of our fathers, Jerusalem and your people have become a cause of shame to all who are round about us.

¹⁷And now, give ear, O our God, to the prayer of your servant and to his request for grace, and let your face be shining on your holy place which is made waste, because of your servants, O Lord.

¹⁸O my God, let your ear be turned and give hearing; let your eyes be open and see how we have been made waste and the town which is named by your name: for we are not offering our prayers before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercies.

¹⁹O Lord, give ear; O Lord, have forgiveness; O Lord, take note and do; let there be no more waiting; for the honour of your name, O my God, because your town and your people are named by your name.

²⁰And while I was still saying these words in prayer, and putting my sins and the sins of my people Israel before the Lord, and requesting grace from the Lord my God for the holy mountain of my God;

²¹Even while I was still in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at first when my weariness was great, put his hand on me about the time of the evening offering.

²²And teaching me and talking to me he said, O Daniel, I have come now to give you wisdom.

²³At the first word of your prayer a word went out, and I have come to give you knowledge; for you are a man dearly loved: so give thought to the word and let the vision be clear to you.

²⁴Seventy weeks have been fixed for your people and your holy town, to let wrongdoing be complete and sin come to its full limit, and for the clearing away of evil-doing and the coming in of eternal righteousness: so that the vision and the word of the prophet may be stamped as true, and to put the holy oil on a most holy place.

²⁵Have then the certain knowledge that from the going out of the word for the building again of Jerusalem till the coming of a prince, on whom the holy oil has been put, will be seven weeks: in sixty-two weeks its building will be complete, with square and earthwork.

²⁶And at the end of the times, even after the sixty-two weeks, one on whom the holy oil has been put will be cut off and have no ...; and the town and the holy place will be made waste together with a prince; and the end will come with an overflowing of waters, and even to the end there will be war; the making waste which has been fixed.

²⁷And a strong order will be sent out against the great number for one week; and so for half of the week the offering and the meal offering will come to an end; and in its place will be an unclean thing causing fear; till the destruction which has been fixed is let loose on him who has made waste.

10In the third year of Cyrus, king of Persia, a secret was unfolded to Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar; and the thing was true, even a hard work: and he had knowledge of it, and the vision was clear to him.

²In those days I, Daniel, gave myself up to grief for three full weeks.

³I had no pleasing food, no meat or wine came into my mouth, and I put no oil on my body till three full weeks were ended.

⁴And on the twenty-fourth day of the first month I was by the side of the great river;

⁵And lifting up my eyes I saw the form of a man clothed in a linen robe, and round him there was a band of gold, of the best gold:

⁶And his body was like the beryl, and his face had the look of a thunder-flame, and his eyes were like burning lights, and his arms and feet like the colour of polished brass, and the sound of his voice was like the sound of an army.

⁷And I, Daniel, was the only one who saw the vision, for the men who were with me did not see it; but a great shaking came on them and they went in flight to take cover.

⁸So I was by myself, and I saw this great vision, and all my strength went from me; and the colour went from my face.

⁹But the sound of his words came to my ears, and on hearing his voice I went into a deep sleep with my face to the earth.

¹⁰Then a hand gave me a touch, awaking me, and putting me on my knees and my hands.

¹¹And he said to me, O Daniel, you man dearly loved, take in the sense of the words I say to you and get up on to your feet: for to you I am now sent; and when he had said this to me I got on to my feet, shaking with fear.

¹²Then he said to me, Have no fear, Daniel; for from the first day when you gave your heart to getting wisdom and making yourself poor in spirit before your God, your words have come to his ears: and I have come because of your words.

¹³But the angel of the kingdom of Persia put himself against me for twenty-one days; but Michael, one of the chief angels, came to my help; and when I came he was still there with the angel of the kings of Persia.

¹⁴Now I have come to give you knowledge of the fate of your people in the later days; for there is still a vision for the days.

¹⁵And after he had said these words to me, I kept my face turned to the earth and was unable to say anything.

¹⁶Then one whose form was like the sons of men put his finger on my lips; and opening my mouth, I said to him who was before me, O my lord, because of the vision my pains have come on me, and I have no more strength.

¹⁷For how may this servant of my lord have talk with my lord? for, as for me, straight away my strength went from me and there was no breath in my body.

¹⁸Then again one having the form of a man put his hand on me and gave me strength.

¹⁹And he said to me, O man greatly loved, have no fear: peace be with you, be strong and let your heart be lifted up. And at his words I became strong, and said, Let my lord say on, for you have given me strength.

²⁰Then he said, It is clear to you why I have come to you. And now I will give you an account of what is recorded in the true writings:

²¹But I am going back to make war with the angel of Persia, and when I am gone, the angel of Greece will come. And there is no one on my side against these, but Michael, your angel.

11And as for me, in the first year of Darius the Mede I was on his side to make his position safe and make him strong.

²And now I will make clear to you what is true. There are still three kings to come in Persia, and the fourth will have much greater wealth than all of them: and when he has become strong through his wealth, he will put his forces in motion against all the kingdoms of Greece.

³And a strong king will come to power, ruling with great authority and doing whatever is his pleasure.

⁴And when he has become strong, his kingdom will be broken and parted to the four winds of heaven; but not to his offspring, for it will be uprooted; and his kingdom will be for the others and not for these: but not with the same authority as his.

⁵And the king of the south will be strong, but one of his captains will be stronger than he and will be ruler; and his rule will be a great rule.

⁶And at the end of years they will be joined together; and the daughter of the king of the south will come to the king of the north to make an agreement: but she will not keep the strength of her arm; and his offspring will not keep their place; but she will be uprooted, with those who were the cause of her coming, and her son, and he who took her in those times.

⁷But out of a branch from her roots one will come up to take his place, who will come against the army, forcing his way into the strong place of the king of the north, and he will take them in hand and overcome them:

⁸And their gods and their metal images and their fair vessels of silver and gold he will take away into the south; and for some years he will keep away from the king of the north.

⁹And he will come into the kingdom of the king of the south, but he will go back to his land.

¹⁰And his son will make war, and will get together an army of great forces, and he will make an attack on him, overflowing and going past: and he will again take the war even to his strong place.

¹¹And the king of the south will be moved with wrath, and will come out and make war on him, on this same king of the north: and he will get together a great army, but the army will be given into his hand.

¹²And the army will be taken away, and his heart will be uplifted: he will be the cause of the downfall of tens of thousands, but he will not be strong.

¹³And again the king of the north will get together an army greater than the first; and he will make an attack on him at the end of years, with a great army and much wealth.

¹⁴In those times, a number will take up arms against the king of the south: and the children of the violent among your people will be lifting themselves up to make the vision come true; but it will be their downfall.

¹⁵So the king of the north will come, and put up earthworks and take a well-armed town: and the forces of the king of the south will make an attempt to keep their position, even the best of his army, but they will not have strength to do so.

¹⁶And he who comes against him will do his pleasure, and no one will be able to keep his place before him: he will take up his position in the beautiful land and in his hand there will be destruction.

¹⁷And it will be his purpose to come with the strength of all his kingdom, but in place of this he will make an agreement with him; and he will give him the daughter of women to send destruction on it; but this will not take place or come about.

¹⁸After this, his face will be turned to the islands, and he will take a number of them: but a chief, by his destruction, will put an end to the shame offered by him; and more than this, he will make his shame come back on him.

¹⁹Then his face will be turned to the strong places of his land: but his way will be stopped, causing his downfall, and he will not be seen again.

²⁰Then his place will be taken by one who will send out a man with the glory of a king to get wealth together; but after a short time destruction will overtake him, but not in wrath or in the fight.

²¹And his place will be taken by a low person, to whom the honour of the kingdom had not been given: but he will come in time of peace and will get the kingdom by fair words.

²²And his forces will be completely taken away from before him and broken; and even the ruler of the agreement will have the same fate.

²³And from the time when they make an agreement with him, he will be working falsely: for he will take up arms suddenly with a small force,

²⁴Against fertile places, and will make waste a part of the country; and he will do what his fathers have not done, or his fathers' fathers; he will make distribution among them of goods taken in war and by force, and of property: he will even make designs against the strong places for a time.

²⁵And he will put in motion his power and his strength against the king of the south with a great army; and the king of the south will go to war with a very great and strong army: but he will be forced to give way, because of their designs against him;

²⁶And his fears will overcome him and be the cause of his downfall, and his army will come to complete destruction, and a great number will be put to the sword.

²⁷And as for these two kings, their hearts will be fixed on doing evil and they will say false words at one table; but it will come to nothing: for the end will be at the time fixed.

²⁸And he will go back to his land with great wealth; and his heart will be against the holy agreement; and he will do his pleasure and go back to his land.

²⁹At the time fixed he will come back and come into the south; but in the later time it will not be as it was before.

³⁰For those who go out from the west will come against him, and he will be in fear and will go back, full of wrath against the holy agreement; and he will do his pleasure: and he will go back and be united with those who have given up the holy agreement.

³¹And armies sent by him will take up their position and they will make unclean the holy place, even the strong place, and take away the regular burned offering and put in its place an unclean thing causing fear.

³²And those who do evil against the agreement will be turned to sin by his fair words: but the people who have knowledge of their God will be strong and do well.

³³And those who are wise among the people will be the teachers of the mass of the people: but they will come to their downfall by the sword and by the flame, being made prisoners and undergoing loss for a long time.

³⁴Now at the time of their downfall they will have a little help, but numbers will be joined to them in the town, and in their separate heritages.

³⁵And some of those who are wise will have wisdom in testing themselves and making themselves clean, till the time of the end: for it is still for the fixed time.

³⁶And the king will do his pleasure; he will put himself on high, lifting himself over every god, and saying things to be wondered at against the God of gods; and all will be well for him till the wrath is complete; for what has been purposed will be done.

³⁷He will have no respect for the gods of his fathers or for the god desired by women; he will have no respect for any god: for he will put himself on high over all.

³⁸But in place of this he will give honour to the god of armed places, and to a god of whom his fathers had no knowledge he will give honour with gold and silver and jewels and things to be desired.

³⁹And he will make use of the people of a strange god to keep his strongest places; to those whom he takes note of he will give high honour: and he will make them rulers over the mass of the people, and will make division of the land for a price.

⁴⁰And at the time of the end, the king of the south will make an attack on him: and the king of the north will come against him like a storm-wind, with war-carriages and horsemen and numbers of ships; and he will go through many lands like overflowing waters.

⁴¹And he will come into the beautiful land, and tens of thousands will be overcome: but these will be kept from falling into his hands: Edom and Moab and the chief of the children of Ammon.

⁴²And his hand will be stretched out on the countries: and the land of the south will not be safe from him.

⁴³But he will have power over the stores of gold and silver, and over all the valued things of the south: and the Libyans and the Ethiopians will be at his steps.

⁴⁴But he will be troubled by news from the east and from the north; and he will go out in great wrath, to send destruction on, and put an end to, great numbers.

⁴⁵He will put the tents of his great house between the sea and the beautiful holy mountain: but he will come to his end with no helper.

12And at that time Michael will take up his place, the great angel, who is the supporter of the children of your people: and there will be a time of trouble, such as there never was from the time there was a nation even till that same time: and at that time your people will be kept safe, everyone who is recorded in the book.

²And a number of those who are sleeping in the dust of the earth will come out of their sleep, some to eternal life and some to eternal shame.

³And those who are wise will be shining like the light of the outstretched sky; and those by whom numbers have been turned to righteousness will be like the stars for ever and ever.

⁴But as for you, O Daniel, let the words be kept secret and the book rolled up and kept shut till the time of the end: numbers will be going out of the way and troubles will be increased.

⁵Then I, Daniel, looking, saw two others, one at the edge of the river on this side and one at the edge of the river on that side.

⁶And I said to the man clothed in linen, who was over the waters of the river, How long will it be to the end of these wonders?

⁷Then in my hearing the man clothed in linen, who was over the river, lifting up his right hand and his left hand to heaven, took an oath by him who is living for ever that it would be a time, times, and a half; and when the power of the crusher of the holy people comes to an end, all these things will be ended.

⁸And the words came to my ears, but the sense of them was not clear to me: then I said, O my lord, what is the sense of these things?

⁹And he said, Go on your way, Daniel: for the words are secret and shut up till the time of the end;

¹⁰Till a number are tested and make themselves clean; and the evil-doers will do evil; for not one of the evil-doers will have knowledge; but all will be made clear to those who are wise.

¹¹And from the time when the regular burned offering is taken away, and an unclean thing causing fear is put up, there will be a thousand, two hundred and ninety days.

¹²A blessing will be on the man who goes on waiting, and comes to the thousand, three hundred and thirty-five days.

¹³But you, go on your way and take your rest: for you will be in your place at the end of the days.

1The book of the generations of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

²The son of Abraham was Isaac; and the son of Isaac was Jacob; and the sons of Jacob were Judah and his brothers;

³And the sons of Judah were Perez and Zerah by Tamar; and the son of Perez was Hezron; and the son of Hezron was Ram;

⁴And the son of Ram was Amminadab; and the son of Amminadab was Nahshon; and the son of Nahshon was Salmon;

⁵And the son of Salmon by Rahab was Boaz; and the son of Boaz by Ruth was Obed; and the son of Obed was Jesse;

⁶And the son of Jesse was David the king; and the son of David was Solomon by her who had been the wife of Uriah;

⁷And the son of Solomon was Rehoboam; and the son of Rehoboam was Abijah; and the son of Abijah was Asa;

⁸And the son of Asa was Jehoshaphat; and the son of Jehoshaphat was Joram; and the son of Joram was Uzziah;

⁹And the son of Uzziah was Jotham; and the son of Jotham was Ahaz; and the son of Ahaz was Hezekiah;

¹⁰And the son of Hezekiah was Manasseh; and the son of Manasseh was Amon; and the son of Amon was Josiah;

¹¹And the sons of Josiah were Jechoniah and his brothers, at the time of the taking away to Babylon.

¹²And after the taking away to Babylon, Jechoniah had a son Shealtiel; and Shealtiel had Zerubbabel;

¹³And Zerubbabel had Abiud; and Abiud had Eliakim; and Eliakim had Azor;

¹⁴And Azor had Zadok; and Zadok had Achim; and Achim had Eliud;

¹⁵And Eliud had Eleazar; and Eleazar had Matthan; and Matthan had Jacob;

¹⁶And the son of Jacob was Joseph the husband of Mary, who gave birth to Jesus, whose name is Christ.

¹⁷So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David to the taking away to Babylon, fourteen generations; and from the taking away to Babylon to the coming of Christ, fourteen generations.

¹⁸Now the birth of Jesus Christ was in this way: when his mother Mary was going to be married to Joseph, before they came together the discovery was made that she was with child by the Holy Spirit.

¹⁹And Joseph, her husband, being an upright man, and not desiring to make her a public example, had a mind to put her away privately.

²⁰But when he was giving thought to these things, an angel of the Lord came to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, son of David, have no fear of taking Mary as your wife; because that which is in her body is of the Holy Spirit.

²¹And she will give birth to a son; and you will give him the name Jesus; for he will give his people salvation from their sins.

²²Now all this took place so that the word of the Lord by the prophet might come true,

²³See, the virgin will be with child, and will give birth to a son, and they will give him the name Immanuel, that is, God with us.

²⁴And Joseph did as the angel of the Lord had said to him, and took her as his wife;

²⁵And he had no connection with her till she had given birth to a son; and he gave him the name Jesus.

2Now when the birth of Jesus took place in Beth-lehem of Judaea, in the days of Herod the king, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem,

²Saying, Where is the King of the Jews whose birth has now taken place? We have seen his star in the east and have come to give him worship.

³And when it came to the ears of Herod the king, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.

⁴And he got together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, questioning them as to where the birth-place of the Christ would be.

⁵And they said to him, In Beth-lehem of Judaea; for so it is said in the writings of the prophet,

⁶You Beth-lehem, in the land of Judah, are not the least among the chiefs of Judah: out of you will come a ruler, who will be the keeper of my people Israel.

⁷Then Herod sent for the wise men privately, and put questions to them about what time the star had been seen.

⁸And he sent them to Beth-lehem and said, Go and make certain where the young child is; and when you have seen him, let me have news of it, so that I may come and give him worship.

⁹And after hearing the king, they went on their way; and the star which they saw in the east went before them, till it came to rest over the place where the young child was.

¹⁰And when they saw the star they were full of joy.

¹¹And they came into the house, and saw the young child with Mary, his mother; and falling down on their faces they gave him worship; and from their store they gave him offerings of gold, perfume, and spices.

¹²And it was made clear to them by God in a dream that they were not to go back to Herod; so they went into their country by another way.

¹³And when they had gone, an angel of the Lord came to Joseph in a dream, saying, Get up and take the young child and his mother, and go into Egypt, and do not go from there till I give you word; for Herod will be searching for the young child to put him to death.

¹⁴So he took the young child and his mother by night, and went into Egypt;

¹⁵And was there till the death of Herod; so that the word of the Lord through the prophet might come true, Out of Egypt have I sent for my son.

¹⁶Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, was very angry; and he sent out, and put to death all the male children in Beth-lehem and in all the parts round about it, from two years old and under, acting on the knowledge which he had got with care from the wise men.

¹⁷Then the word of Jeremiah the prophet came true,

¹⁸In Ramah there was a sound of weeping and great sorrow, Rachel weeping for her children, and she would not be comforted for their loss.

¹⁹But when Herod was dead, an angel of the Lord came in a dream to Joseph in Egypt,

²⁰Saying, Get up and take the young child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel: because they who were attempting to take the young child's life are dead.

²¹And he got up, and took the young child and his mother, and came into the land of Israel.

²²But when it came to his ears that Archelaus was ruling over Judaea in the place of his father Herod, he was in fear of going there; and God having given him news of the danger in a dream, he went out of the way into the country parts of Galilee.

²³And he came and was living in a town named Nazareth: so that the word of the prophets might come true, He will be named a Nazarene.

3And in those days John the Baptist came preaching in the waste land of Judaea,

²Saying, Let your hearts be turned from sin; for the kingdom of heaven is near.

³For this is he of whom Isaiah the prophet said, The voice of one crying in the waste land, Make ready the way of the Lord, make his roads straight.

⁴Now John was clothed in camel's hair, with a leather band about him; and his food was locusts and honey.

⁵Then Jerusalem and all Judaea went out to him, and all the people from near Jordan;

⁶And they were given baptism by him in the river Jordan, saying openly that they had done wrong.

⁷But when he saw a number of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, Offspring of snakes, at whose word are you going in flight from the wrath to come?

⁸Let your change of heart be seen in your works:

⁹And say not to yourselves, We have Abraham for our father; because I say to you that God is able from these stones to make children for Abraham.

¹⁰And even now the axe is put to the root of the trees; every tree then which does not give good fruit is cut down, and put into the fire.

¹¹Truly, I give baptism with water to those of you whose hearts are changed; but he who comes after me is greater than I, whose shoes I am not good enough to take up: he will give you baptism with the Holy Spirit and with fire:

¹²In whose hand is the instrument with which he will make clean his grain; he will put the good grain in his store, but the waste will be burned up in the fire which will never be put out.

¹³Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be given baptism by him.

¹⁴But John would have kept him back, saying, It is I who have need of baptism from you, and do you come to me?

¹⁵But Jesus made answer, saying to him, Let it be so now: because so it is right for us to make righteousness complete. Then he gave him baptism.

¹⁶And Jesus, having been given baptism, straight away went up from the water; and, the heavens opening, he saw the Spirit of God coming down on him as a dove;

¹⁷And a voice came out of heaven, saying, This is my dearly loved Son, with whom I am well pleased.

4Then Jesus was sent by the Spirit into the waste land to be tested by the Evil One.

²And after going without food for forty days and forty nights, he was in need of it.

³And the Evil One came and said to him, If you are the Son of God, give the word for these stones to become bread.

⁴But he made answer and said, It is in the Writings, Bread is not man's only need, but every word which comes out of the mouth of God.

⁵Then the Evil One took him to the holy town; and he put him on the highest point of the Temple and said to him,

⁶If you are the Son of God, let yourself go down; for it is in the Writings, He will give his angels care over you; and, In their hands they will keep you up, so that your foot may not be crushed against a stone.

⁷Jesus said to him, Again it is in the Writings, You may not put the Lord your God to the test.

⁸Again, the Evil One took him up to a very high mountain, and let him see all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them;

⁹And he said to him, All these things will I give you, if you will go down on your face and give me worship.

¹⁰Then said Jesus to him, Away, Satan: for it is in the Writings, Give worship to the Lord your God and be his servant only.

¹¹Then the Evil One went away from him, and angels came and took care of him.

¹²Now when it came to his ears that John had been put in prison, he went away to Galilee;

¹³And going away from Nazareth, he came and made his living-place in Capernaum, which is by the sea, in the country of Zebulun and Naphtali:

¹⁴So that the word of the prophet Isaiah might come true,

¹⁵The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, by the way of the sea, the other side of Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles,

¹⁶The people who were in the dark saw a great light, and to those in the land of the shade of death did the dawn come up.

¹⁷From that time Jesus went about preaching and saying, Let your hearts be turned from sin, for the kingdom of heaven is near.

¹⁸And when he was walking by the sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, whose other name was Peter, and Andrew, his brother, who were putting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen.

¹⁹And he said to them, Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.

²⁰And straight away they let go the nets and went after him.

²¹And going on from there he saw two other brothers, James, the son of Zebedee, and John, his brother, in the boat with their father, stitching up their nets; and he said, Come.

²²And they went straight from the boat and their father and came after him.

²³And Jesus went about in all Galilee, teaching in their Synagogues and preaching the good news of the kingdom, and making well those who were ill with any disease among the people.

²⁴And news of him went out through all Syria; and they took to him all who were ill with different diseases and pains, those having evil spirits and those who were off their heads, and those who had no power of moving. And he made them well.

²⁵And there went after him great numbers from Galilee and Decapolis and Jerusalem and Judaea and from the other side of Jordan.

5And seeing great masses of people he went up into the mountain; and when he was seated his disciples came to him.

²And with these words he gave them teaching, saying,

³Happy are the poor in spirit: for the kingdom of heaven is theirs.

⁴Happy are those who are sad: for they will be comforted.

⁵Happy are the gentle: for the earth will be their heritage.

⁶Happy are those whose heart's desire is for righteousness: for they will have their desire.

⁷Happy are those who have mercy: for they will be given mercy.

⁸Happy are the clean in heart: for they will see God.

⁹Happy are the peacemakers: for they will be named sons of God.

¹⁰Happy are those who are attacked on account of righteousness: for the kingdom of heaven will be theirs.

¹¹Happy are you when men give you a bad name, and are cruel to you, and say all evil things against you falsely, because of me.

¹²Be glad and full of joy; for great is your reward in heaven: for so were the prophets attacked who were before you.

¹³You are the salt of the earth; but if its taste goes from the salt, how will you make it salt again? it is then good for nothing but to be put out and crushed under foot by men.

¹⁴You are the light of the world. A town put on a hill may be seen by all.

¹⁵And a burning light is not put under a vessel, but on its table; so that its rays may be shining on all who are in the house.

¹⁶Even so let your light be shining before men, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

¹⁷Let there be no thought that I have come to put an end to the law or the prophets. I have not come for destruction, but to make complete.

¹⁸Truly I say to you, Till heaven and earth come to an end, not the smallest letter or part of a letter will in any way be taken from the law, till all things are done.

¹⁹Whoever then goes against the smallest of these laws, teaching men to do the same, will be named least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who keeps the laws, teaching others to keep them, will be named great in the kingdom of heaven.

²⁰For I say to you, If your righteousness is not greater than the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never go into the kingdom of heaven.

²¹You have knowledge that it was said in old times, You may not put to death; and, Whoever puts to death will be in danger of being judged:

²²But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be in danger of being judged; and he who says to his brother, Raca, will be in danger from the Sanhedrin; and whoever says, You foolish one, will be in danger of the hell of fire.

²³If then you are making an offering at the altar and there it comes to your mind that your brother has something against you,

²⁴While your offering is still before the altar, first go and make peace with your brother, then come and make your offering.

²⁵Come to an agreement quickly with him who has a cause against you at law, while you are with him on the way, for fear that he may give you up to the judge and the judge may give you to the police and you may be put into prison.

²⁶Truly I say to you, You will not come out from there till you have made payment of the very last farthing.

²⁷You have knowledge that it was said, You may not have connection with another man's wife:

²⁸But I say to you that everyone whose eyes are turned on a woman with desire has had connection with her in his heart.

²⁹And if your right eye is a cause of trouble to you, take it out and put it away from you; because it is better to undergo the loss of one part, than for all your body to go into hell.

³⁰And if your right hand is a cause of trouble to you, let it be cut off and put it away from you; because it is better to undergo the loss of one part, than for all your body to go into hell.

³¹Again, it was said, Whoever puts away his wife has to give her a statement in writing for this purpose:

³²But I say to you that everyone who puts away his wife for any other cause but the loss of her virtue, makes her false to her husband; and whoever takes her as his wife after she is put away, is no true husband to her.

³³Again, you have knowledge that it was said in old times, Do not take false oaths, but give effect to your oaths to the Lord:

³⁴But I say to you, Take no oaths at all: not by the heaven, because it is the seat of God;

³⁵Or by the earth, because it is the resting-place for his foot; or by Jerusalem, because it is the town of the great King.

³⁶You may not take an oath by your head, because you are not able to make one hair white or black.

³⁷But let your words be simply, Yes or No: and whatever is more than these is of the Evil One.

³⁸You have knowledge that it was said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:

³⁹But I say to you, Do not make use of force against an evil man; but to him who gives you a blow on the right side of your face let the left be turned.

⁴⁰And if any man goes to law with you and takes away your coat, do not keep back your robe from him.

⁴¹And whoever makes you go one mile, go with him two.

⁴²Give to him who comes with a request, and keep not your property from him who would for a time make use of it.

⁴³You have knowledge that it was said, Have love for your neighbour, and hate for him who is against you:

⁴⁴But I say to you, Have love for those who are against you, and make prayer for those who are cruel to you;

⁴⁵So that you may be the sons of your Father in heaven; for his sun gives light to the evil and to the good, and he sends rain on the upright man and on the sinner.

⁴⁶For if you have love for those who have love for you, what credit is it to you? do not the tax-farmers the same?

⁴⁷And if you say, Good day, to your brothers only, what do you do more than others? do not even the Gentiles the same?

⁴⁸Be then complete in righteousness, even as your Father in heaven is complete.

6Take care not to do your good works before men, to be seen by them; or you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.

²When then you give money to the poor, do not make a noise about it, as the false-hearted men do in the Synagogues and in the streets, so that they may have glory from men. Truly, I say to you, They have their reward.

³But when you give money, let not your left hand see what your right hand does:

⁴So that your giving may be in secret; and your Father, who sees in secret, will give you your reward.

⁵And when you make your prayers, be not like the false-hearted men, who take pleasure in getting up and saying their prayers in the Synagogues and at the street turnings so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, They have their reward.

⁶But when you make your prayer, go into your private room, and, shutting the door, say a prayer to your Father in secret, and your Father, who sees in secret, will give you your reward.

⁷And in your prayer do not make use of the same words again and again, as the Gentiles do: for they have the idea that God will give attention to them because of the number of their words.

⁸So be not like them; because your Father has knowledge of your needs even before you make your requests to him.

⁹Let this then be your prayer: Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy.

¹⁰Let your kingdom come. Let your pleasure be done, as in heaven, so on earth.

¹¹Give us this day bread for our needs.

¹²And make us free of our debts, as we have made those free who are in debt to us.

¹³And let us not be put to the test, but keep us safe from the Evil One.

¹⁴For if you let men have forgiveness for their sins, you will have forgiveness from your Father in heaven.

¹⁵But if you do not let men have forgiveness for their sins, you will not have forgiveness from your Father for your sins.

¹⁶And when you go without food, be not sad-faced as the false-hearted are. For they go about with changed looks, so that men may see that they are going without food. Truly I say to you, They have their reward.

¹⁷But when you go without food, put oil on your head and make your face clean;

¹⁸So that no one may see that you are going without food, but your Father in secret; and your Father, who sees in secret, will give you your reward.

¹⁹Make no store of wealth for yourselves on earth, where it may be turned to dust by worms and weather, and where thieves may come in by force and take it away.

²⁰But make a store for yourselves in heaven, where it will not be turned to dust and where thieves do not come in to take it away:

²¹For where your wealth is, there will your heart be.

²²The light of the body is the eye; if then your eye is true, all your body will be full of light.

²³But if your eye is evil, all your body will be dark. If then the light which is in you is dark, how dark it will be!

²⁴No man is able to be a servant to two masters: for he will have hate for the one and love for the other, or he will keep to one and have no respect for the other. You may not be servants of God and of wealth.

²⁵So I say to you, Take no thought for your life, about food or drink, or about clothing for your body. Is not life more than food, and the body more than its clothing?

²⁶See the birds of heaven; they do not put seeds in the earth, they do not get in grain, or put it in store-houses; and your Father in heaven gives them food. Are you not of much more value than they?

²⁷And which of you by taking thought is able to make himself a cubit taller?

²⁸And why are you troubled about clothing? See the flowers of the field, how they come up; they do no work, they make no thread:

²⁹But I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.

³⁰But if God gives such clothing to the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is put into the oven, will he not much more give you clothing, O you of little faith?

³¹Then do not be full of care, saying, What are we to have for food or drink? or, With what may we be clothed?

³²Because the Gentiles go in search of all these things: for your Father in heaven has knowledge that you have need of all these things:

³³But let your first care be for his kingdom and his righteousness; and all these other things will be given to you in addition.

³⁴Then have no care for tomorrow: tomorrow will take care of itself. Take the trouble of the day as it comes.

7Be not judges of others, and you will not be judged.

²For as you have been judging, so you will be judged, and with your measure will it be measured to you.

³And why do you take note of the grain of dust in your brother's eye, but take no note of the bit of wood which is in your eye?

⁴Or how will you say to your brother, Let me take out the grain of dust from your eye, when you yourself have a bit of wood in your eye?

⁵You false one, first take out the bit of wood from your eye, then will you see clearly to take out the grain of dust from your brother's eye.

⁶Do not give that which is holy to the dogs, or put your jewels before pigs, for fear that they will be crushed under foot by the pigs whose attack will then be made against you.

⁷Make a request, and it will be answered; what you are searching for you will get; give the sign, and the door will be open to you:

⁸Because to everyone who makes a request, it will be given; and he who is searching will get his desire, and to him who gives the sign, the door will be open.

⁹Or which of you, if his son makes a request for bread, will give him a stone?

¹⁰Or if he makes a request for a fish, will give him a snake?

¹¹If you, then, being evil, are able to give good things to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who make requests to him?

¹²All those things, then, which you would have men do to you, even so do you to them: because this is the law and the prophets.

¹³Go in by the narrow door; for wide is the door and open is the way which goes to destruction, and great numbers go in by it.

¹⁴For narrow is the door and hard the road to life, and only a small number make discovery of it.

¹⁵Be on the watch for false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inside they are cruel wolves.

¹⁶By their fruits you will get knowledge of them. Do men get grapes from thorns or figs from thistles?

¹⁷Even so, every good tree gives good fruit; but the bad tree gives evil fruit.

¹⁸It is not possible for a good tree to give bad fruit, and a bad tree will not give good fruit.

¹⁹Every tree which does not give good fruit is cut down and put in the fire.

²⁰So by their fruits you will get knowledge of them.

²¹Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will go into the kingdom of heaven; but he who does the pleasure of my Father in heaven.

²²A great number will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, were we not prophets in your name, and did we not by your name send out evil spirits, and by your name do works of power?

²³And then will I say to them, I never had knowledge of you: go from me, you workers of evil.

²⁴Everyone, then, to whom my words come and who does them, will be like a wise man who made his house on a rock;

²⁵And the rain came down and there was a rush of waters and the winds were driving against that house, but it was not moved; because it was based on the rock.

²⁶And everyone to whom my words come and who does them not, will be like a foolish man who made his house on sand;

²⁷And the rain came down and there was a rush of waters and the winds were driving against that house; and it came down and great was its fall.

²⁸And it came about, when Jesus had come to the end of these words, that the people were surprised at his teaching,

²⁹for he was teaching as one having authority, and not as their scribes.

8And when he had come down from the mountain, great numbers of people came after him.

²And a leper came and gave him worship, saying, Lord, if it is your pleasure, you have power to make me clean.

³And he put his hand on him, saying, It is my pleasure; be clean. And straight away he was made clean.

⁴And Jesus said to him, See that you say nothing about this to anyone; but go and let the priest see you and make the offering which was ordered by Moses, for a witness to them.

⁵And when Jesus was come into Capernaum, a certain captain came to him with a request,

⁶Saying, Lord, my servant is ill in bed at the house, with no power in his body, and in great pain.

⁷And he said to him, I will come and make him well.

⁸And the captain in answer said, Lord, I am not good enough for you to come under my roof; but only say the word, and my servant will be made well.

⁹Because I myself am a man under authority, having under me fighting men; and 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.

¹⁰And when these words came to the ears of Jesus he was surprised, and said to those who came after him, Truly I say to you, I have not seen such great faith, no, not in Israel.

¹¹And I say to you that numbers will come from the east and the west, and will take their seats with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven:

¹²But the sons of the kingdom will be put out into the dark, and there will be weeping and cries of pain.

¹³And Jesus said to the captain, Go in peace; as your faith is, so let it be done to you. And the servant was made well in that hour.

¹⁴And when Jesus had come into Peter's house, he saw his wife's mother in bed, very ill.

¹⁵And he put his hand on hers and the disease went from her, and she got up and took care of his needs.

¹⁶And in the evening, they took to him a number of people who had evil spirits; and he sent the spirits out of them with a word, and made well all who were ill;

¹⁷So that the word of Isaiah the prophet might come true: He himself took our pains and our diseases.

¹⁸Now when Jesus saw a great mass of people about him, he gave an order to go to the other side.

¹⁹And there came a scribe and said to him, Master, I will come after you wherever you go.

²⁰And Jesus said to him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of heaven have a resting-place; but the Son of man has nowhere to put his head.

²¹And another of the disciples said to him, Lord, let me first go and give the last honours to my father.

²²But Jesus said to him, Come after me; and let the dead take care of their dead.

²³And when he had got into a boat, his disciples went after him.

²⁴And there came up a great storm in the sea, so that the boat was covered with the waves: but he was sleeping.

²⁵And they came to him, and, awaking him, said, Help, Lord; destruction is near.

²⁶And he said to them, Why are you full of fear, O you of little faith? Then he got up and gave orders to the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm.

²⁷And the men were full of wonder, saying, What sort of man is this, that even the winds and the sea do his orders?

²⁸And when he had come to the other side, to the country of the Gadarenes, there came out to him from the place of the dead, two who had evil spirits, so violent that no man was able to go that way.

²⁹And they gave a loud cry, saying, What have we to do with you, you Son of God? Have you come here to give us punishment before the time?

³⁰Now there was, some distance away, a great herd of pigs taking their food.

³¹And the evil spirits made strong prayers to him, saying, If you send us out, let us go into the herd of pigs.

³²And he said to them, Go. And they came out, and went into the pigs; and the herd went rushing down a sharp slope into the sea and came to their end in the water.

³³And their keepers went in flight to the town and gave an account of everything, and of the men who had the evil spirits.

³⁴And all the town came out to Jesus; and seeing him they made request that he would go away from their part of the country.

9And he got into a boat and went across and came to his town.

²And they took to him a man stretched on a bed who had no power of moving; and Jesus, seeing their faith, said to the man who was ill, Son, take heart; you have forgiveness for your sins.

³And some of the scribes said among themselves, This man has no respect for God.

⁴And Jesus, having knowledge of what was in their minds, said, Why are your thoughts evil?

⁵For which is the simpler, to say, You have forgiveness for your sins; or to say, Get up and go?

⁶But so that you may see that on earth the Son of man has authority for the forgiveness of sins, (then said he to the man who was ill,) Get up, and take up your bed, and go to your house.

⁷And he got up and went away to his house.

⁸But when the people saw it they were full of fear, and gave glory to God who had given such authority to men.

⁹And when Jesus was going from there, he saw a man whose name was Matthew, seated at the place where taxes were taken; and he said to him, Come after me. And he got up and went after him.

¹⁰And it came about, when he was in the house taking food, that a number of tax-farmers and sinners came and took their places with Jesus and his disciples.

¹¹And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to his disciples, Why does your Master take food with tax-farmers and sinners?

¹²But on hearing this he said, Those who are well have no need of a medical man, but those who are ill.

¹³But go and take to heart the sense of these words, My desire is for mercy, not offerings: for I have come not to get the upright, but sinners.

¹⁴Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, Why do we and the Pharisees frequently go without food, but your disciples do not?

¹⁵And Jesus said to them, Will the friends of the newly-married man be sad as long as he is with them? But the days will come when he will be taken away from them, and then will they go without food.

¹⁶And no man puts a bit of new cloth on an old coat, for by pulling away from the old, it makes a worse hole.

¹⁷And men do not put new wine into old wine-skins; or the skins will be burst and the wine will come out, and the skins are of no more use: but they put new wine into new wine-skins, and so the two will be safe.

¹⁸While he was saying these things to them, there came a ruler and gave him worship, saying, My daughter is even now dead; but come and put your hand on her, and she will come back to life.

¹⁹And Jesus got up and went after him, and so did his disciples.

²⁰And a woman, who for twelve years had had a flow of blood, came after him, and put her hand on the edge of his robe:

²¹Because, she said to herself, if I may but put my hand on his robe, I will be made well.

²²But Jesus, turning and seeing her, said, Daughter, take heart; your faith has made you well. And the woman was made well from that hour.

²³And when Jesus came into the ruler's house and saw the players with their instruments and the people making a noise,

²⁴He said, Make room; for the girl is not dead, but sleeping. And they were laughing at him.

²⁵But when the people were sent out, he went in and took her by the hand; and the girl got up.

²⁶And the news of it went out into all that land.

²⁷And when Jesus went on from there, two blind men came after him, crying out, Have mercy on us, you Son of David.

²⁸And when he had come into the house, the blind men came to him; and Jesus said to them, Have you faith that I am able to do this? They said to him, Yes, Lord.

²⁹Then he put his hand on their eyes, saying, As your faith is, let it be done to you.

³⁰And their eyes were made open. And Jesus said to them sharply, Let no man have knowledge of it.

³¹But they went out and gave news of him in all that land.

³²And while they were going away, there came to him a man without the power of talking, and with an evil spirit.

³³And when the evil spirit had been sent out, the man had the power of talking: and they were all surprised, saying, Such a thing has never been seen in Israel.

³⁴But the Pharisees said, By the ruler of evil spirits, he sends evil spirits out of men.

³⁵And Jesus went about all the towns and small places, teaching in their Synagogues and preaching the good news of the kingdom and making well all sorts of disease and pain.

³⁶But when he saw all the people he was moved with pity for them, because they were troubled and wandering like sheep without a keeper.

³⁷Then he said to his disciples, There is much grain but not enough men to get it in.

³⁸Make prayer, then, to the Lord of the grain-fields, that he may send out workers to get in his grain.

10And he got together his twelve disciples and gave them the power of driving out unclean spirits, and of making well all sorts of disease and pain.

²Now the names of the twelve are these: The first, Simon, who is named Peter, and Andrew, his brother; James, the son of Zebedee, and John, his brother;

³Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew, the tax-farmer; James, the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus;

⁴Simon the Zealot, and Judas Iscariot, who was false to him.

⁵These twelve Jesus sent out and gave them orders, saying, Do not go among the Gentiles, or into any town of Samaria,

⁶But go to the wandering sheep of the house of Israel,

⁷And, on your way, say, The kingdom of heaven is near.

⁸Make well those who are ill, give life to the dead, make lepers clean, send evil spirits out of men; freely it has been given to you, freely give.

⁹Take no gold or silver or copper in your pockets;

¹⁰Take no bag for your journey and do not take two coats or shoes or a stick: for the workman has a right to his food.

¹¹And into whatever town or small place you go, make search there for someone who is respected, and make his house your resting-place till you go away.

¹²And when you go in, say, May peace be on this house.

¹³And if the house is good enough, let your peace come on it: but if not, let your peace come back to you.

¹⁴And whoever will not take you in, or give ear to your words, when you go out from that house or that town, put off its dust from your feet.

¹⁵Truly I say to you, It will be better for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of God's judging than for that town.

¹⁶See, I send you out as sheep among wolves. Be then as wise as snakes, and as gentle as doves.

¹⁷But be on the watch against men: for they will give you up to the Sanhedrins, and in their Synagogues they will give you blows;

¹⁸And you will come before rulers and kings because of me, for a witness to them and to the Gentiles.

¹⁹But when you are given up into their hands, do not be troubled about what to say or how to say it: for in that hour what you are to say will be given to you;

²⁰Because it is not you who say the words, but the Spirit of your Father in you.

²¹And brother will give up brother to death, and the father his child: and children will go against their fathers and mothers, and put them to death.

²²And you will be hated by all men because of my name: but he who is strong to the end will have salvation.

²³But when they are cruel to you in one town, go in flight to another: for truly, I say to you, You will not have gone through the towns of Israel before the Son of man comes.

²⁴A disciple is not greater than his master, or a servant than his lord.

²⁵It is enough for the disciple that he may be as his master, and the servant as his lord. If they have given the name Beelzebub to the master of the house, how much more to those of his house!

²⁶Have, then, no fear of them: because nothing is covered which will not come to light, or secret which will not be made clear.

²⁷What I say to you in the dark, say in the light: and what comes to your ear secretly, say publicly from the house-tops.

²⁸And have no fear of those who put to death the body, but are not able to put to death the soul. But have fear of him who has power to give soul and body to destruction in hell.

²⁹Are not sparrows two a farthing? and not one of them comes to an end without your Father:

³⁰But the hairs of your head are all numbered.

³¹Then have no fear; you are of more value than a flock of sparrows.

³²To everyone, then, who gives witness to me before men, I will give witness before my Father in heaven.

³³But if anyone says before men that he has no knowledge of me, I will say that I have no knowledge of him before my Father in heaven.

³⁴Do not have the thought that I have come to send peace on the earth; I came not to send peace but a sword.

³⁵For I have come to put a man against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law:

³⁶And a man will be hated by those of his house.

³⁷He who has more love for his father or mother than for me is not good enough for me; he who has more love for son or daughter than for me is not good enough for me.

³⁸And he who does not take his cross and come after me is not good enough for me.

³⁹He who has the desire to keep his life will have it taken from him, and he who gives up his life because of me will have it given back to him.

⁴⁰He who gives honour to you gives honour to me; and he who gives honour to me gives honour to him who sent me.

⁴¹He who gives honour to a prophet, in the name of a prophet, will be given a prophet's reward; and he who gives honour to an upright man, in the name of an upright man, will be given an upright man's reward.

⁴²And whoever gives to one of these little ones a cup of cold water only, in the name of a disciple, truly I say to you, he will not go without his reward.

11And it came about that when Jesus had come to the end of giving these orders to his twelve disciples, he went away from there, teaching and preaching in their towns.

²Now when John had news in prison of the works of the Christ, he sent his disciples

³To say to him, Are you he who is to come, or are we waiting for another?

⁴And Jesus, answering, said to them, Go and give news to John of the things which you are seeing and hearing:

⁵The blind see; those who were not able to, are walking; lepers are made clean; those who were without hearing, now have their ears open; the dead come to life again, and the poor have the good news given to them.

⁶And a blessing will be on him who has no doubts about me.

⁷And when they were going away, Jesus, talking of John, said to all the people, What went you out into the waste land to see? a tall stem moving in the wind?

⁸But what went you out to see? a man delicately clothed? Those who have fair robes are in kings' houses.

⁹But why did you go out? to see a prophet? Yes, I say to you, and more than a prophet.

¹⁰This is he of whom it has been said, See, I send my servant before your face, who will make ready your way before you.

¹¹Truly I say to you, Among the sons of women there has not been a greater than John the Baptist: but he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

¹²And from the days of John the Baptist till now, the kingdom of heaven is forcing its way in, and men of force take it.

¹³For all the prophets and the law were in force till John.

¹⁴And if you are able to see it, this is Elijah who was to come.

¹⁵He who has ears, let him give ear.

¹⁶But what comparison may I make of this generation? It is like children seated in the market-places, crying out to one another,

¹⁷We made music for you and you did not take part in the dance; we gave cries of sorrow and you made no signs of grief.

¹⁸For John came, taking no food or drink, and they say, He has an evil spirit.

¹⁹The Son of man has come feasting, and they say, See, a lover of food and wine, a friend of tax-farmers and sinners! And wisdom is judged to be right by her works.

²⁰Then he went on to say hard things to the towns where most of his works of power were done, because they had not been turned from their sins.

²¹Unhappy are you, Chorazin! Unhappy are you, Beth-saida! For if the works of power which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have been turned from their sins in days gone by, clothing themselves in haircloth and putting dust on their heads.

²²But I say to you, It will be better for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judging, than for you.

²³And you, Capernaum, were you not to be lifted up to heaven? you will go down into hell: for if the works of power which were done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have been here to this day.

²⁴But I say to you that it will be better for the land of Sodom in the day of judging, than for you.

²⁵At that time Jesus made answer and said, I give praise to you, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have kept these things secret from the wise and the men of learning, and have made them clear to little children.

²⁶Yes, Father, for so it was pleasing in your eyes.

²⁷All things have been given to me by my Father; and no one has knowledge of the Son, but the Father; and no one has knowledge of the Father, but the Son, and he to whom the Son will make it clear.

²⁸Come to me, all you who are troubled and weighted down with care, and I will give you rest.

²⁹Take my yoke on you and become like me, for I am gentle and without pride, and you will have rest for your souls;

³⁰For my yoke is good, and the weight I take up is not hard.

12At that time Jesus went through the fields on the Sabbath day; and his disciples, being in need of food, were taking the heads of grain.

²But the Pharisees, when they saw it, said to him, See, your disciples do that which it is not right to do on the Sabbath.

³But he said to them, Have you no knowledge of what David did when he had need of food, and those who were with him?

⁴How he went into the house of God and took for food the holy bread which it was not right for him or for those who were with him to take, but only for the priests?

⁵Or is it not said in the law, how the Sabbath is broken by the priests in the Temple and they do no wrong?

⁶But I say to you that a greater thing than the Temple is here.

⁷But if these words had been in your minds, My desire is for mercy and not for offerings, you would not have been judging those who have done no wrong.

⁸For the Son of man is lord of the Sabbath.

⁹And he went from there into their Synagogue:

¹⁰And there was a man with a dead hand. And they put a question to him, saying, Is it right to make a man well on the Sabbath day? so that they might have something against him.

¹¹And he said to them, Which of you, having a sheep, if it gets into a hole on the Sabbath day, will not put out a helping hand and get it back?

¹²Of how much more value is a man than a sheep! For this reason it is right to do good on the Sabbath day.

¹³Then said he to the man, Put out your hand. And he put it out, and it was made as well as the other.

¹⁴But the Pharisees went out and made designs against him, how they might put him to death.

¹⁵And Jesus, having knowledge of this, went away from there, and a great number went after him; and he made them all well,

¹⁶Ordering them not to give people word of him:

¹⁷So that what was said by Isaiah the prophet might come true,

¹⁸See my servant, the man of my selection, my loved one in whom my soul is well pleased: I will put my Spirit on him, and he will make my decision clear to the Gentiles.

¹⁹His coming will not be with fighting or loud cries; and his voice will not be lifted up in the streets.

²⁰The crushed stem will not be broken by him; and the feebly burning light will he not put out, till he has made righteousness overcome all.

²¹And in his name will the Gentiles put their hope.

²²Then they took to him one with an evil spirit, who was blind and had no power of talking: and he made him well so that he had the power of talking and seeing.

²³And all the people were surprised and said, Is not this the Son of David?

²⁴But the Pharisees, hearing of it, said, This man only sends evil spirits out of men by Beelzebub, the ruler of evil spirits.

²⁵And having knowledge of their thoughts he said to them, Every kingdom having division in itself is made waste, and every town or house having division in itself will come to destruction.

²⁶And if Satan sends out Satan, he makes war against himself; how then will he keep his kingdom?

²⁷And if I by Beelzebub send evil spirits out of men, by whom do your sons send them out? So let them be your judges.

²⁸But if I by the Spirit of God send out evil spirits, then is the kingdom of God come on you.

²⁹Or how may one go into a strong man's house and take his goods, if he does not first put cords round the strong man? and then he may take his goods.

³⁰Whoever is not with me is against me; and he who does not take part with me in getting people together, is driving them away.

³¹So I say to you, Every sin and every evil word against God will have forgiveness; but for evil words against the Spirit there will be no forgiveness.

³²And whoever says a word against the Son of man, will have forgiveness; but whoever says a word against the Holy Spirit, will not have forgiveness in this life or in that which is to come.

³³Make the tree good, and its fruit good; or make the tree bad, and its fruit bad; for by its fruit you will get knowledge of the tree.

³⁴You offspring of snakes, how are you, being evil, able to say good things? because out of the heart's store come the words of the mouth.

³⁵The good man out of his good store gives good things; and the evil man out of his evil store gives evil things.

³⁶And I say to you that in the day when they are judged, men will have to give an account of every foolish word they have said.

³⁷For by your words will your righteousness be seen, and by your words you will be judged.

³⁸Then some of the scribes and Pharisees, hearing this, said to him, Master, we are looking for a sign from you.

³⁹But he, answering, said to them, An evil and false generation is looking for a sign; and no sign will be given to it but the sign of the prophet Jonah:

⁴⁰For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the stomach of the great fish, so will the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

⁴¹The men of Nineveh will come up in the day of judging and give their decision against this generation: because they were turned from their sins at the preaching of Jonah; and now a greater than Jonah is here.

⁴²The queen of the South will come up in the day of judging and give her decision against this generation: for she came from the ends of the earth to give ear to the wisdom of Solomon; and now a greater than Solomon is here.

⁴³But the unclean spirit, when he is gone out of a man, goes through dry places looking for rest, and getting it not.

⁴⁴Then he says, I will go back into my house from which I came out; and when he comes, he sees that there is no one in it, but that it has been made fair and clean.

⁴⁵Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits worse than himself, and they go in and make it their living-place: and the last condition of that man is worse than the first. Even so will it be with this evil generation.

⁴⁶While he was still talking to the people, his mother and his brothers came, desiring to have talk with him.

⁴⁷And one said to him, See, your mother and your brothers are outside, desiring to have talk with you.

⁴⁸But he in answer said to him who gave the news, Who is my mother and who are my brothers?

⁴⁹And he put out his hand to his disciples and said, See, my mother and my brothers!

⁵⁰For whoever does the pleasure of my Father in heaven, he is my brother, and sister, and mother.

13On that day Jesus went out of the house and was seated by the seaside.

²And great numbers of people came together to him, so that he got into a boat; and the people took up their position by the sea.

³And he gave them teaching in the form of a story, saying, A man went out to put seed in the earth;

⁴And while he did so, some seeds were dropped by the wayside, and the birds came and took them for food:

⁵And some of the seed went among the stones, where it had not much earth, and straight away it came up because the earth was not deep:

⁶And when the sun was high, it was burned; and because it had no root it became dry and dead.

⁷And some seeds went among thorns, and the thorns came up and they had no room for growth:

⁸And some, falling on good earth, gave fruit, some a hundred, some sixty, some thirty times as much.

⁹He who has ears, let him give ear.

¹⁰And the disciples came and said to him, Why do you say things to them in the form of stories?

¹¹And he said to them in answer, To you is given the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.

¹²Because whoever has, to him will be given, and he will have more; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away.

¹³For this reason I put things into the form of stories; because they see without seeing, and give ear without hearing, and the sense is not clear to them.

¹⁴And for them the words of Isaiah have come true, Though you give ear, you will not get knowledge; and seeing, you will see, but the sense will not be clear to you:

¹⁵For the heart of this people has become fat and their ears are slow in hearing and their eyes are shut; for fear that they might see with their eyes and give hearing with their ears and become wise in their hearts and be turned again to me, so that I might make them well.

¹⁶But a blessing be on your eyes, because they see; and on your ears, because they are open.

¹⁷For truly, I say to you that prophets and upright men had a desire to see the things which you see, and saw them not; and to have knowledge of the words which have come to your ears, and they had it not.

¹⁸Give ear, then, to the story of the man who put the seed in the earth.

¹⁹When the word of the kingdom comes to anyone, and the sense of it is not clear to him, then the Evil One comes, and quickly takes away that which was put in his heart. He is the seed dropped by the wayside.

²⁰And that which went on the stones, this is he who, hearing the word, straight away takes it with joy;

²¹But having no root in himself, he goes on for a time; and when trouble comes or pain, because of the word, he quickly becomes full of doubts.

²²And that which was dropped among the thorns, this is he who has the word; and the cares of this life, and the deceits of wealth, put a stop to the growth of the word and it gives no fruit.

²³And the seed which was put in good earth, this is he who gives ear to the word, and gets the sense of it; who gives fruit, some a hundred, some sixty, some thirty times as much.

²⁴And he gave them another story, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like a man who put good seed in his field:

²⁵But while men were sleeping, one who had hate for him came and put evil seeds among the grain, and went away.

²⁶But when the green stem came up and gave fruit, the evil plants were seen at the same time.

²⁷And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, Sir, did you not put good seed in your field? how then has it evil plants?

²⁸And he said, Someone has done this in hate. And the servants say to him, Is it your pleasure that we go and take them up?

²⁹But he says, No, for fear that by chance while you take up the evil plants, you may be rooting up the grain with them.

³⁰Let them come up together till the getting in of the grain; and then I will say to the workers, Take up first the evil plants, and put them together for burning: but put the grain into my store-house.

³¹He put another story before them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed which a man took and put in his field:

³²Which is smaller than all seeds; but when it has come up it is greater than the plants, and becomes a tree, so that the birds of heaven come and make their resting-places in its branches.

³³Another story he gave to them: The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took, and put in three measures of meal, till it was all leavened.

³⁴All these things Jesus said to the people in the form of stories; and without a story he said nothing to them:

³⁵That it might come true which was said by the prophet, Opening my mouth, I will give out stories; I will give knowledge of things kept secret from before all time.

³⁶Then he went away from the people, and went into the house; and his disciples came to him, saying, Make clear to us the story of the evil plants in the field.

³⁷And he made answer and said, He who puts the good seed in the earth is the Son of man;

³⁸And the field is the world; and the good seed is the sons of the kingdom; and the evil seeds are the sons of the Evil One;

³⁹And he who put them in the earth is Satan; and the getting in of the grain is the end of the world; and those who get it in are the angels.

⁴⁰As then the evil plants are got together and burned with fire, so will it be in the end of the world.

⁴¹The Son of man will send out his angels, and they will take out of his kingdom everything which is a cause of error, and all those who do wrong,

⁴²And will put them into the fire; there will be weeping and cries of sorrow.

⁴³Then will the upright be shining as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him give ear.

⁴⁴The kingdom of heaven is like a secret store of wealth in a field, which a man came across and put back again; and in his joy he goes and gives all he has, to get that field.

⁴⁵Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a trader searching for beautiful jewels.

⁴⁶And having come across one jewel of great price, he went and gave all he had in exchange for it.

⁴⁷Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net, which was put into the sea and took in every sort of fish:

⁴⁸When it was full, they took it up on the sands; and seated there they put the good into vessels, but the bad they put away.

⁴⁹So will it be in the end of the world: the angels will come and take out the bad from the good,

⁵⁰And will put them into the fire: there will be weeping and cries of sorrow.

⁵¹Are all these things now clear to you? They say to him, Yes.

⁵²And he said to them, For this reason every scribe who has become a disciple of the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house, who gives out from his store things new and old.

⁵³And when Jesus had come to the end of these stories he went away from there.

⁵⁴And coming into his country, he gave them teaching in their Synagogue, so that they were greatly surprised and said, Where did this man get this wisdom and these works of power?

⁵⁵Is not this the woodworker's son? is not his mother named Mary? and his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas?

⁵⁶And his sisters, are they not all with us? from where, then, has he all these things?

⁵⁷And they were bitter against him. But Jesus said to them, A prophet is nowhere without honour but in his country and among his family.

⁵⁸And the works of power which he did there were small in number because they had no faith.

14At that time news of Jesus came to Herod the king;

²And he said to his servants, This is John the Baptist; he has come back from the dead, and so these powers are working in him.

³For Herod had taken John and put him in prison because of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife.

⁴Because John had said to him, It is not right for you to have her.

⁵And he would have put him to death, but for his fear of the people, because in their eyes John was a prophet.

⁶But when Herod's birthday came, the daughter of Herodias was dancing before them, and Herod was pleased with her.

⁷So he gave her his word with an oath to let her have whatever she might make request for.

⁸And she, at her mother's suggestion, said, Give me here on a plate the head of John the Baptist.

⁹And the king was sad; but because of his oaths and because of his guests, he gave the order for it to be given to her;

¹⁰And he sent and had John's head cut off in the prison.

¹¹And his head was put on a plate and given to the girl; and she took it to her mother.

¹²And his disciples came, and took up his body and put it in the earth; and they went and gave Jesus news of what had taken place.

¹³Now when it came to the ears of Jesus, he went away from there in a boat, to a waste place by himself: and the people hearing of it, went after him on foot from the towns.

¹⁴And he came out and saw a great number of people and he had pity on them, and made well those of them who were ill.

¹⁵And when evening had come, the disciples came to him, saying, This place is waste land, and the time is now past; send the people away so that they may go into the towns and get themselves food.

¹⁶But Jesus said to them, There is no need for them to go away; give them food yourselves.

¹⁷And they say to him, We have here but five cakes of bread and two fishes.

¹⁸And he said, Give them to me.

¹⁹And he gave orders for the people to be seated on the grass; and he took the five cakes of bread and the two fishes and, looking up to heaven, he said words of blessing, and made division of the food, and gave it to the disciples, and the disciples gave it to the people.

²⁰And they all took of the food and had enough: and they took up twelve baskets full of broken bits which were not used.

²¹And those who had food were about five thousand men, in addition to women and children.

²²And straight away he made the disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side, till he had sent the people away.

²³And after he had sent the people away, he went up into the mountain by himself for prayer: and when evening was come, he was there by himself.

²⁴But the boat was now in the middle of the sea, and was troubled by the waves: for the wind was against them.

²⁵And in the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea.

²⁶And when they saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, It is a spirit; and they gave cries of fear.

²⁷But straight away Jesus said to them, Take heart; it is I, have no fear.

²⁸And Peter, answering, said to him, Lord, if it is you, give me the order to come to you on the water.

²⁹And he said, Come. And Peter got out of the boat, and walking on the water, went to Jesus.

³⁰But when he saw the wind he was in fear and, starting to go down, he gave a cry, saying, Help, Lord.

³¹And straight away Jesus put out his hand and took a grip of him, and said to him, O man of little faith, why were you in doubt?

³²And when they had got into the boat, the wind went down.

³³And those who were in the boat gave him worship, saying, Truly you are the Son of God.

³⁴And when they had gone across, they came to land at Gennesaret.

³⁵And when the men of that place had news of him, they sent into all the country round about, and took to him all who were ill,

³⁶With the request that they might only put their hands on the edge of his robe: and all those who did so were made well.

15Then there came to Jesus from Jerusalem Pharisees and scribes, saying,

²Why do your disciples go against the teaching of the fathers? for they take food with unwashed hands.

³And in answer he said to them, Why do you, yourselves, go against the word of God on account of the teaching which has been handed down to you?

⁴For God said, Give honour to your father and mother: and, He who says evil of father or mother will be put to death.

⁵But you say, If a man says to his father or his mother, That by which you might have had profit from me is given to God;

⁶There is no need for him to give honour to his father. And you have made the word of God without effect because of your teaching.

⁷You false ones, well did Isaiah say of you,

⁸These people give me honour with their lips, but their heart is far from me.

⁹But their worship is to no purpose, while they give as their teaching the rules of men.

¹⁰And he got the people together and said to them, Give ear, and let my words be clear to you:

¹¹Not that which goes into the mouth makes a man unclean, but that which comes out of the mouth.

¹²Then the disciples came and said to him, Did you see that the Pharisees were troubled when these words came to their ears?

¹³But he said in answer, Every plant which my Father in heaven has not put in the earth, will be taken up by the roots.

¹⁴Let them be: they are blind guides. And if a blind man is guiding a blind man, the two will go falling into a hole together.

¹⁵Then Peter said to him, Make the story clear to us.

¹⁶And he said, Are you, like them, still without wisdom?

¹⁷Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth goes on into the stomach, and is sent out as waste?

¹⁸But the things which come out of the mouth come from the heart; and they make a man unclean.

¹⁹For out of the heart come evil thoughts, the taking of life, broken faith between the married, unclean desires of the flesh, taking of property, false witness, bitter words:

²⁰These are the things which make a man unclean; but to take food with unwashed hands does not make a man unclean.

²¹And Jesus went away from there into the country of Tyre and Sidon.

²²And a woman of Canaan came out from those parts, crying and saying, Have pity on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is greatly troubled with an unclean spirit.

²³But he gave her no answer. And his disciples came and said to him, Send her away, for she is crying after us.

²⁴But he made answer and said, I was sent only to the wandering sheep of the house of Israel.

²⁵But she came and gave him worship, saying, Help, Lord.

²⁶And he made answer and said, It is not right to take the children's bread and give it to the dogs.

²⁷But she said, Yes, Lord: but even the dogs take the bits from under their masters' table.

²⁸Then Jesus, answering, said to her, O woman, great is your faith: let your desire be done. And her daughter was made well from that hour.

²⁹And Jesus went from there and came to the sea of Galilee; and he went up into the mountain, and took his seat there.

³⁰And there came to him great numbers of people having with them those who were broken in body, or blind, or without voice, or wounded, or ill in any way, and a number of others; they put them down at his feet and he made them well:

³¹So that the people were full of wonder when they saw that those who had no voice were talking, the feeble were made strong, those whose bodies were broken had the power of walking, and the blind were able to see: and they gave glory to the God of Israel.

³²And Jesus got his disciples together and said, I have pity for the people, because they have now been with me three days and have no food: and I will not send them away without food, or they will have no strength for the journey.

³³And the disciples say to him, How may we get enough bread in a waste place, to give food to such a number of people?

³⁴And Jesus says to them, How much bread have you? And they said, Seven cakes, and some small fishes.

³⁵Then he gave an order to the people to be seated on the earth,

³⁶And he took the seven cakes of bread and the fishes; and having given praise, he gave the broken bread to the disciples, and the disciples gave it to the people.

³⁷And they all took food, and had enough; and they took up of the broken bits, seven baskets full.

³⁸And there were four thousand men who took food, together with women and children.

³⁹And when he had sent the people away, he got into the boat, and came into the country of Magadan.

16And the Pharisees and Sadducees came and, testing him, made a request to him to give them a sign from heaven.

²But in answer he said to them, At nightfall you say, The weather will be good, for the sky is red.

³And in the morning, The weather will be bad today, for the sky is red and angry. You are able to see the face of heaven, but not the signs of the times.

⁴An evil and false generation is searching after a sign; and no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah. And he went away from them.

⁵And when the disciples came to the other side they had not taken thought to get bread.

⁶And Jesus said to them, Take care to have nothing to do with the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

⁷And they were reasoning among themselves, saying, We took no bread.

⁸And Jesus, seeing it, said, O you of little faith, why are you reasoning among yourselves, because you have no bread?

⁹Do you still not see, or keep in mind the five cakes of bread of the five thousand, and the number of baskets you took up?

¹⁰Or the seven cakes of bread of the four thousand, and the number of baskets you took up?

¹¹How is it that you do not see that I was not talking to you about bread, but about keeping away from the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees?

¹²Then they saw that it was not the leaven of bread which he had in mind, but the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

¹³Now when Jesus had come into the parts of Caesarea Philippi, he said, questioning his disciples, Who do men say that the Son of man is?

¹⁴And they said, Some say, John the Baptist; some, Elijah; and others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.

¹⁵He says to them, But who do you say that I am?

¹⁶And Simon Peter made answer and said, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.

¹⁷And Jesus made answer and said to him, A blessing on you, Simon Bar-jonah: because this knowledge has not come to you from flesh and blood, but from my Father in heaven.

¹⁸And I say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock will my church be based, and the doors of hell will not overcome it.

¹⁹I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatever is fixed by you on earth will be fixed in heaven: and whatever you make free on earth will be made free in heaven.

²⁰Then he gave orders to the disciples to give no man word that he was the Christ.

²¹From that time Jesus went on to make clear to his disciples how he would have to go up to Jerusalem, and undergo much at the hands of those in authority and the chief priests and scribes, and be put to death, and the third day come again from the dead.

²²And Peter, protesting, said to him, Be it far from you, Lord; it is impossible that this will come about.

²³But he, turning to Peter, said, Get out of my way, Satan: you are a danger to me because your mind is not on the things of God, but on the things of men.

²⁴Then Jesus said to his disciples, If any man would come after me, let him give up all, and take up his cross, and come after me.

²⁵Because whoever has a desire to keep his life safe will have it taken from him; but whoever gives up his life because of me, will have it given back to him.

²⁶For what profit has a man, if he gets all the world with the loss of his life? or what will a man give in exchange for his life?

²⁷For the Son of man will come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he will give to every man the reward of his works.

²⁸Truly I say to you, There are some of those here who will not have a taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.

17And after six days Jesus takes with him Peter, and James, and John, his brother, and makes them go up with him into a high mountain by themselves.

²And he was changed in form before them; and his face was shining like the sun, and his clothing became white as light.

³And Moses and Elijah came before their eyes, talking with him.

⁴And Peter made answer and said to Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to be here: if you will let me, I will make here three tents, one for you, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah.

⁵While he was still talking, a bright cloud came over them: and a voice out of the cloud, saying, This is my dearly loved Son, with whom I am well pleased; give ear to him.

⁶And at these words the disciples went down on their faces in great fear.

⁷And Jesus came and put his hand on them and said, Get up and have no fear.

⁸And lifting up their eyes, they saw no one, but Jesus only.

⁹And when they were coming down from the mountain, Jesus gave them orders, saying, Let no man have word of what you have seen, till the Son of man has come again from the dead.

¹⁰And his disciples, questioning him, said, Why then do the scribes say that Elijah has to come first?

¹¹And in answer he said, Elijah truly has to come and put all things right:

¹²But I say to you that Elijah has come, and they had no knowledge of him, but did to him whatever they were pleased to do; the same will the Son of man undergo at their hands.

¹³Then the disciples saw that he was talking to them of John the Baptist.

¹⁴And when they came to the people, a man went down on his knees to him, saying,

¹⁵Lord have mercy on my son: for he is off his head, and is in great pain; and frequently he goes falling into the fire, and frequently into the water.

¹⁶And I took him to your disciples, and they were not able to make him well.

¹⁷And Jesus, answering, said, O false and foolish generation, how long will I be with you? how long will I put up with you? let him come here to me.

¹⁸And Jesus gave orders to the unclean spirit, and it went out of him: and the boy was made well from that hour.

¹⁹Then the disciples came to Jesus privately, and said, Why were we not able to send it out?

²⁰And he says to them, Because of your little faith: for truly I say to you, If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, Be moved from this place to that; and it will be moved; and nothing will be impossible to you.

²¹[]

²²And while they were going about in Galilee, Jesus said to them, The Son of man will be given up into the hands of men;

²³And they will put him to death, and the third day he will come again from the dead. And they were very sad.

²⁴And when they had come to Capernaum, those who took the Temple tax came to Peter and said, Does not your master make payment of the Temple tax?

²⁵He says, Yes. And when he came into the house, Jesus said to him, What is your opinion, Simon? from whom do the kings of the earth get payment or tax? from their sons or from other people?

²⁶And when he said, From other people, Jesus said to him, Then are the sons free.

²⁷But, so that we may not be a cause of trouble to them, go to the sea, and let down a hook, and take the first fish which comes up; and in his mouth you will see a bit of money: take that, and give it to them for me and you.

18In that hour the disciples came to Jesus, saying, Who is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?

²And he took a little child, and put him in the middle of them,

³And said, Truly, I say to you, If you do not have a change of heart and become like little children, you will not go into the kingdom of heaven.

⁴Whoever, then, will make himself as low as this little child, the same is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

⁵And whoever gives honour to one such little child in my name, gives honour to me:

⁶But whoever is a cause of trouble to one of these little ones who have faith in me, it would be better for him to have a great stone fixed to his neck, and to come to his end in the deep sea.

⁷A curse is on the earth because of trouble! for it is necessary for trouble to come; but unhappy is that man through whom the trouble comes.

⁸And if your hand or your foot is a cause of trouble, let it be cut off and put it away from you: it is better for you to go into life with the loss of a hand or a foot than, having two hands or two feet, to go into the eternal fire.

⁹And if your eye is a cause of trouble to you, take it out, and put it away from you: it is better for you to go into life with one eye than, having two eyes, to go into the hell of fire.

¹⁰Let it not seem to you that one of these little ones is of no value; for I say to you that in heaven their angels see at all times the face of my Father in heaven.

¹¹[]

¹²What would you say now? if a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone wandering away, will he not let the ninety-nine be, and go to the mountains in search of the wandering one?

¹³And if he comes across it, truly I say to you, he has more joy over it than over the ninety-nine which have not gone out of the way.

¹⁴Even so it is not the pleasure of your Father in heaven for one of these little ones to come to destruction.

¹⁵And if your brother does wrong to you, go, make clear to him his error between you and him in private: if he gives ear to you, you have got your brother back again.

¹⁶But if he will not give ear to you, take with you one or two more, that by the lips of two or three witnesses every word may be made certain.

¹⁷And if he will not give ear to them, let it come to the hearing of the church: and if he will not give ear to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax-farmer.

¹⁸Truly I say to you, Whatever things are fixed by you on earth will be fixed in heaven: and whatever you make free on earth will be made free in heaven.

¹⁹Again, I say to you, that if two of you are in agreement on earth about anything for which they will make a request, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.

²⁰For where two or three are come together in my name, there am I among them.

²¹Then Peter came and said to him, Lord, what number of times may my brother do wrong against me, and I give him forgiveness? till seven times?

²²Jesus says to him, I say not to you, Till seven times; but, Till seventy times seven.

²³For this reason the kingdom of heaven is like a king, who went over his accounts with his servants.

²⁴And at the start, one came to him who was in his debt for ten thousand talents.

²⁵And because he was not able to make payment, his lord gave orders for him, and his wife, and his sons and daughters, and all he had, to be given for money, and payment to be made.

²⁶So the servant went down on his face and gave him worship, saying, Lord, give me time to make payment and I will give you all.

²⁷And the lord of that servant, being moved with pity, let him go, and made him free of the debt.

²⁸But that servant went out, and meeting one of the other servants, who was in debt to him for one hundred pence, he took him by the throat, saying, Make payment of your debt.

²⁹So that servant went down on his face, requesting him and saying, Give me time and I will make payment to you.

³⁰And he would not: but went and put him into prison till he had made payment of the debt.

³¹So when the other servants saw what was done they were very sad, and came and gave word to their lord of what had been done.

³²Then his lord sent for him and said, You evil servant; I made you free of all that debt, because of your request to me:

³³Was it not right for you to have mercy on the other servant, even as I had mercy on you?

³⁴And his lord was very angry, and put him in the hands of those who would give him punishment till he made payment of all the debt.

³⁵So will my Father in heaven do to you, if you do not everyone, from your hearts, give forgiveness to his brother.

19And it came about that after saying these words, Jesus went away from Galilee, and came into the parts of Judaea on the other side of Jordan.

²And a great number went after him; and he made them well there.

³And certain Pharisees came to him, testing him, and saying, Is it right for a man to put away his wife for every cause?

⁴And he said in answer, Have you not seen in the Writings, that he who made them at the first made them male and female, and said,

⁵For this cause will a man go away from his father and mother, and be joined to his wife; and the two will become one flesh?

⁶So that they are no longer two, but one flesh. Then let not that which has been joined by God be parted by man.

⁷They say to him, Why then did Moses give orders that a husband might give her a statement in writing and be free from her?

⁸He says to them, Moses, because of your hard hearts, let you put away your wives: but it has not been so from the first.

⁹And I say to you, Whoever puts away his wife for any other cause than the loss of her virtue, and takes another, is a false husband: and he who takes her as his wife when she is put away, is no true husband to her.

¹⁰The disciples say to him, If this is the position of a man in relation to his wife, it is better not to be married.

¹¹But he said to them, Not all men are able to take in this saying, but only those to whom it is given.

¹²For there are men who, from birth, were without sex: and there are some who were made so by men: and there are others who have made themselves so for the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to take it, let him take it.

¹³Then some people took little children to him, so that he might put his hands on them in blessing: and the disciples said sharp words to them.

¹⁴But Jesus said, Let the little ones come to me, and do not keep them away: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.

¹⁵And he put his hands on them, and went away.

¹⁶And one came to him and said, Master, what good thing have I to do, so that I may have eternal life?

¹⁷And he said to him, Why are you questioning me about what is good? One there is who is good: but if you have a desire to go into life, keep the rules of the law.

¹⁸He says to him, Which? And Jesus said, Do not put anyone to death, Do not be untrue in married life, Do not take what is not yours, Do not give false witness,

¹⁹Give honour to your father and your mother: and, Have love for your neighbour as for yourself.

²⁰The young man says to him, All these things have I done: what more is there?

²¹Jesus said to him, If you have a desire to be complete, go, get money for your property, and give it to the poor, and you will have wealth in heaven: and come after me.

²²But hearing these words the young man went away sorrowing: for he had much property.

²³And Jesus said to his disciples, Truly I say to you, It is hard for a man with much money to go into the kingdom of heaven.

²⁴And again I say to you, It is simpler for a camel to go through a needle's eye, than for a man with much money to go into the kingdom of God.

²⁵And the disciples, hearing this, were greatly surprised, saying, Who then may have salvation?

²⁶And Jesus, looking at them, said, With men this is not possible; but with God all things are possible.

²⁷Then Peter said to him, See, we have given up everything and have come after you; what then will we have?

²⁸And Jesus said to them, Truly I say to you that in the time when all things are made new, and the Son of man is seated in his glory, you who have come after me will be seated on twelve seats, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

²⁹And everyone who has given up houses, or brothers, or sisters, or father, or mother, or child, or land, for my name, will be given a hundred times as much, and have eternal life.

³⁰But a great number who are first will be last, and some who are last will be first.

20For the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a house, who went out early in the morning to get workers into his vine-garden.

²And when he had made an agreement with the workmen for a penny a day, he sent them into his vine-garden.

³And he went out about the third hour, and saw others in the market-place doing nothing;

⁴And he said to them, Go into the vine-garden with the others, and whatever is right I will give you. And they went to work.

⁵Again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour, and did the same.

⁶And about the eleventh hour he went out and saw others doing nothing; and he says to them, Why are you here all the day doing nothing?

⁷They say to him, Because no man has given us work. He says to them, Go in with the rest, into the vine-garden.

⁸And when evening came, the lord of the vine-garden said to his manager, Let the workers come, and give them their payment, from the last to the first.

⁹And when those men came who had gone to work at the eleventh hour, they were given every man a penny.

¹⁰Then those who came first had the idea that they would get more; and they, like the rest, were given a penny.

¹¹And when they got it, they made a protest against the master of the house,

¹²Saying, These last have done only one hour's work, and you have made them equal to us, who have undergone the hard work of the day and the burning heat.

¹³But he in answer said to one of them, Friend, I do you no wrong: did you not make an agreement with me for a penny?

¹⁴Take what is yours, and go away; it is my pleasure to give to this last, even as to you.

¹⁵Have I not the right to do as seems good to me in my house? or is your eye evil, because I am good?

¹⁶So the last will be first, and the first last.

¹⁷And when Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples on one side, and said to them,

¹⁸See, we go up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man will be given into the hands of the chief priests and scribes; and they will give orders for him to be put to death,

¹⁹And will give him up to the Gentiles to be made sport of and to be whipped and to be put to death on the cross: and the third day he will come back again from the dead.

²⁰Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came to him with her sons, giving him worship and making a request of him.

²¹And he said to her, What is your desire? She says to him, Let my two sons be seated, the one at your right hand, and the other at your left, in your kingdom.

²²But Jesus made answer and said, You have no idea what you are requesting. Are you able to take of the cup which I am about to take?

²³They say to him, We are able. He says to them, Truly, you will take of my cup: but to be seated at my right hand and at my left is not for me to give, but it is for those for whom my Father has made it ready.

²⁴And when it came to the ears of the ten, they were angry with the two brothers.

²⁵But Jesus said to them, You see that the rulers of the Gentiles are lords over them, and their great ones have authority over them.

²⁶Let it not be so among you: but if anyone has a desire to become great among you, let him be your servant;

²⁷And whoever has a desire to be first among you, let him take the lowest place:

²⁸Even as the Son of man did not come to have servants, but to be a servant, and to give his life for the salvation of men.

²⁹And when they were going out from Jericho, a great number went after him.

³⁰And two blind men seated by the wayside, when they had the news that Jesus was going by, gave a loud cry, saying, Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us.

³¹And the people gave them orders to be quiet; but they went on crying even louder, Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us.

³²And Jesus, stopping, sent for them, and said, What would you have me do to you?

³³They say to him, Lord, that our eyes may be open.

³⁴And Jesus, being moved with pity, put his fingers on their eyes: and straight away they were able to see, and went after him.

21And when they were near Jerusalem, and had come to Beth-phage, to the Mountain of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples,

²Saying to them, Go into the little town in front of you, and straight away you will see an ass with a cord round her neck, and a young one with her; let them loose and come with them to me.

³And if anyone says anything to you, you will say, The Lord has need of them; and straight away he will send them.

⁴Now this took place so that these words of the prophet might come true,

⁵Say to the daughter of Zion, See, your King comes to you, gentle and seated on an ass, and on a young ass.

⁶And the disciples went and did as Jesus had given them orders,

⁷And got the ass and the young one, and put their clothing on them, and he took his seat on it.

⁸And all the people put their clothing down in the way; and others got branches from the trees, and put them down in the way.

⁹And those who went before him, and those who came after, gave loud cries, saying, Glory to the Son of David: A blessing on him who comes in the name of the Lord: Glory in the highest.

¹⁰And when he came into Jerusalem, all the town was moved, saying, Who is this?

¹¹And the people said, This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee.

¹²And Jesus went into the Temple and sent out all who were trading there, overturning the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those trading in doves.

¹³And he said to them, It is in the Writings, My house is to be named a house of prayer, but you are making it a hole of thieves.

¹⁴And the blind and the broken in body came to him in the Temple, and he made them well.

¹⁵But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the works of power which he did, and the children crying out in the Temple, Glory to the son of David, they were angry and said to him,

¹⁶Have you any idea what these are saying? And Jesus said to them, Yes: have you not seen in the Writings, From the lips of children and babies at the breast you have made your praise complete?

¹⁷And he went away from them, and went out of the town to Bethany, and was there for the night.

¹⁸Now in the morning when he was coming back to the town, he had a desire for food.

¹⁹And seeing a fig-tree by the wayside, he came to it, and saw nothing on it but leaves only; and he said to it, Let there be no fruit from you from this time forward for ever. And straight away the fig-tree became dry and dead.

²⁰And when the disciples saw it they were surprised, saying, How did the fig-tree become dry in so short a time?

²¹And Jesus in answer said to them, Truly I say to you, If you have faith, without doubting, not only may you do what has been done to the fig-tree, but even if you say to this mountain, Be taken up and put into the sea, it will be done.

²²And all things, whatever you make request for in prayer, having faith, you will get.

²³And when he had come into the Temple, the chief priests and those in authority over the people came to him while he was teaching, and said, By what authority do you do these things? and who gave you this authority?

²⁴And Jesus said to them in answer, I will put one question to you, and if you give me the answer, I will say by what authority I do these things.

²⁵The baptism of John, where did it come from? from heaven or from men? And they were reasoning among themselves, saying, If we say, From heaven; he will say to us, Why then did you not have faith in him?

²⁶But if we say, From men; we are in fear of the people, because all take John to be a prophet.

²⁷And they made answer and said, We have no idea. Then he said to them, And I will not say to you by what authority I do these things.

²⁸But how does it seem to you? A man had two sons; and he came to the first, and said, Son, go and do work today in the vine-garden.

²⁹And he said in answer, I will not: but later, changing his decision, he went.

³⁰And he came to the second and said the same. And he made answer and said, I go, sir: and went not.

³¹Which of the two did his father's pleasure? They say, The first. Jesus said to them, Truly I say to you, that tax-farmers and loose women are going into the kingdom of God before you.

³²For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you had no faith in him, but the tax-farmers and the loose women had faith in him: and you, when you saw it, did not even have regret for your sins, so as to have faith in him.

³³Give ear to another story. A master of a house made a vine garden, and put a wall round it, and made a place for crushing out the wine, and made a tower, and let it out to field-workers, and went into another country.

³⁴And when the time for the fruit came near, he sent his servants to the workmen, to get the fruit.

³⁵And the workmen made an attack on his servants, giving blows to one, putting another to death, and stoning another.

³⁶Again, he sent other servants more in number than the first: and they did the same to them.

³⁷But after that he sent his son to them, saying, They will have respect for my son.

³⁸But when the workmen saw the son, they said among themselves, This is he who will one day be the owner of the property; come, let us put him to death and take his heritage.

³⁹And they took him and, driving him out of the vine-garden, put him to death.

⁴⁰When, then, the lord of the vine-garden comes, what will he do to those workmen?

⁴¹They say to him, He will put those cruel men to a cruel death, and will let out the vine-garden to other workmen, who will give him the fruit when it is ready.

⁴²Jesus says to them, Did you never see in the Writings, The stone which the builders put on one side, the same has been made the chief stone of the building: this was the Lord's doing, and it is a wonder in our eyes?

⁴³For this reason I say to you, The kingdom of God will be taken away from you, and will be given to a nation producing the fruits of it.

⁴⁴Any man falling on this stone will be broken, but he on whom it comes down will be crushed to dust.

⁴⁵And when his stories came to the ears of the chief priests and the Pharisees, they saw that he was talking of them.

⁴⁶And though they had a desire to take him, they were in fear of the people, because in their eyes he was a prophet.

22And Jesus, talking to them again in stories, said:

²The kingdom of heaven is like a certain king, who made a feast when his son was married,

³And sent out his servants to get in the guests to the feast: and they would not come.

⁴Again he sent out other servants, with orders to say to the guests, See, I have made ready my feast: my oxen and my fat beasts have been put to death, and all things are ready: come to the feast.

⁵But they gave no attention, and went about their business, one to his farm, another to his trade:

⁶And the rest put violent hands on his servants, and did evil to them, and put them to death.

⁷But the king was angry; and he sent his armies, and those who had put his servants to death he gave to destruction, burning down their town with fire.

⁸Then he said to his servants, The feast is ready but the guests were not good enough.

⁹Go then to the cross-roads, and get all those whom you see to come to the bride-feast.

¹⁰And those servants went out into the streets, and got together all those whom they came across, bad and good: and the feast was full of guests.

¹¹But when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man who had not on a guest's robe;

¹²And he says to him, Friend, how came you in here not having a guest's robe? And he had nothing to say.

¹³Then the king said to the servants, Put cords round his hands and feet and put him out into the dark; there will be weeping and cries of sorrow.

¹⁴For out of all to whom the good news has come, only a small number will get salvation.

¹⁵Then the Pharisees went and had a meeting to see how they might make use of his words to take him.

¹⁶And they sent to him their disciples, with the Herodians, saying, Master, we see that you are true, and that you are teaching the true way of God, and have no fear of anyone, because you have no respect for a man's position.

¹⁷Give us, then, your opinion of this: Is it right to give tax to Caesar, or not?

¹⁸But Jesus saw their trick and said, Oh false ones, why are you attempting to put me in the wrong?

¹⁹Let me see the tax money. And they gave him a penny.

²⁰And he said to them, Whose is this image and name on it?

²¹They say to him, Caesar's. Then he said to them, Give to Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and to God the things which are God's.

²²And hearing it, they were full of wonder, and went away from him.

²³On the same day there came to him the Sadducees, who say that there is no coming back from the dead: and they put a question to him, saying,

²⁴Master, Moses said, If a man, at the time of his death, has no children, let his brother take his wife, and get a family for his brother;

²⁵Now there were among us seven brothers; and the first was married and at his death, having no seed, gave his wife to his brother;

²⁶In the same way the second and the third, up to the seventh.

²⁷And last of all the woman came to her end.

²⁸When they come back from the dead, then, whose wife will she be of the seven? because they all had her.

²⁹But Jesus said to them in answer, You are in error, not having knowledge of the Writings, or of the power of God.

³⁰For when they come back from the dead there are no husbands and wives, but they are as the angels in heaven.

³¹But about the dead coming back to life, have you no knowledge of what was said to you by God in the Writings:

³²I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead but of the living.

³³And the people hearing it were surprised at his teaching.

³⁴But the Pharisees, hearing how the mouths of the Sadducees had been stopped, came together;

³⁵And one of them, a teacher of the law, put a question to him, testing him, and saying,

³⁶Master, which is the chief rule in the law?

³⁷And he said to him, Have love for the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.

³⁸This is the first and greatest rule.

³⁹And a second like it is this, Have love for your neighbour as for yourself.

⁴⁰On these two rules all the law and the prophets are based.

⁴¹Now while the Pharisees were together, Jesus put a question to them, saying,

⁴²What is your opinion of the Christ? whose son is he? They say to him, The Son of David.

⁴³He says to them, How then does David in the Spirit give him the name of Lord, saying,

⁴⁴The Lord said to my Lord, Be seated at my right hand, till I put under your feet all those who are against you?

⁴⁵If David then gives him the name of Lord, how is he his son?

⁴⁶And no one was able to give him an answer, and so great was their fear of him, that from that day no one put any more questions to him.

23Then Jesus said to the people and to his disciples:

²The scribes and the Pharisees have the authority of Moses;

³All things, then, which they give you orders to do, these do and keep: but do not take their works as your example, for they say and do not.

⁴They make hard laws and put great weights on men's backs; but they themselves will not put a finger to them.

⁵But all their works they do so as to be seen by men: for they make wide their phylacteries, and the edges of their robes,

⁶And the things desired by them are the first places at feasts, and the chief seats in the Synagogues,

⁷And words of respect in the market-places, and to be named by men, Teacher.

⁸But you may not be named Teacher: for one is your teacher, and you are all brothers.

⁹And give no man the name of father on earth: because one is your Father, who is in heaven.

¹⁰And you may not be named guides: because one is your Guide, even Christ.

¹¹But let the greatest among you be your servant.

¹²And whoever makes himself high will be made low, and whoever makes himself low will be made high.

¹³But a curse is on you, scribes and Pharisees, false ones! because you are shutting the kingdom of heaven against men: for you do not go in yourselves, and those who are going in, you keep back.

¹⁴[]

¹⁵A curse is on you, scribes and Pharisees, false ones! for you go about land and sea to get one disciple and, having him, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.

¹⁶A curse is on you, blind guides, who say, Whoever takes an oath by the Temple, it is nothing; but whoever takes an oath by the gold of the Temple, he is responsible.

¹⁷You foolish ones and blind: which is greater, the gold, or the Temple which makes the gold holy?

¹⁸And, Whoever takes an oath by the altar, it is nothing; but whoever takes an oath by the offering which is on it, he is responsible.

¹⁹You blind ones: which is greater, the offering, or the altar which makes the offering holy?

²⁰He, then, who takes an oath by the altar, takes it by the altar and by all things on it.

²¹And he who takes an oath by the Temple, takes it by the Temple and by him whose house it is.

²²And he who takes an oath by heaven, takes it by the seat of God, and by him who is seated on it.

²³A curse is on you, scribes and Pharisees, false ones! for you make men give a tenth of all sorts of sweet-smelling plants, but you give no thought to the more important things of the law, righteousness, and mercy, and faith; but it is right for you to do these, and not to let the others be undone.

²⁴You blind guides, who take out a fly from your drink, but make no trouble over a camel.

²⁵A curse is on you, scribes and Pharisees, false ones! for you make clean the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of violent behaviour and uncontrolled desire.

²⁶You blind Pharisee, first make clean the inside of the cup and of the plate, so that the outside may become equally clean.

²⁷A curse is on you, scribes and Pharisees, false ones! for you are like the resting-places of the dead, which are made white, and seem beautiful on the outside, but inside are full of dead men's bones and of all unclean things.

²⁸Even so you seem to men to be full of righteousness, but inside you are all false and full of wrongdoing.

²⁹A curse is on you, scribes and Pharisees, false ones! because you put up buildings for housing the dead bodies of the prophets, and make fair the last resting-places of good men, and say,

³⁰If we had been living in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in the blood of the prophets.

³¹So that you are witnesses against yourselves that you are the sons of those who put the prophets to death.

³²Make full, then, the measure of your fathers.

³³You snakes, offspring of snakes, how will you be kept from the punishment of hell?

³⁴For this reason, I send you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: some of them you will put to death and put on the cross, and to some of them you will give blows in your Synagogues, driving them from town to town;

³⁵So that on you may come all the blood of the upright on the earth, from the blood of upright Abel to the blood of Zachariah, son of Barachiah, whom you put to death between the Temple and the altar.

³⁶Truly I say to you, All these things will come on this generation.

³⁷O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, putting to death the prophets, and stoning those who are sent to her! Again and again would I have taken your children to myself as a bird takes her young ones under her wings, and you would not!

³⁸See, your house is made waste.

³⁹For I say to you, You will not see me from this time till you say, A blessing on him who comes in the name of the Lord.

24And Jesus went out of the Temple, and on the way his disciples came to him, pointing out the buildings of the Temple.

²But he, answering, said to them, See you not all these things? truly I say to you that here there will not be one stone resting on another, which will not be pulled down.

³And while he was seated on the Mountain of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, Make clear to us, when will these things be? and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the world?

⁴And Jesus said to them in answer, Take care that you are not tricked.

⁵For people will come in my name, saying, I am the Christ; and a number will be turned from the true way through them.

⁶And news will come to you of wars and talk of wars: do not be troubled, for these things have to be; but it is still not the end.

⁷For nation will be moved against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and men will be without food, and the earth will be shaking in different places;

⁸But all these things are the first of the troubles.

⁹Then they will be cruel to you, and will put you to death: and you will be hated by all nations because of my name.

¹⁰And numbers of people will be turned from the right way, and will give one another up and have hate for one another.

¹¹And a number of false prophets will come, causing error.

¹²And because wrongdoing will be increased, the love of most people will become cold.

¹³But he who goes through to the end will get salvation.

¹⁴And this good news of the kingdom will be given through all the world for a witness to all nations; and then the end will come.

¹⁵When, then, you see in the holy place the unclean thing which makes destruction, of which word was given by Daniel the prophet (let this be clear to the reader),

¹⁶Then let those who are in Judaea go in flight to the mountains:

¹⁷Let not him who is on the house-top go down to take anything out of his house:

¹⁸And let not him who is in the field go back to get his coat.

¹⁹But it will be hard for women who are with child and for those with babies at the breast in those days.

²⁰And say a prayer that your flight may not be in the winter, or on a Sabbath.

²¹Because in those days there will be great sorrow, such as there has not been from the start of the world till now, or ever will be.

²²And if those days had not been made short there would have been no salvation for any, but because of the saints those days will be made short.

²³Then if any man says to you, See, here is the Christ, or, Here; do not put faith in him;

²⁴For there will come up false Christs, and false prophets, who will do great signs and wonders; so that if possible even the saints might be tricked.

²⁵See, I have made it clear to you before it comes about.

²⁶If, then, they say to you, See, he is in the waste land; go not out: See, he is in the inner rooms; put no faith in it.

²⁷Because as in a thunderstorm the bright light coming from the east is seen even in the west; so will be the coming of the Son of man.

²⁸Wherever the dead body is, there will the eagles come together.

²⁹But straight away, after the trouble of those days, the sun will be made dark and the moon will not give her light and the stars will come down from heaven and the powers of heaven will be moved:

³⁰And then the sign of the Son of man will be seen in heaven: and then all the nations of the earth will have sorrow, and they will see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

³¹And he will send out his angels with a great sound of a horn, and they will get his saints together from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

³²Now take an example from the fig-tree: when her branch has become soft and puts out its leaves, you are certain that the summer is near;

³³Even so, when you see all these things, you may be certain that he is near, even at the doors.

³⁴Truly I say to you, This generation will not come to an end till all these things are complete.

³⁵Heaven and earth will come to an end, but my words will not come to an end.

³⁶But of that day and hour no one has knowledge, not even the angels in heaven, or the Son, but the Father only.

³⁷And as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of man.

³⁸Because as in those days before the overflowing of the waters, they were feasting and taking wives and getting married, till the day when Noah went into the ark,

³⁹And they had no care till the waters came and took them all away; so will be the coming of the Son of man.

⁴⁰Then two men will be in the field; one is taken, and one let go;

⁴¹Two women will be crushing grain; one is taken, and one let go.

⁴²Be watching, then! for you have no knowledge on what day your Lord will come.

⁴³But be certain of this, that if the master of the house had had knowledge of the time when the thief was coming, he would have been watching, and would not have let his house be broken into.

⁴⁴Be ready then; for at a time which you have no thought of the Son of man will come.

⁴⁵Who is the true and wise servant, whom his lord has put over those in his house, to give them their food at the right time?

⁴⁶A blessing on that servant, who will be doing so when his lord comes.

⁴⁷Truly, I say to you, he will put him over all he has.

⁴⁸But if that evil servant says in his heart, My lord is a long time in coming;

⁴⁹And is cruel to the other servants, taking his pleasure with those who are overcome with wine;

⁵⁰The lord of that servant will come in a day when he is not looking for him, and in an hour of which he has no knowledge,

⁵¹And will have him cut in two, and will give him a part in the fate of the false ones: there will be weeping and cries of sorrow.

25Then the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins, the friends of the bride, who took their lights, and went out with the purpose of meeting the husband.

²And five of them were foolish, and five were wise.

³For the foolish, when they took their lights, took no oil with them.

⁴But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lights.

⁵Now the husband was a long time in coming, and they all went to sleep.

⁶But in the middle of the night there is a cry, The husband comes! Go out to him.

⁷Then all those virgins got up, and made ready their lights.

⁸And the foolish said to the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lights are going out.

⁹But the wise made answer, saying, There may not be enough for us and you; it would be better for you to go to the traders and get oil for yourselves.

¹⁰And while they went to get oil, the master came; and those who were ready went in with him to the feast: and the door was shut.

¹¹After that the other virgins came, saying, Lord, Lord, let us in.

¹²But he made answer and said, Truly I say to you, I have no knowledge of you.

¹³Keep watch, then, because you are not certain of the day or of the hour.

¹⁴For it is as when a man, about to take a journey, got his servants together, and gave them his property.

¹⁵And to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one; to everyone as he was able; and he went on his journey.

¹⁶Straight away he who had been given the five talents went and did trade with them, and made five more.

¹⁷In the same way he who had been given the two got two more.

¹⁸But he who was given the one went away and put it in a hole in the earth, and kept his lord's money in a secret place.

¹⁹Now after a long time the lord of those servants comes, and makes up his account with them.

²⁰And he who had the five talents came with his other five talents, saying, Lord, you gave into my care five talents: see, I have got five more.

²¹His lord said to him, Well done, good and true servant: you have been true in a small thing, I will give you control over great things: take your part in the joy of your lord.

²²And he who had the two talents came and said, Lord, you gave into my care two talents: see, I have got two more.

²³His lord said to him, Well done, good and true servant: you have been true in a small thing, I will give you control over great things: take your part in the joy of your lord.

²⁴And he who had had the one talent came and said, Lord, I had knowledge that you are a hard man, getting in grain where you have not put seed, and making profits for which you have done no work:

²⁵And I was in fear, and went away, and put your talent in the earth: here is what is yours.

²⁶But his lord in answer said to him, You are a bad and unready servant; if you had knowledge that I get in grain where I did not put seed, and make profits for which I have done no work,

²⁷Why, then, did you not put my money in the bank, and at my coming I would have got back what is mine with interest?

²⁸Take away, then, his talent and give it to him who has the ten talents.

²⁹For to everyone who has will be given, and he will have more: but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away.

³⁰And put out the servant who is of no profit into the outer dark: there will be weeping and cries of sorrow.

³¹But when the Son of man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then will he be seated in his glory:

³²And before him all the nations will come together; and they will be parted one from another, as the sheep are parted from the goats by the keeper.

³³And he will put the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left.

³⁴Then will the King say to those on his right, Come, you who have the blessing of my Father, into the kingdom made ready for you before the world was:

³⁵For I was in need of food, and you gave it to me: I was in need of drink, and you gave it to me: I was wandering, and you took me in;

³⁶I had no clothing, and you gave it to me: when I was ill, or in prison, you came to me.

³⁷Then will the upright make answer to him, saying, Lord, when did we see you in need of food, and give it to you? or in need of drink, and give it to you?

³⁸And when did we see you wandering, and take you in? or without clothing, and give it to you?

³⁹And when did we see you ill, or in prison, and come to you?

⁴⁰And the King will make answer and say to them, Truly I say to you, Because you did it to the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.

⁴¹Then will he say to those on the left, Go from me, you cursed ones, into the eternal fire which is ready for the Evil One and his angels:

⁴²For I was in need of food, and you gave it not to me; I was in need of drink, and you gave it not to me:

⁴³I was wandering, and you took me not in; without clothing, and you gave me no clothing; ill, and in prison, and you came not to me.

⁴⁴Then will they make answer, saying, Lord, when did we see you in need of food or drink, or wandering, or without clothing, or ill, or in prison, and did not take care of you?

⁴⁵Then will he make answer to them, saying, Truly I say to you, Because you did it not to the least of these, you did it not to me.

⁴⁶And these will go away into eternal punishment; but the upright into eternal life.

26And when Jesus had come to the end of all these words, he said to his disciples,

²After two days is the Passover, and the Son of man will be given up to the death of the cross.

³Then the chief priests and the rulers of the people came together in the house of the high priest, who was named Caiaphas.

⁴And they made designs together to take Jesus by some trick, and put him to death.

⁵But they said, Not while the feast is going on, for fear of trouble among the people.

⁶Now when Jesus was in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper,

⁷There came to him a woman having a bottle of perfume of great price, and she put the perfume on his head when he was seated at table.

⁸But when the disciples saw it they were angry, saying, To what purpose is this waste?

⁹For we might have got much money for this and given it to the poor.

¹⁰But Jesus, seeing it, said to them, Why are you troubling the woman? she has done a kind act to me.

¹¹For the poor you have ever with you, but me you have not for ever.

¹²For in putting this perfume on my body, she did it to make me ready for my last resting-place.

¹³Truly I say to you, Wherever this good news goes out in all the world, what this woman has done will be talked of in memory of her.

¹⁴Then one of the twelve, who was named Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said,

¹⁵What will you give me, if I give him up to you? And the price was fixed at thirty bits of silver.

¹⁶And from that time he was watching for a chance to give him into their hands.

¹⁷Now on the first day of unleavened bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying, Where are we to make ready for you to take the Passover meal?

¹⁸And he said to them, Go into the town to such a man, and say to him, The Master says, My time is near: I will keep the Passover at your house with my disciples.

¹⁹And the disciples did as Jesus had said to them; and they made ready the Passover.

²⁰Now when evening was come, he was seated at table with the twelve disciples;

²¹And while they were taking food, he said, Truly I say to you that one of you will be false to me.

²²And they were very said, and said to him, one by one, Is it I, Lord?

²³And he made answer and said, He who puts his hand into the plate with me, the same will be false to me.

²⁴The Son of man goes, even as the Writings say of him: but a curse is on that man through whom the Son of man is given up; it would have been well for that man if he had never come into the world.

²⁵And Judas, who was false to him, made answer and said, Is it I, Master? He says to him, Yes.

²⁶And when they were taking food, Jesus took bread and, after blessing it, he gave the broken bread to the disciples and said, Take it; this is my body.

²⁷And he took a cup and, having given praise, he gave it to them, saying,

²⁸Take of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the testament, which is given for men for the forgiveness of sins.

²⁹But I say to you that from now I will not take of this fruit of the vine, till that day when I take it new with you in my Father's kingdom.

³⁰And after a song of praise to God, they went out to the Mountain of Olives.

³¹Then said Jesus to them, All of you will be turned away from me this night: for it is said in the Writings, I will put to death the keeper of the sheep, and the sheep of the flock will be put to flight.

³²But after I am come back from the dead, I will go before you into Galilee.

³³But Peter made answer and said to him, Though all may be turned away from you, I will never be turned away.

³⁴Jesus said to him, Truly I say to you that this night, before the hour of the cock's cry, you will say three times that you have no knowledge of me.

³⁵Peter says to him, Even if I am put to death with you, I will not be false to you. So said all the disciples.

³⁶Then comes Jesus with them to a place named Gethsemane, and says to his disciples, Be seated here, while I go over there for prayer.

³⁷And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and became sad and very troubled.

³⁸Then says he to them, My soul is very sad, even to death: keep watch with me here.

³⁹And he went forward a little, and falling down on his face in prayer, he said, O my Father, if it is possible, let this cup go from me; but let not my pleasure, but yours be done.

⁴⁰And he comes to the disciples, and sees that they are sleeping, and says to Peter, What, were you not able to keep watch with me one hour?

⁴¹Keep watch with prayer, so that you may not be put to the test: the spirit truly is ready, but the flesh is feeble.

⁴²Again, a second time he went away, and said in prayer, O my Father, if this may not go from me without my taking it, let your pleasure be done.

⁴³And he came again and saw them sleeping, for their eyes were tired.

⁴⁴And he went away from them again, and a third time said the same prayer.

⁴⁵Then he comes to the disciples; and says to them, Go on sleeping now, and take your rest: for the hour is come, and the Son of man is given into the hands of evil men.

⁴⁶Up, let us be going: see, he who gives me up is near.

⁴⁷And while he was still talking, Judas, one of the twelve, came, and with him a band armed with swords and sticks, from the chief priests and those in authority over the people.

⁴⁸Now the false one had given them a sign saying, The one to whom I give a kiss, that is he: take him.

⁴⁹And straight away he came to Jesus and said, Master! and gave him a kiss.

⁵⁰And Jesus said to him, Friend, do that for which you have come. Then they came and put hands on Jesus, and took him.

⁵¹And one of those who were with Jesus put out his hand, and took out his sword and gave the servant of the high priest a blow, cutting off his ear.

⁵²Then says Jesus to him, Put up your sword again into its place: for all those who take the sword will come to death by the sword.

⁵³Does it not seem possible to you that if I make request to my Father he will even now send me an army of angels?

⁵⁴But how then would the Writings come true, which say that so it has to be?

⁵⁵In that hour Jesus said to the people, Have you come out as against a thief with swords and sticks to take me? I was teaching every day in the Temple and you took me not.

⁵⁶But all this has taken place so that the writings of the prophets might come true. Then all his disciples went from him in flight.

⁵⁷And those who had made Jesus prisoner took him away to the house of Caiaphas, the high priest, where the scribes and those in authority over the people had come together.

⁵⁸But Peter went after him at a distance, to the house of the high priest, and went in and took his seat with the servants, to see the end.

⁵⁹Now the chief priests and all the Sanhedrin were looking for false witness against Jesus, so that they might put him to death;

⁶⁰And they were not able to get it, though a number of false witnesses came.

⁶¹But later there came two who said, This man said, I am able to give the Temple of God to destruction, and to put it up again in three days.

⁶²And the high priest got up and said to him, Have you no answer? what is it which these say against you?

⁶³But Jesus said not a word. And the high priest said to him, I put you on oath, by the living God, that you will say to us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.

⁶⁴Jesus says to him, You say so: but I say to you, From now you will see the Son of man seated at the right hand of power, and coming on the clouds of heaven.

⁶⁵Then the high priest, violently parting his robes, said, He has said evil against God: what more need have we of witnesses? for now his words against God have come to your ears:

⁶⁶What is your opinion? They made answer and said, It is right for him to be put to death.

⁶⁷Then they put shame on him, and were cruel to him: and some gave him blows, saying,

⁶⁸Be a prophet, O Christ, and say who gave you a blow!

⁶⁹Now Peter was seated in the open square outside the house: and a servant-girl came to him, saying, You were with Jesus the Galilaean.

⁷⁰But he said before them all that it was false, saying, I have no knowledge of what you say.

⁷¹And when he had gone out into the doorway, another saw him and says to those who were there, This man was with Jesus the Nazarene.

⁷²And again he said with an oath, I have no knowledge of the man.

⁷³And after a little time those who were near came and said to Peter, Truly you are one of them; because your talk is witness against you.

⁷⁴Then with curses and oaths he said, I have no knowledge of the man. And straight away there came the cry of a cock.

⁷⁵And the word of Jesus came back to Peter, when he said, Before the hour of the cock's cry, you will say three times that you have no knowledge of me. And he went out, weeping bitterly.

27Now when it was morning, all the chief priests and those in authority took thought together with the purpose of putting Jesus to death.

²And they put cords on him and took him away, and gave him up to Pilate, the ruler.

³Then Judas, who was false to him, seeing that he was to be put to death, in his regret took back the thirty bits of silver to the chief priests and those in authority,

⁴Saying, I have done wrong in giving into your hands an upright man. But they said, What is that to us? it is your business.

⁵And he put down the silver in the Temple and went out, and put himself to death by hanging.

⁶And the chief priests took the silver and said, It is not right to put it in the Temple store for it is the price of blood.

⁷And they made a decision to get with the silver the potter's field, as a place for the dead of other countries.

⁸For this cause that field was named, The field of blood, to this day.

⁹Then came true that which was said by Jeremiah the prophet, And they took the thirty bits of silver, the price of him who was valued by the children of Israel;

¹⁰And they gave them for the potter's field, as I had word from the Lord.

¹¹And Jesus was before the ruler, who put a question to him, Are you the King of the Jews? And Jesus said to him, You say so.

¹²But when the chief priests and those in authority made statements against him, he gave no answer.

¹³Then says Pilate to him, Do you give no attention to what their witnesses say against you?

¹⁴And he gave him no answer, not even a word: so that the ruler was greatly surprised.

¹⁵Now at the feast it was the way for the ruler to let free to the people one prisoner, at their selection.

¹⁶And they had then an important prisoner, whose name was Barabbas.

¹⁷So when they came together, Pilate said to them, Whom will you have? Barabbas, or Jesus, who is named Christ?

¹⁸For he saw that for envy they had given him up.

¹⁹And while he was on the judge's seat, his wife sent to him, saying, Have nothing to do with that upright man, for I have had much trouble this day in a dream because of him.

²⁰Now the chief priests and those in authority got the people to make request for Barabbas, and for Jesus to be put to death.

²¹But the ruler made answer and said to them, Which of the two is it your pleasure that I let go free? And they said, Barabbas.

²²Pilate says to them, What, then, am I to do with Jesus, who is named Christ? They all say, Let him be put to death on the cross.

²³And he said, Why, what evil has he done? But they gave loud cries, saying, To the cross with him!

²⁴So when Pilate saw that he was able to do nothing, but that trouble was working up, he took water and, washing his hands before the people, said, The blood of this upright man is not on my hands: you are responsible.

²⁵And all the people made answer and said, Let his blood be on us, and on our children.

²⁶Then he let Barabbas go free: but after having Jesus whipped, he gave him up to be put to death on the cross.

²⁷Then the ruler's armed men took Jesus into the open square, and got all their band together.

²⁸And they took off his clothing, and put on him a red robe.

²⁹And they made a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and put a rod in his right hand, and they went down on their knees before him, and made sport of him, saying, Long life to the King of the Jews.

³⁰And they put shame on him, and gave him blows on the head with the rod.

³¹And when they had made sport of him, they took the robe off him, and put his clothing on him, and took him away to put him on the cross.

³²And while they were coming out, they saw a man of Cyrene, Simon by name, and they made him go with them, so that he might take up his cross.

³³And when they came to the place named Golgotha, that is to say, Dead Man's Head,

³⁴They gave him wine mixed with bitter drink: and after tasting it, he took no more.

³⁵And when they had put him on the cross, they made division of his clothing among them by the decision of chance.

³⁶And they were seated there watching him.

³⁷And they put up over his head the statement of his crime in writing, THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS.

³⁸Then two thieves were put on crosses with him, one on the right and one on the left.

³⁹And those who went by said bitter words to him, shaking their heads and saying,

⁴⁰You who would give the Temple to destruction and put it up again in three days, get yourself free: if you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.

⁴¹In the same way, the chief priests, making sport of him, with the scribes and those in authority, said,

⁴²A saviour of others, he has no salvation for himself. If he is the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will have faith in him.

⁴³He put his faith in God; let God be his saviour now, if he will have him; for he said, I am the Son of God.

⁴⁴And the thieves who were on the crosses said evil words to him.

⁴⁵Now from the sixth hour it was dark over all the land till the ninth hour.

⁴⁶And about the ninth hour Jesus gave a loud cry, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is, My God, my God, why are you turned away from me?

⁴⁷And some of those who were near by, hearing it, said, This man is crying to Elijah.

⁴⁸And straight away one of them went quickly, and took a sponge, and made it full of bitter wine, and put it on a rod and gave him drink.

⁴⁹And the rest said, Let him be; let us see if Elijah will come to his help.

⁵⁰And Jesus gave another loud cry, and gave up his spirit.

⁵¹And the curtain of the Temple was parted in two from end to end; and there was an earth-shock; and the rocks were broken;

⁵²And the resting-places of the dead came open; and the bodies of a number of sleeping saints came to life;

⁵³And coming out of their resting-places, after he had come again from the dead, they went into the holy town and were seen by a number of people.

⁵⁴Now the captain and those who were with him watching Jesus, when they saw the earth-shock and the things which were done, were in great fear and said, Truly this was a son of God.

⁵⁵And a number of women were there, watching from a distance, who had come with Jesus from Galilee, waiting on his needs.

⁵⁶Among whom was Mary Magdalene, and Mary, the mother of James and Joses, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee.

⁵⁷And in the evening, there came a man of wealth from Arimathaea, Joseph by name, who was a disciple of Jesus:

⁵⁸This man went in to Pilate, and made a request for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate gave orders for it to be given to him.

⁵⁹And Joseph took the body, folding it in clean linen,

⁶⁰And put it in the resting-place which had been cut out of the rock for himself; and after rolling a great stone to the door of it he went away.

⁶¹And Mary Magdalene was there, and the other Mary, seated by the place of the dead.

⁶²Now on the day after the getting ready of the Passover, the chief priests and Pharisees came together to Pilate,

⁶³Saying, Sir, we have in mind how that false man said, while he was still living, After three days I will come again from the dead.

⁶⁴Give orders, then, that the place where his body is may be made safe till the third day, for fear that his disciples come and take him away secretly and say to the people, He has come back from the dead: and the last error will be worse than the first.

⁶⁵Pilate said to them, You have watchmen; go and make it as safe as you are able.

⁶⁶So they went, and made safe the place where his body was, putting a stamp on the stone, and the watchmen were with them.

28Now late on the Sabbath, when the dawn of the first day of the week was near, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the place where his body was.

²And there was a great earth-shock; for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, rolling back the stone, took his seat on it.

³His form was shining like the light, and his clothing was white as snow:

⁴And for fear of him the watchmen were shaking, and became as dead men.

⁵And the angel said to the women, Have no fear: for I see that you are searching for Jesus, who was put to death on the cross.

⁶He is not here, for he has come to life again, even as he said. Come, see the Lord's resting-place.

⁷And go quickly and give his disciples the news that he has come back from the dead, and is going before you into Galilee; there you will see him, as I have said to you.

⁸And they went away quickly, with fear and great joy, to give his disciples the news.

⁹And on the way, Jesus came to them, saying, Be glad. And they came and put their hands on his feet, and gave him worship.

¹⁰Then said Jesus to them, Have no fear: go and give word to my brothers to go into Galilee, and there they will see me.

¹¹Now, while they were going, some of the watchmen came into the town and gave news to the chief priests of all the things which had taken place.

¹²And when they had come together with those in authority, and had made their decision, they gave much money to the watchmen, saying,

¹³Say, His disciples came by night and took him away secretly while we were sleeping.

¹⁴And if this comes to the ruler's ears, we will see that he does not make you responsible.

¹⁵So they took the money, and did as they had been ordered: and this account has been current among the Jews till the present time.

¹⁶But the eleven disciples went into Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had given them orders to go.

¹⁷And when they saw him they gave him worship: but some were in doubt.

¹⁸And Jesus came to them and said, All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.

¹⁹Go then, and make disciples of all the nations, giving them baptism in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit:

²⁰Teaching them to keep all the rules which I have given you: and see, I am ever with you, even to the end of the world.

1The first words of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

²Even as it is said in the book of Isaiah the prophet, See, I send my servant before your face, who will make ready your way;

³The voice of one crying in the waste land, Make ready the way of the Lord, make his roads straight;

⁴John came, and gave baptism in the waste land, preaching baptism as a sign of forgiveness of sin for those whose hearts were changed.

⁵And there went out to him all the people of Judaea, and all those of Jerusalem, and they were given baptism by him in the river Jordan, saying that they were sinners.

⁶And John was clothed in camel's hair, with a leather band about him; and his food was locusts and honey.

⁷And he said to them all, There is one coming after me who is greater than I, whose shoes I am not good enough to undo.

⁸I have given you baptism with water, but he will give you baptism with the Holy Spirit.

⁹And it came about in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was given baptism by John in the Jordan.

¹⁰And straight away, coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens broken open and the Spirit coming down on him as a dove:

¹¹And a voice came out of heaven, You are my dearly loved Son, with whom I am well pleased.

¹²And straight away the Spirit sent him out into the waste land.

¹³And he was in the waste land for forty days, being tested by Satan; and he was with the beasts; and the angels took care of him.

¹⁴Now after John had been put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the good news of God,

¹⁵And saying, The time has come, and the kingdom of God is near: let your hearts be turned from sin and have faith in the good news.

¹⁶And going by the sea of Galilee, he saw Simon, and Andrew, the brother of Simon, putting a net into the sea: for they were fishermen.

¹⁷And Jesus said to them, Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.

¹⁸And they went straight from their nets, and came after him.

¹⁹And going on a little farther, he saw James, the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, who were in their boat stitching up their nets.

²⁰And he said, Come after me: and they went away from their father Zebedee, who was in the boat with the servants, and came after him.

²¹And they came to Capernaum; and on the Sabbath he went into the Synagogue and gave teaching.

²²And they were full of wonder at his teaching, because he gave it as one having authority, and not like the scribes.

²³And there was in their Synagogue a man with an unclean spirit; and he gave a cry,

²⁴Saying, What have we to do with you, Jesus of Nazareth? have you come to put an end to us? I see well who you are, the Holy One of God.

²⁵And Jesus said to him sharply, Be quiet, and come out of him.

²⁶And the unclean spirit, shaking him violently, and crying with a loud voice, came out of him.

²⁷And they were all greatly surprised, so that they put questions to one another, saying, What is this? a new teaching! with authority he gives orders even to the unclean spirits, and they do what he says.

²⁸And news of him went out quickly everywhere into all parts of Galilee round about.

²⁹And when they came out of the Synagogue, they went into the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John.

³⁰Now Simon's wife's mother was ill, with a burning heat; and they gave him word of her:

³¹And he came and took her by the hand, lifting her up; and she became well, and took care of their needs.

³²And in the evening, at sundown, they took to him all who were diseased, and those who had evil spirits.

³³And all the town had come together at the door.

³⁴And a number, who were ill with different diseases, he made well, and sent out evil spirits; but he did not let the evil spirits say anything, because they had knowledge of him.

³⁵And in the morning, a long time before daylight, he got up and went out to a quiet place, and there he gave himself up to prayer.

³⁶And Simon and those who were with him came after him.

³⁷And when they came up with him, they said to him, Everyone is looking for you.

³⁸And he said to them, Let us go to other parts into the nearest towns, so that I may give teaching there, because for this purpose I came.

³⁹And he went into their Synagogues in every part of Galilee, preaching and driving out evil spirits.

⁴⁰And a leper came to him and, going down on his knees before him, made a request, saying, If it is your pleasure, you have the power to make me clean.

⁴¹And being moved with pity, he put out his hand, and touching him said to him, It is my pleasure; be made clean.

⁴²And straight away the disease went from him, and he was made clean.

⁴³And he sent him away, saying to him very sharply,

⁴⁴See that you say nothing to any man: but go and let the priest see you, and make yourself clean by an offering of the things ordered by Moses, for a witness to them.

⁴⁵But he went out, and made it public, giving an account of it everywhere, so that Jesus was no longer able to go openly into a town, but was outside in the waste land; and they came to him from every part.

2And when he came into Capernaum again after some days, the news went about that he was in the house.

²And a great number had come together, so that there was no longer room for them, no, not even about the door: and he gave them teaching.

³And four men came to him with one on a bed who had no power of moving.

⁴And when they were unable to get near him because of all the people, they got the roof uncovered where he was: and when it was broken up, they let down the bed on which the man was.

⁵And Jesus, seeing their faith, said to him, Son, you have forgiveness for your sins.

⁶But there were certain of the scribes seated there, and reasoning in their hearts,

⁷Why does this man say such things? he has no respect for God: from whom does forgiveness come but from God only?

⁸And Jesus, having knowledge in his spirit of their thoughts, said to them, Why are you reasoning about these things in your hearts?

⁹Which is the simpler, to say to a man who is ill, You have forgiveness for your sins, or, Get up, take up your bed, and go?

¹⁰But so that you may see that the Son of man has authority for the forgiveness of sins on earth, (he said to the man,)

¹¹I say to you, Get up, take up your bed, and go to your house.

¹²And he got up, and straight away took up the bed and went out before them all, so that they were all full of wonder, and gave glory to God, saying, We have never seen anything like this.

¹³And he went out again by the seaside; and all the people came to him, and he gave them teaching.

¹⁴And when he went by, he saw Levi, the son of Alphaeus, seated at the place where taxes were taken, and he said to him, Come with me. And he got up, and went with him.

¹⁵And it came about that he was seated at meat in his house, and a number of tax-farmers and sinners were at table with Jesus and his disciples: for there were a great number of them, and they came after him.

¹⁶And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was taking food with the tax-farmers and sinners, said to his disciples, Why does he take food and drink with such men?

¹⁷And Jesus, hearing it, said to them, Those who are well have no need of a medical man, but those who are ill: I have come not to get the upright but sinners.

¹⁸And John's disciples and the Pharisees were taking no food: and they came and said to him, Why do John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees go without food, but your disciples do not?

¹⁹And Jesus said to them, Will the friends of a newly-married man go without food while he is with them? as long as they have him with them they will not go without food.

²⁰But the days will come when the husband will be taken away from them, and then they will go without food.

²¹No man puts a bit of new cloth on an old coat: or the new, by pulling away from the old, makes a worse hole.

²²And no man puts new wine into old wine-skins: or the skins will be burst by the wine, and the wine and the skins will be wasted: but new wine has to be put into new wine-skins.

²³And it came about that on the Sabbath day he was going through the grain-fields; and while they were walking, his disciples took the heads of grain.

²⁴And the Pharisees said to him, Why are they doing what it is not right to do on the Sabbath?

²⁵And he said to them, Have you no knowledge of what David did, when he had need and was without food, he, and those who were with him?

²⁶How he went into the house of God when Abiathar was high priest, and took for food the holy bread, which only the priests may take, and gave it to those who were with him?

²⁷And he said to them, The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath;

²⁸So that the Son of man is lord even of the Sabbath.

3And he went again into the Synagogue; and there was a man there whose hand was dead.

²And they were watching him to see if he would make him well on the Sabbath day, so that they might have something against him.

³And he said to the man, Get up and come forward.

⁴And he said to them, Is it right to do good on the Sabbath or to do evil? to give life or to put to death? But they said nothing.

⁵And looking round on them he was angry, being sad because of their hard hearts; and he said to the man, Put out your hand. And he put it out, and his hand was made well.

⁶And the Pharisees went out, and straight away made designs with the Herodians about how they might put him to death.

⁷And Jesus went away with his disciples to the sea, and a great number from Galilee came after him: and from Judaea,

⁸And from Jerusalem, and from Idumaea, and the other side of Jordan, and the country about Tyre and Sidon, a great number, hearing what great things he did, came to him.

⁹And he made a request to his disciples to have a little boat ready for him, so that he might not be crushed by the people;

¹⁰For he had made such a great number well that all those who were diseased were falling down before him for the purpose of touching him.

¹¹And the unclean spirits, whenever they saw him, went down before him, crying out, and saying, You are the Son of God.

¹²And he gave them special orders not to say who he was.

¹³And he went up into the mountain, and sent for those whom it was his pleasure to have with him: and they went to him.

¹⁴And he took twelve to be with him, so that he might send them out as preachers,

¹⁵And give them the power of driving out evil spirits:

¹⁶To Simon he gave the second name of Peter;

¹⁷And to James, the son of Zebedee, and John, the brother of James, he gave the second name of Boanerges, which is, Sons of thunder:

¹⁸And Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James, the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Zealot;

¹⁹And Judas Iscariot, who was false to him.

²⁰And he went into a house. And the people came together again, so that they were not even able to take bread.

²¹And when his friends had news of it, they went out to get him, saying, He is off his head.

²²And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem, said, He has Beelzebub, and, By the ruler of evil spirits he sends evil spirits out of men.

²³And turning to them, he said to them in the form of a story, How is it possible for Satan to put out Satan?

²⁴If there is division in a kingdom, that kingdom will come to destruction;

²⁵And if there is division in a house, that house will come to destruction;

²⁶And if Satan is at war with himself, and there is division in him, he will not keep his place but will come to an end.

²⁷But no one is able to go into the house of the strong man and take his goods, without first putting cords round the strong man, and then he will take his goods.

²⁸Truly, I say to you, The sons of men will have forgiveness for all their sins and for all the evil words they say:

²⁹But whoever says evil things against the Holy Spirit will never have forgiveness, but the evil he has done will be with him for ever:

³⁰Because they said, He has an unclean spirit.

³¹And his mother and brothers came and were outside, and sent for him, requesting to see him.

³²And a great number were seated round him; and they said to him, See, your mother and your brothers are outside looking for you.

³³And he said in answer, Who are my mother and my brothers?

³⁴And looking round at those who were seated about him, he said, See, my mother and my brothers!

³⁵Whoever does God's pleasure, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.

4And again he was teaching by the seaside. And a very great number of people had come to him, so that he got into a boat on the sea and took his seat; and all the people were on the land by the seaside.

²And he gave them teaching about a number of things in the form of stories, and said to them in his teaching, Give ear:

³A man went out to put seed in the earth:

⁴And while he was doing it, some was dropped by the wayside, and the birds came and took it for food.

⁵And some went on the stones, where it had not much earth; and it came up straight away, because the earth was not deep:

⁶And when the sun was high, it was burned; and because it had no root, it became dry and dead.

⁷And some went among the thorns, and the thorns came up, and it had no room for growth and gave no fruit.

⁸And some, falling on good earth, gave fruit, coming up and increasing, and giving thirty, sixty, and a hundred times as much.

⁹And he said to them, Whoever has ears, let him give ear.

¹⁰And when he was by himself, those who were round him with the twelve put questions to him about the purpose of the stories.

¹¹And he said to them, To you is given the secret of the kingdom of God, but to those who are outside, all things are given in the form of stories;

¹²So that seeing they may see, and it will not be clear to them; and hearing it, they will not get the sense; for fear that they may be turned again to me and have forgiveness.

¹³And he said to them, If you are not clear about this story, how will you be clear about the others?

¹⁴The seed is the word.

¹⁵And these are they by the wayside, where the word is planted; and when they have given ear, the Evil One comes straight away and takes away the word which has been planted in them.

¹⁶And in the same way, these are they who are planted on the stones, who, when the word has come to their ears, straight away take it with joy;

¹⁷And they have no root in themselves, but go on for a time; then, when trouble comes or pain, because of the word, they quickly become full of doubts.

¹⁸And others are those planted among the thorns; these are they who have given ear to the word,

¹⁹And the cares of this life, and the deceits of wealth, and the desire for other things coming in, put a stop to the growth of the word, and it gives no fruit.

²⁰And these are they who were planted on the good earth; such as give ear to the word, and take it into their hearts, and give fruit, thirty and sixty and a hundred times as much.

²¹And he said to them, When the light comes in, do people put it under a vessel, or under the bed, and not on its table?

²²There is nothing covered which will not be seen openly, and nothing has been made secret which will not come to light.

²³If any man has ears, let him give ear.

²⁴And he said to them, Take care what you give ear to: in the same measure as you give you will get, and more will be given to you.

²⁵He who has, to him will be given: and he who has not, from him will be taken even that which he has.

²⁶And he said, Such is the kingdom of God, as if a man put seed in the earth,

²⁷And went to sleep and got up, night and day, and the seed came to growth, though he had no idea how.

²⁸The earth gives fruit by herself; first the leaf, then the head, then the full grain.

²⁹But when the grain is ready, he quickly sends men to get it cut, because the time for cutting has come.

³⁰And he said, What picture may we give of the kingdom of God, or with what story may we make it clear?

³¹It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when it is put in the earth, is smaller than all the seeds on the earth,

³²But when it is planted, it comes up, and becomes taller than all the plants, and puts out great branches, so that the birds of heaven are able to take rest in its shade.

³³And with a number of such stories he gave them his teaching, as they were able to take it:

³⁴And without a story he said nothing to them: but privately to his disciples he made all things clear.

³⁵And on that day, when the evening had come, he said to them, Let us go over to the other side.

³⁶And going away from the people, they took him with them, as he was, in the boat. And other boats were with him.

³⁷And a great storm of wind came up, and the waves came into the boat, so that the boat was now becoming full.

³⁸And he himself was in the back of the boat, sleeping on the cushion: and they, awaking him, said, Master, is it nothing to you that we are in danger of destruction?

³⁹And he came out of his sleep, and gave strong orders to the wind, and said to the sea, Peace, be at rest. And the wind went down, and there was a great calm.

⁴⁰And he said to them, Why are you full of fear? have you still no faith?

⁴¹And their fear was great, and they said one to another, Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea do his orders?

5And they came to the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gerasenes.

²And when he had got out of the boat, straight away there came to him from the place of the dead a man with an unclean spirit.

³He was living in the place of the dead: and no man was able to keep him down, no, not with a chain;

⁴Because he had frequently been prisoned in chains and iron bands, and the chains had been parted and the bands broken by him: and no man was strong enough to make him quiet.

⁵And all the time, by day and by night, in the place of the dead, and in the mountains, he was crying out and cutting himself with stones.

⁶And when he saw Jesus from far off, he went quickly to him and gave him worship;

⁷And crying out with a loud voice he said, What have I to do with you, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? In God's name, do not be cruel to me.

⁸For Jesus had said to him, Come out of the man, you unclean spirit.

⁹And Jesus said, What is your name? And he made answer, My name is Legion, because there are a great number of us.

¹⁰And he made strong prayers to him not to send them away out of the country.

¹¹Now on the mountain side there was a great herd of pigs getting their food.

¹²And they said to him, Send us into the pigs, so that we may go into them.

¹³And he let them do it. And the unclean spirits came out and went into the pigs; and the herd went rushing down a sharp slope into the sea, about two thousand of them; and they came to their death in the sea.

¹⁴And their keepers went running and gave an account of it in the town and in the country. And people came to see what had taken place.

¹⁵And they came to Jesus, and saw the man in whom had been the evil spirits seated, clothed and with full use of his senses, and they were full of fear.

¹⁶And those who had seen it gave them an account of what had been done to him who had the evil spirits, and of the fate of the pigs.

¹⁷And they made a request to him to go out of their country.

¹⁸And when he was getting into the boat, the man in whom had been the evil spirits had a great desire to come with him.

¹⁹And he would not let him, but said to him, Go to your house, to your friends, and give them news of the great things the Lord has done for you, and how he had mercy on you.

²⁰And he went on his way, and made public in the country of Decapolis what great things Jesus had done for him: and all men were full of wonder.

²¹And when Jesus had gone over again in the boat to the other side, a great number of people came to him: and he was by the sea.

²²And one of the rulers of the Synagogue, Jairus by name, came, and seeing him, went down at his feet,

²³And made strong prayers to him, saying, My little daughter is near to death: it is my prayer that you will come and put your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and have life.

²⁴And he went with him; and a great number of people went after him, and came round him.

²⁵And a woman, who had had a flow of blood for twelve years,

²⁶And had undergone much at the hands of a number of medical men, and had given all she had, and was no better, but even worse,

²⁷When she had news of the things which Jesus did, went among the people coming after him, and put her hand on his robe.

²⁸For she said, If I may only put my hand on his robe, I will be made well.

²⁹And straight away the fountain of her blood was stopped, and she had a feeling in her body that her disease had gone and she was well.

³⁰And straight away Jesus was conscious that power had gone out of him; and, turning to the people, he said, Who was touching my robe?

³¹And his disciples said to him, You see the people round you on every side, and you say, Who was touching me?

³²And on his looking round to see her who had done this thing,

³³The woman, shaking with fear, conscious of what had been done to her, came and, falling on her face before him, gave him a true account of everything.

³⁴And he said to her, Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be free from your disease.

³⁵And while he was still talking, they came from the ruler of the Synagogue's house, saying, Your daughter is dead: why are you still troubling the Master?

³⁶But Jesus, giving no attention to their words, said to the ruler of the Synagogue, Have no fear, only have faith.

³⁷And he did not let anyone come with him, but Peter and James and John, the brother of James.

³⁸And they came to the house of the ruler of the Synagogue; and he saw people running this way and that, and weeping and crying loudly.

³⁹And when he had gone in, he said to them, Why are you making such a noise and weeping? The child is not dead, but sleeping.

⁴⁰And they were laughing at him. But he, having sent them all out, took the father of the child and her mother and those who were with him, and went in where the child was.

⁴¹And taking her by the hand, he said to her, Talitha cumi, which is, My child, I say to you, Get up.

⁴²And the young girl got up straight away, and was walking about; she being twelve years old. And they were overcome with wonder.

⁴³And he gave them special orders that they were not to say anything of this; and he said that some food was to be given to her.

6And he went away from there, and came into his country; and his disciples went with him.

²And when the Sabbath day had come, he was teaching in the Synagogue; and a number of people hearing him were surprised, saying, From where did this man get these things? and, What is the wisdom given to this man, and what are these works of power done by his hands?

³Is not this the woodworker, the son of Mary, and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us? And they were bitter against him.

⁴And Jesus said to them, A prophet is nowhere without honour, but in his country, and among his relations, and in his family.

⁵And he was unable to do any work of power there, but only to put his hands on one or two persons who were ill, and make them well.

⁶And he was greatly surprised because they had no faith. And he went about the country places teaching.

⁷And he gave orders to the twelve, and sent them out two by two; and he gave them authority over the unclean spirits;

⁸And he said that they were to take nothing for their journey, but a stick only; no bread, no bag, no money in their pockets;

⁹They were to go with common shoes on their feet, and not to take two coats.

¹⁰And he said to them, Wherever you go into a house, make that your resting-place till you go away.

¹¹And whatever place will not take you in and will not give ear to you, when you go away, put off the dust from your feet as a witness against them.

¹²And they went out, preaching the need for a change of heart in men.

¹³And they sent out a number of evil spirits, and put oil on a great number who were ill, and made them well.

¹⁴And king Herod had news of him, because his name was on the lips of all; and he said, John the Baptist has come back from the dead, and for this reason these powers are working in him.

¹⁵But others said, It is Elijah. And others said, It is a prophet, even like one of the prophets.

¹⁶But Herod, when he had news of it, said, John, whom I put to death, has come back from the dead.

¹⁷For Herod himself had sent men out to take John and put him in prison, because of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife, whom he had taken for himself.

¹⁸For John said to Herod, It is wrong for you to have your brother's wife.

¹⁹And Herodias was bitter against him, desiring to put him to death; but she was not able;

²⁰For Herod was in fear of John, being conscious that he was an upright and holy man, and kept him safe. And hearing him, he was much troubled; and he gave ear to him gladly.

²¹And the chance came when Herod on his birthday gave a feast to his lords, and the high captains, and the chief men of Galilee;

²²And when the daughter of Herodias herself came in and did a dance, Herod and those who were at table with him were pleased with her; and the king said to the girl, Make a request for anything and I will give it you.

²³And he took an oath, saying to her, Whatever is your desire I will give it to you, even half of my kingdom.

²⁴And she went out and said to her mother, What is my request to be? And she said, The head of John the Baptist.

²⁵And she came in quickly to the king, and said, My desire is that you give me straight away on a plate the head of John the Baptist.

²⁶And the king was very sad; but because of his oaths, and those who were with him at table, he would not say 'No' to her.

²⁷And straight away the king sent out one of his armed men, and gave him an order to come back with the head: and he went and took off John's head in prison,

²⁸And came back with the head on a plate, and gave it to the girl; and the girl gave it to her mother.

²⁹And when his disciples had news of it, they came and took up his body, and put it in its last resting-place.

³⁰And the twelve came together to Jesus; and they gave him an account of all the things they had done, and all they had been teaching.

³¹And he said to them, Come away by yourselves to a quiet place, and take a rest for a time. Because there were a great number coming and going, and they had no time even for food.

³²And they went away in the boat to a waste place by themselves.

³³And the people saw them going, and a number of them, having knowledge who they were, went running there together on foot from all the towns, and got there before them.

³⁴And he got out, and saw a great mass of people, and he had pity on them, because they were like sheep without a keeper: and he gave them teaching about a number of things.

³⁵And at the end of the day, his disciples came to him and said, This place is waste land, and it is late:

³⁶Send them away, so that they may go into the country and small towns round about, and get some food for themselves.

³⁷But he said to them in answer, Give them food yourselves. And they said to him, Are we to go and get bread for two hundred pence, and give it to them?

³⁸And he said to them, How much bread have you? go and see. And when they had seen, they said, Five cakes of bread and two fishes.

³⁹And he made them all be seated in groups on the green grass.

⁴⁰And they were placed in groups, by hundreds and by fifties.

⁴¹And he took the five cakes of bread and the two fishes and, looking up to heaven, he said words of blessing over them; and when the cakes were broken, he gave them to the disciples to put before the people; and he made division of the two fishes among them all.

⁴²And they all took of the food and had enough.

⁴³And they took up twelve baskets full of the broken bits and of the fishes.

⁴⁴And those who took of the bread were five thousand men.

⁴⁵And straight away he made his disciples get into the boat, and go before him to the other side to Beth-saida, while he himself sent the people away.

⁴⁶And after he had sent them away, he went up into a mountain for prayer.

⁴⁷And by evening, the boat was in the middle of the sea, and he by himself on the land.

⁴⁸And seeing that they had trouble in getting their boat through the water, because the wind was against them, about the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea; and he would have gone past them;

⁴⁹But they, when they saw him walking on the sea, took him for a spirit, and gave a loud cry:

⁵⁰For they all saw him, and were troubled. But straight away he said to them, Take heart, it is I, have no fear.

⁵¹And he went to them into the boat, and the wind went down, and they were full of wonder in themselves;

⁵²For it was not clear to them about the bread; but their hearts were hard.

⁵³And when they had gone across, they came to Gennesaret, and got their boat to land.

⁵⁴And when they had got out of the boat, the people quickly had news of him,

⁵⁵And went running through all the country round about, and took on their beds those who were ill, to where it was said that he was.

⁵⁶And wherever he went, into small towns, or great towns, or into the country, they took those who were ill into the market-places, requesting him that they might put their hands even on the edge of his robe: and all those who did so were made well.

7And there came together to him the Pharisees and certain of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem,

²And had seen that some of his disciples took their bread with unclean, that is, unwashed, hands.

³Now the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not take food without washing their hands with care, keeping the old rule which has been handed down to them:

⁴And when they come from the market-place, they take no food till their hands are washed; and a number of other orders there are, which have been handed down to them to keep--washings of cups and pots and brass vessels.

⁵And the Pharisees and the scribes put the question to him, Why do your disciples not keep the rules of the fathers, but take their bread with unwashed hands?

⁶And he said, Well did Isaiah say of you, you false ones: These people give me honour with their lips, but their heart is far from me.

⁷But their worship is to no purpose, while they give as their teaching the rules of men.

⁸For, turning away from the law of God, you keep the rules of men.

⁹And he said to them, Truly you put on one side the law of God, so that you may keep the rules which have been handed down to you.

¹⁰For Moses said, Give honour to your father and mother, and, He who says evil of father or mother, let him have the punishment of death:

¹¹But you say, If a man says to his father or his mother, That by which you might have had profit from me is Corban, that is to say, Given to God,

¹²You no longer let him do anything for his father or his mother;

¹³Making the word of God of no effect by your rule, which you have given: and a number of other such things you do.

¹⁴And turning to the people again, he said to them, Give ear to me all of you, and let my words be clear to you:

¹⁵There is nothing outside the man which, going into him, is able to make him unclean: but the things which come out of the man are those which make the man unclean.

¹⁶[]

¹⁷And when he had gone into the house away from all the people, his disciples put questions to him about the saying.

¹⁸And he said to them, Have even you so little wisdom? Do you not see that whatever goes into a man from outside is not able to make him unclean,

¹⁹Because it goes not into the heart but into the stomach, and goes out with the waste? He said this, making all food clean.

²⁰And he said, That which comes out of the man, that makes the man unclean.

²¹Because from inside, from the heart of men, come evil thoughts and unclean pleasures,

²²The taking of goods and of life, broken faith between husband and wife, the desire of wealth, wrongdoing, deceit, sins of the flesh, an evil eye, angry words, pride, foolish acts:

²³All these evil things come from inside, and make the man unclean.

²⁴And he went away from there to the country of Tyre and Sidon. And he went into a house, desiring that no man might have knowledge of it: and he was not able to keep it secret.

²⁵But a woman, whose little daughter had an unclean spirit, having had news of him, came straight away and went down at his feet.

²⁶Now the woman was a Greek, a Syro-phoenician by birth: and she made a request to him that he would send the evil spirit out of her daughter.

²⁷And he said to her, Let the children first have their food: for it is not right to take the children's bread and give it to the dogs.

²⁸But she said to him in answer, Yes, Lord: even the dogs under the table take the bits dropped by the children.

²⁹And he said to her, For this saying go your way; the evil spirit has gone out of your daughter.

³⁰And she went away to her house, and saw the child on the bed, and the evil spirit gone out.

³¹And again he went out from Tyre, and came through Sidon to the sea of Galilee, through the country of Decapolis.

³²And they came to him with one who had no power of hearing and had trouble in talking; and they made a request to him to put his hands on him.

³³And he took him on one side from the people privately, and put his fingers into his ears, and he put water from his mouth on the man's tongue with his finger;

³⁴And looking up to heaven, he took a deep breath, and said to him, Ephphatha, that is, Be open.

³⁵And his ears became open, and the band of his tongue was made loose, and his words became clear.

³⁶And he gave them orders not to give news of it to anyone; but the more he made this request, so much the more they made it public.

³⁷And they were overcome with wonder, saying, He has done all things well: he even gives back the power of hearing and the power of talking to those who have been without them.

8In those days again, when there was a great mass of people and they had no food, he made his disciples come to him and said to them,

²I have pity for these people because they have been with me now three days, and have no food;

³If I send them away to their houses with no food, they will be overcome by weariness on the way; and some of them have come from far.

⁴And his disciples said in answer, How will it be possible to get enough bread for these men here in a waste place?

⁵And he put the question, How much bread have you? And they said, Seven cakes.

⁶And he made the people be seated on the earth: and he took the seven cakes and, having given praise, he gave the broken bread to his disciples to put before them; and they put it before the people.

⁷And they had some small fishes; and blessing them he had them put before the people in the same way.

⁸And they took the food, and had enough; and they took up seven baskets full of the broken bits.

⁹And there were about four thousand people: and he sent them away.

¹⁰And he got into the boat with his disciples straight away, and came into the country of Dalmanutha.

¹¹And the Pharisees came out and put questions to him, requesting from him a sign from heaven, testing him.

¹²And he was very sad in spirit, and said, Why is this generation looking for a sign? truly, I say to you, No sign will be given to this generation.

¹³And he went away from them, and again got into the boat and went across to the other side.

¹⁴And they had taken no thought to get bread; and they had only one cake of bread with them in the boat.

¹⁵And he said to them, Take care to be on the watch against the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.

¹⁶And they said to one another, We have no bread.

¹⁷And Jesus, hearing it, said to them, Why are you reasoning among yourselves because you have no bread? do you still not see, and is it still not clear to you? are your hearts so hard?

¹⁸Having eyes, do you not see? and having ears, have you no hearing? and have you no memory?

¹⁹When I made a division of the five cakes of bread among the five thousand, what number of baskets full of broken bits did you take up? They said to him, Twelve.

²⁰And when the seven among the four thousand, what number of baskets full of broken bits did you take up? And they said to him, Seven.

²¹And he said to them, Is it still not clear to you?

²²And they came to Beth-saida. And they took a blind man to him, requesting him to put his hands on him.

²³And he took the blind man by the hand, and went with him out of the town; and when he had put water from his mouth on his eyes, and put his hands on him, he said, Do you see anything?

²⁴And looking up, he said, I see men; I see them like trees, walking.

²⁵Then again he put his hands on his eyes; and looking hard, he was able to see, and saw all things clearly.

²⁶And he sent him away to his house, saying, Do not even go into the town.

²⁷And Jesus went out, with his disciples, into the little towns round Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he put a question to his disciples, saying, Who do men say that I am?

²⁸And they made answer, John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; but others, One of the prophets.

²⁹And he said to them, But who do you say I am? Peter said in answer, You are the Christ.

³⁰And he put them under orders not to say this of him to anyone.

³¹And teaching them, he said that the Son of man would have to undergo much, and be hated by those in authority, and the chief priests, and the scribes, and be put to death, and after three days come back from the dead.

³²And he said this openly. And Peter took him, and was protesting.

³³But he, turning about, and seeing his disciples, said sharply to Peter, Get out of my way, Satan: for your mind is not on the things of God, but on the things of men.

³⁴And turning to the mass of people with his disciples, he said to them, If any man has the desire to come after me, let him give up all other desires, and take up his cross and come after me.

³⁵Whoever has a desire to keep his life, will have it taken from him; and whoever gives up his life because of me and the good news, will keep it.

³⁶What profit has a man if he gets all the world with the loss of his life?

³⁷And what would a man give in exchange for his life?

³⁸Whoever has a feeling of shame because of me and my words in this false and evil generation, the Son of man will have a feeling of shame because of him, when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.

9And he said to them, Truly I say to you, There are some here who will have no taste of death till they see the kingdom of God come with power.

²And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and made them go up with him into a high mountain by themselves: and he was changed in form before them:

³And his clothing became shining, very white, as no cleaner on earth would make it.

⁴And there came before them Elijah with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus.

⁵And Peter said to Jesus, Master, it is good for us to be here: and let us make three tents; one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.

⁶Because he was not certain what to say, for they were in great fear.

⁷And a cloud came over them; and a voice came out of the cloud, saying, This is my dearly loved Son, give ear to him.

⁸And suddenly looking round about, they saw no one any longer, but Jesus only with themselves.

⁹And while they were coming down from the mountain, he gave them orders not to give word to any man of the things they had seen, till the Son of man had come back from the dead.

¹⁰And they kept the saying, questioning among themselves what the coming back from the dead might be.

¹¹And they put a question to him, saying, Why do the scribes say that Elijah has to come first?

¹²And he said to them, Truly, Elijah does come first, and puts all things in order; and how is it said in the Writings that the Son of man will go through much sorrow and be made as nothing?

¹³But I say to you that Elijah has come, and they have done to him whatever they were pleased to do, even as the Writings say about him.

¹⁴And when they came to the disciples, they saw a great mass of people about them, and scribes questioning them.

¹⁵And straight away all the people, when they saw him, were full of wonder, and running to him, gave him worship.

¹⁶And he said, What are you questioning them about?

¹⁷And one of the number said to him in answer, Master, I came to you with my son, who has in him a spirit which takes away his power of talking;

¹⁸And wherever it takes him, it puts him down violently, streaming at the lips and twisted with pain; and his strength goes from him; and I made a request to your disciples to send it out, and they were not able.

¹⁹And he said to them in answer, O generation without faith, how long will I have to be with you? how long will I put up with you? let him come to me.

²⁰And they took him to him: and when he saw him, the spirit in him straight away became violent; and he went down on the earth, rolling about and streaming at the lips.

²¹And Jesus questioning the father said, How long has he been like this? And he said, From a child.

²²And frequently it has sent him into the fire and into the water, for his destruction; but if you are able to do anything, have pity on us, and give us help.

²³And Jesus said to him, If you are able! All things are possible to him who has faith.

²⁴Straight away the father of the child gave a cry, saying, I have faith; make my feeble faith stronger.

²⁵And when Jesus saw that the people came running together, he gave orders to the unclean spirit, saying to him, You, spirit, who are the cause of his loss of voice and hearing, I say to you, come out of him, and never again go into him.

²⁶And after crying out and shaking him violently, it came out: and the child became like one dead; so that most of them said, He is dead.

²⁷But Jesus took him by the hand, lifting him up; and he got up.

²⁸And when he had gone into the house, his disciples said to him privately, Why were we unable to send it out?

²⁹And he said to them, Nothing will make this sort come out but prayer.

³⁰And they went out from there, through Galilee; and it was his desire that no man might have knowledge of it;

³¹For he was giving his disciples teaching, and saying to them, The Son of man is given up into the hands of men, and they will put him to death; and when he is dead, after three days he will come back from the dead.

³²But the saying was not clear to them, and they were in fear of questioning him about it.

³³And they came to Capernaum: and when he was in the house, he put the question to them, What were you talking about on the way?

³⁴But they said nothing: because they had had an argument between themselves on the way, about who was the greatest.

³⁵And seating himself, he made the twelve come to him; and he said to them, If any man has the desire to be first, he will be last of all and servant of all.

³⁶And he took a little child, and put him in the middle of them; and taking him in his arms, he said to them,

³⁷Whoever will give honour to one such little child in my name, gives honour to me: and whoever gives honour to me, gives honour not to me, but to him who sent me.

³⁸John said to him, Master, we saw one driving out evil spirits in your name: and we said that he might not, because he is not one of us.

³⁹But Jesus said, Say not so: for there is no man who will do a great work in my name, and be able at the same time to say evil of me.

⁴⁰He who is not against us is for us.

⁴¹Whoever gives you a cup of water, because you are Christ's, truly I say to you, he will in no way be without his reward.

⁴²And whoever is a cause of trouble to one of these little ones who have faith in me, it would be better for him if a great stone was put round his neck and he was dropped into the sea.

⁴³And if your hand is a cause of trouble to you, let it be cut off; it is better for you to go into life with one hand than to have two hands and go into hell, into the eternal fire.

⁴⁴[]

⁴⁵And if your foot is a cause of trouble to you, let it be cut off: it is better for you to go into life with one foot than to have two feet and go into hell.

⁴⁶[]

⁴⁷And if your eye is a cause of trouble to you, take it out: it is better for you to go into the kingdom of God with one eye than, having two eyes, to go into hell,

⁴⁸Where their worm is ever living and the fire is not put out.

⁴⁹Everyone will be salted with fire.

⁵⁰Salt is good; but if the taste goes from it, how will you make it salt again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace one with another.

10And he got up, and went into the country of Judaea on the other side of Jordan: and great numbers of people came together to him again; and, as was his way, he gave them teaching.

²And Pharisees came to him, testing him with the question, Is it right for a man to put away his wife?

³And he said to them in answer, What did Moses say you were to do?

⁴And they said to him, Moses let us give her a statement in writing, and be free from her.

⁵But Jesus said to them, Because of your hard hearts he gave you this law.

⁶But from the first, male and female made he them.

⁷For this cause will a man go away from his father and mother, and be joined to his wife;

⁸And the two will become one flesh; so that they are no longer two, but one flesh.

⁹Let not that which has been joined together by God be parted by man.

¹⁰And in the house the disciples put questions to him again about this thing.

¹¹And he said to them, Whoever puts away his wife and takes another, is false to his wife;

¹²And if she herself puts away her husband and takes another, she is false to her husband.

¹³And they took to him little children, so that he might put his hands on them: and the disciples said sharp words to them.

¹⁴And when Jesus saw it, he was angry, and said to them, Let the little children come to me, and do not keep them away; for of such is the kingdom of God.

¹⁵Truly I say to you, Whoever does not put himself under the kingdom of God like a little child, will not come into it at all.

¹⁶And he took them in his arms, and gave them a blessing, putting his hands on them.

¹⁷And while he was going out into the way, a man came running to him, and went down on his knees, saying, Good Master, what have I to do so that I may have eternal life?

¹⁸And Jesus said to him, Why do you say I am good? no one is good but one, and that is God.

¹⁹You have knowledge of what is said in the law, Do not put any one to death, Do not be untrue in married life, Do not take what is not yours, Do not give false witness, Do not get money by deceit, Give honour to your father and mother.

²⁰And he said to him, Master, all these laws I have kept from the time when I was young.

²¹And Jesus, looking on him and loving him, said, There is one thing needed: go, get money for your goods, and give it to the poor, and you will have wealth in heaven: and come with me.

²²But his face became sad at the saying, and he went away sorrowing: for he was one who had much property.

²³And Jesus, looking round about, said to his disciples, How hard it is for those who have wealth to come into the kingdom of God!

²⁴And the disciples were full of wonder at his words. But Jesus said to them again, Children, how hard it is for those who put faith in wealth to come into the kingdom of God!

²⁵It is simpler for a camel to go through a needle's eye, than for a man of wealth to come into the kingdom of God.

²⁶And they were greatly surprised, saying to him, Who then may have salvation?

²⁷Jesus, looking on them, said, With men it is impossible, but not with God: for all things are possible with God.

²⁸Peter said to him, See, we have given up everything, and come after you.

²⁹Jesus said, Truly I say to you, There is no man who has given up house, or brothers, or sisters, or mother, or father, or children, or land, because of me and the good news,

³⁰Who will not get a hundred times as much now in this time, houses, and brothers, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and land--though with great troubles; and, in the world to come, eternal life.

³¹But a great number who are first will be last: and those who are last will be first.

³²And they were on the way, going up to Jerusalem; and Jesus was going before them: and they were full of wonder; but those who came after him were in fear. And again he took the twelve, and gave them word of the things which were to come on him,

³³Saying, See, we go up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man will be given up to the chief priests and the scribes; and they will give an order for his death, and will give him up to the Gentiles:

³⁴And they will make sport of him, and put shame on him, and give him cruel blows, and will put him to death; and after three days he will come back from the dead.

³⁵And there came to him James and John, the sons of Zebedee, saying to him, Master, will you give us whatever may be our request?

³⁶And he said to them, What would you have me do for you?

³⁷And they said to him, Let us be seated, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.

³⁸But Jesus said to them, You have no knowledge of what you are saying. Are you able to take of my cup? or to undergo the baptism which I am to undergo?

³⁹And they said to him, We are able. And Jesus said to them, You will take of the cup from which I take; and the baptism which I am about to undergo you will undergo:

⁴⁰But to be seated at my right hand or at my left is not for me to give: but it is for those for whom it has been made ready.

⁴¹And hearing this, the ten became very angry with James and John.

⁴²And Jesus made them come to him, and said to them, You see that those who are made rulers over the Gentiles are lords over them, and their great ones have authority over them.

⁴³But it is not so among you: but whoever has a desire to become great among you, let him be your servant:

⁴⁴And whoever has a desire to be first among you, let him be servant of all.

⁴⁵For truly the Son of man did not come to have servants, but to be a servant, and to give his life for the salvation of men.

⁴⁶And they came to Jericho: and when he was going out of Jericho, with his disciples and a great number of people, the son of Timaeus, Bartimaeus, a blind man, was seated by the wayside, with his hand out for money.

⁴⁷And when it came to his ears that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he gave a cry, and said, Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.

⁴⁸And some of them, turning in protest, gave him an order to be quiet: but he went on crying out all the more, Son of David, have mercy on me.

⁴⁹And Jesus came to a stop and said, Let him come. And crying out to the blind man, they said to him, Be comforted: come, he has sent for you.

⁵⁰And he, putting off his coat, got up quickly, and came to Jesus.

⁵¹And Jesus said to him, What would you have me do to you? And the blind man said, Master, make me able to see.

⁵²And Jesus said to him, Go on your way; your faith has made you well. And straight away he was able to see, and went after him in the way.

11And when they came near to Jerusalem, to Beth-phage and Bethany, at the Mountain of Olives, he sent two of his disciples,

²And said to them, Go into the little town opposite: and when you come to it, you will see a young ass with a cord round his neck, on which no man has ever been seated; let him loose, and come back with him.

³And if anyone says to you, Why are you doing this? say, The Lord has need of him and will send him back straight away.

⁴And they went away and saw a young ass by the door outside in the open street; and they were getting him loose.

⁵And some of those who were there said to them, What are you doing, taking the ass?

⁶And they said to them the words which Jesus had said; and they let them go.

⁷And they took the young ass to Jesus, and put their clothing on him, and he got on his back.

⁸And a great number put down their clothing in the way; and others put down branches which they had taken from the fields.

⁹And those who went in front, and those who came after, were crying, Glory: A blessing on him who comes in the name of the Lord:

¹⁰A blessing on the coming kingdom of our father David: Glory in the highest.

¹¹And he went into Jerusalem into the Temple; and after looking round about on all things, it being now evening, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.

¹²And on the day after, when they had come out from Bethany, he was in need of food.

¹³And seeing a fig-tree in the distance with leaves, he went to see if by chance it had anything on it: and when he came to it, he saw nothing but leaves, for it was not the time for the fruit.

¹⁴And he said to it, Let no man take fruit from you for ever. And his disciples took note of his words.

¹⁵And they came to Jerusalem; and he went into the Temple, and sent out those who were trading there, overturning the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who were offering doves for money;

¹⁶And he would not let any man take a vessel through the Temple.

¹⁷And he gave them teaching, and said to them, Is it not in the Writings, My house is to be named a house of prayer for all the nations? but you have made it a hole of thieves.

¹⁸And it came to the ears of the chief priests and scribes, and they took thought how they might put him to death; being in fear of him, because all the people were full of wonder at his teaching.

¹⁹And every evening he went out of the town.

²⁰And when they were going by in the morning, they saw the fig-tree dead from the roots.

²¹And Peter, having a memory of it, said to him, Master, see, the tree which was cursed by you is dead.

²²And Jesus, answering, said to them, Have God's faith.

²³Truly I say to you, Whoever says to this mountain, Be taken up and be put into the sea; and has no doubt in his heart, but has faith that what he says will come about, he will have his desire.

²⁴For this reason I say to you, Whatever you make a request for in prayer, have faith that it has been given to you, and you will have it.

²⁵And whenever you make a prayer, let there be forgiveness in your hearts, if you have anything against anyone; so that you may have forgiveness for your sins from your Father who is in heaven.

²⁶[]

²⁷And they came again to Jerusalem: and while he was walking in the Temple, there came to him the chief priests and the scribes and those in authority:

²⁸And they said to him, By what authority do you do these things? or who gave you authority to do these things?

²⁹And Jesus said to them, I will put to you one question; give me an answer, and I will say by what authority I do these things.

³⁰The baptism of John, was it from heaven or from men? give me an answer.

³¹And they gave thought to it among themselves, saying, If we say, From heaven; he will say, Why then did you not have faith in him?

³²But if we say, From men--they were in fear of the people, because all took John to be truly a prophet.

³³And they said in answer to Jesus, We have no idea. And Jesus said to them, And I will not say to you by what authority I do these things.

12And he gave them teaching in the form of stories. A man had a vine-garden planted, and put a wall about it, and made a place for crushing out the wine, and put up a tower, and let it out to field-workers, and went into another country.

²And when the time came, he sent a servant to get from the workmen some of the fruit of the garden.

³And they took him, and gave him blows, and sent him away with nothing.

⁴And again he sent to them another servant; and they gave him wounds on the head, and were very cruel to him.

⁵And he sent another; and they put him to death: and a number of others, whipping some, and putting some to death.

⁶He still had one, a dearly loved son: he sent him last to them, saying, They will have respect for my son.

⁷But those workmen said among themselves, This is he who will one day be the owner of the property; come, let us put him to death, and the heritage will be ours.

⁸And they took him and put him to death, pushing his body out of the garden.

⁹What then will the master of the garden do? He will come and put the workmen to death, and will give the garden into the hands of others.

¹⁰Have you not seen this which is in the Writings: The stone which the builders put on one side, the same was made the chief stone of the building:

¹¹This was the Lord's doing, and it is a wonder in our eyes?

¹²And they made attempts to take him; but they were in fear of the people, because they saw that the story was against them; and they went away from him.

¹³Then they sent to him certain of the Pharisees and the Herodians, so that they might make use of his words to take him by a trick.

¹⁴And when they had come, they said to him, Master, we are certain that you are true, and have no fear of anyone: you have no respect for a man's position, but you are teaching the true way of God: Is it right to give taxes to Caesar or not?

¹⁵Are we to give or not to give? But he, conscious of their false hearts, said to them, Why do you put me to the test? give me a penny, so that I may see it.

¹⁶And they gave him one. And he said to them, Whose is this image and name on it? And they said to him, Caesar's.

¹⁷And Jesus said to them, Give to Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and to God the things which are God's. And they were full of wonder at him.

¹⁸And there came to him Sadducees, who say there is no coming back from the dead; and they put a question to him, saying,

¹⁹Master, in the law Moses says, If a man's brother comes to his end, and has a wife still living and no child, it is right for his brother to take his wife, and get a family for his brother.

²⁰There were seven brothers: and the first took a wife, and at his death there were no offspring;

²¹And the second took her, and at his death there were no offspring; and the third the same:

²²And all the seven had no seed. Last of all the woman herself came to her death.

²³In the future life, when they come back from the dead, whose wife will she be? for the seven had her for a wife.

²⁴Jesus said to them, Is not this the reason for your error, that you have no knowledge of the holy Writings or of the power of God?

²⁵When they come back from the dead, they do not get married, but are like the angels in heaven.

²⁶But as to the dead coming back to life; have you not seen in the book of Moses, about the burning thorn-tree, how God said to him, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?

²⁷He is not the God of the dead, but of the living: you are greatly in error.

²⁸And one of the scribes came, and hearing their argument together, and seeing that he had given them a good answer, put the question to him, Which law is the first of all?

²⁹Jesus said in answer, The first is, Give ear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord;

³⁰And you are to have love for the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.

³¹The second is this, Have love for your neighbour as for yourself. There is no other law greater than these.

³²And the scribe said to him, Truly, Master, you have well said that he is one, and there is no other but he:

³³And to have love for him with all the heart, and with all the mind, and with all the strength, and to have the same love for his neighbour as for himself, is much more than all forms of offerings.

³⁴And when Jesus saw that he gave a wise answer, he said to him, You are not far from the kingdom of God. And every man after that was in fear of questioning him any more.

³⁵And Jesus, when he was teaching in the Temple, said, How do the scribes say that the Christ is the Son of David?

³⁶David himself said in the Holy Spirit, The Lord said to my Lord, Be seated at my right hand, till I put those who are against you under your feet.

³⁷David himself gives him the name of Lord; and how then is he his son? And the common people gave ear to him gladly.

³⁸And in his teaching he said, Be on your watch against the scribes, whose pleasure it is to go about in long robes and be respected in the market-places,

³⁹And to have the chief seats in the Synagogues and the first places at feasts;

⁴⁰Who take away the property of widows, and before the eyes of men make long prayers; these will be judged more hardly.

⁴¹And he took a seat by the place where the money was kept, and saw how the people put money into the boxes: and a number who had wealth put in much.

⁴²And there came a poor widow, and she put in two little bits of money, which make a farthing.

⁴³And he made his disciples come to him, and said to them, Truly I say to you, This poor widow has put in more than all those who are putting money into the box:

⁴⁴Because they all put in something out of what they had no need for; but she out of her need put in all she had, even all her living.

13And when he was going out of the Temple, one of his disciples said to him, Master, see, what stones and what buildings!

²And Jesus said to him, Do you see these great buildings? there is not one stone here resting on another which will not be overturned.

³And while he was seated on the Mountain of Olives opposite the Temple, Peter and James and John and Andrew said to him privately,

⁴Say when these things will be, and what will be the sign when these things are all about to be done.

⁵And Jesus said to them, Take care that you are not tricked by anyone.

⁶People will come in my name, saying, I am he; and a number will be turned from the true way.

⁷And when you have news of wars and talk of wars, do not be troubled; these things have to be, but it is still not the end.

⁸Nation will go to war with nation, and kingdom with kingdom: there will be earth-shocks in different places; there will be times when there is no food; these things are the first of the troubles.

⁹But take care: for they will give you up to the Sanhedrins; and in Synagogues you will be whipped; and you will be taken before rulers and kings because of me, for a sign to them.

¹⁰And the good news has first to be given to all the nations.

¹¹And when you are taken and given up to be judged, do not be troubled about what to say: but whatever is given to you in that hour, say: because it is not you who say it, but the Holy Spirit.

¹²And brother will give up brother to death, and the father his child; and children will go against their fathers and mothers, and put them to death.

¹³And you will be hated by all men, because of my name; but he who goes through to the end will have salvation.

¹⁴But when you see the unclean thing which makes destruction, in the place where it has no right to be (let this be clear to the reader), then let those who are in Judaea go quickly to the mountains:

¹⁵And let him who is on the house-top not go down, or go in, to take anything out of his house:

¹⁶And let not him who is in the field go back to take his coat.

¹⁷And it will be hard for women who are with child and for her who has a baby at the breast in those days.

¹⁸And say a prayer that it may not be in the winter.

¹⁹For in those days there will be sorrow, such as there has not been from the time when God made the world till now, and will not ever be again.

²⁰And if the Lord had not made the time short, no flesh would have been kept from destruction; but because of the saints he has made the time short.

²¹And then if any man says to you, See, here is Christ; or, See, there; have no faith in it:

²²Because there will be false Christs and false prophets, and they will give signs and wonders in the hope of turning even the saints from the true way.

²³But take care; see, I have made all things clear to you before the time.

²⁴But in those days, after that time of trouble, the sun will be made dark and the moon will not give her light,

²⁵And the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers which are in the heavens will be moved.

²⁶And then they will see the Son of man coming in clouds with great power and glory.

²⁷And then he will send out the angels, and will get together his saints from the four winds, from the farthest part of the earth to the farthest part of heaven.

²⁸Take an example from the fig-tree: when its branches become soft and put out their leaves, you see that the summer is near;

²⁹Even so, when you see these things taking place, you may be certain that he is near, even at the doors.

³⁰Truly, I say to you, This generation will not come to an end till all these things are complete.

³¹Heaven and earth will come to an end, but my words will not come to an end.

³²But of that day or that hour no one has knowledge, not even the angels in heaven, or the Son, but the Father.

³³Take care, keep watch with prayer: for you are not certain when the time will be.

³⁴It is as when a man who is in another country for a time, having gone away from his house, and given authority to his servants and to everyone his work, gives the porter an order to keep watch.

³⁵So you are to keep watch: because you are not certain when the master of the house is coming, in the evening, or in the middle of the night, or at the cock's cry, or in the morning;

³⁶For fear that, coming suddenly, he sees you sleeping.

³⁷And what I say to you, I say to all, Keep watch.

14It was now two days before the feast of the Passover and the unleavened bread: and the chief priests and the scribes made designs how they might take him by deceit and put him to death:

²But they said, Not while the feast is going on, for fear there may be trouble among the people.

³And while he was in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, seated at table, there came a woman with a bottle of perfumed oil of great price; and when the bottle was broken she put the perfume on his head.

⁴But some of them were angry among themselves, saying, For what purpose has this oil been wasted?

⁵We might have got more than three hundred pence for it, and given the money to the poor. And they said things against her among themselves.

⁶But Jesus said, Let her be; why are you troubling her? she has done a kind act to me.

⁷The poor you have ever with you, and whenever you have the desire you may do them good: but me you have not for ever.

⁸She has done what she was able: she has put oil on my body to make it ready for its last resting-place.

⁹And truly I say to you, Wherever the good news goes out through all the earth, what this woman has done will be talked of in memory of her.

¹⁰And Judas Iscariot, who was one of the twelve, went away to the chief priests, so that he might give him up to them.

¹¹And hearing what he said, they were glad, and gave him their word to make him a payment of money. And he took thought how he might best give him up to them.

¹²And on the first day of unleavened bread, when the Passover lamb is put to death, his disciples said to him, Where are we to go and make ready for you to take the Passover meal?

¹³And he sent two of his disciples, and said to them, Go into the town, and there will come to you a man with a vessel of water: go after him;

¹⁴And wherever he goes in, say to the owner of the house, The Master says, Where is my guest-room, where I may take the Passover with my disciples?

¹⁵And he will take you up himself to a great room with a table and seats: there make ready for us.

¹⁶And the disciples went out and came into the town, and saw that it was as he had said: and they made ready the Passover.

¹⁷And when it was evening he came with the twelve.

¹⁸And while they were seated taking food, Jesus said, Truly I say to you, One of you will be false to me, one who is taking food with me.

¹⁹They were sad, and said to him one by one, Is it I?

²⁰And he said to them, It is one of the twelve, one who is putting his bread with me into the same plate.

²¹The Son of man goes, even as the Writings say of him: but cursed is that man through whom the Son of man is given up! It would have been well for that man if he had never been given birth.

²²And while they were taking food, he took bread, and after blessing it, he gave the broken bread to them, and said, Take it: this is my body.

²³And he took a cup, and when he had given praise, he gave it to them: and they all had a drink from it.

²⁴And he said to them, This is my blood of the testament, which is given for men.

²⁵Truly I say to you, I will take no more of the fruit of the vine till the day when I take it new in the kingdom of God.

²⁶And after a song of praise to God they went out to the Mountain of Olives.

²⁷And Jesus said to them, You will all be turned away from me: for it is in the Writings, I will put the keeper of the sheep to death, and the sheep will be put to flight.

²⁸But after I have come back from the dead, I will go before you into Galilee.

²⁹But Peter said to him, Though the others may be turned away from you, I will not.

³⁰And Jesus said to him, Truly, I say to you that you, today, even this night, before the cock's second cry, will say three times that you have no knowledge of me.

³¹But he said with passion, If I have to be put to death with you, I will not be false to you. And they all said the same.

³²And they came to a place which was named Gethsemane: and he said to his disciples, Be seated here while I say a prayer.

³³And he took with him Peter and James and John, and grief and great trouble came on him.

³⁴And he said to them, My soul is very sad, even to death: be here a little time, and keep watch.

³⁵And he went forward a little, and falling down on the earth, made request that, if possible, the hour might go from him.

³⁶And he said, Abba, Father, all things are possible to you; take away this cup from me: but even so let not my pleasure, but yours be done.

³⁷And he came, and saw them sleeping, and said to Peter, Simon, are you sleeping? were you not able to keep watch one hour?

³⁸Keep watch with prayer, so that you may not be put to the test; the spirit truly is ready, but the flesh is feeble.

³⁹And again he went away, and said a prayer, using the same words.

⁴⁰And again he came and saw them sleeping, because their eyes were very tired; and they had nothing to say in answer.

⁴¹And he came the third time, and said to them, Go on sleeping now and take your rest: it is enough; the hour has come; see, the Son of man is given up into the hands of evil men.

⁴²Get up, let us be going; see, he who gives me up is near.

⁴³And straight away, while he was still talking, Judas, one of the twelve, came, and with him a great band with swords and sticks, from the chief priests and the scribes and those in authority.

⁴⁴Now he who had been false to him had given them a sign, saying, The one to whom I give a kiss, that is he; take him, and get him away safely.

⁴⁵And when he had come, he went straight to him and said, Master; and gave him a kiss.

⁴⁶And they put their hands on him, and took him.

⁴⁷But a certain one of those who were near took out his sword, and gave the servant of the high priest a blow, cutting off his ear.

⁴⁸And Jesus said to them, Have you come out as against a thief, with swords and sticks to take me?

⁴⁹I was with you every day in the Temple teaching, and you did not take me; but this is done so that the Writings may come true.

⁵⁰And they all went away from him in fear.

⁵¹And a certain young man went after him, with only a linen cloth about his body; and they put their hands on him;

⁵²But he got away unclothed, without the linen cloth.

⁵³And they took Jesus away to the high priest; and there came together with him all the chief priests and those in authority and the scribes.

⁵⁴And Peter had come after him at a distance, even into the house of the high priest; and he was seated with the captains, warming himself in the light of the fire.

⁵⁵Now the chief priests and all the Sanhedrin were looking for witness against Jesus so that they might put him to death; and they were unable to get any.

⁵⁶For a number gave false witness against him and their witness was not in agreement.

⁵⁷Then some got up and gave false witness against him, saying,

⁵⁸He said in our hearing, I will put an end to this Temple which is made with hands, and in three days I will make another without hands.

⁵⁹And even so their witness was not in agreement.

⁶⁰And the high priest got up in the middle of them, and said to Jesus, Do you say nothing in answer? what is it which these say against you?

⁶¹But he kept quiet and said nothing. Again the high priest questioning him said, Are you the Christ, the son of the Holy One?

⁶²And Jesus said, I am: and you will see the Son of man seated at the right hand of power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.

⁶³And the high priest, violently parting his robes, said, What more need have we of witnesses?

⁶⁴His words against God have come to your ears: what is your opinion? And they all said it was right for him to be put to death.

⁶⁵And some put shame on him and, covering his face, gave him blows and said to him, Now say what is to come: and the captains took him and gave him blows with their hands.

⁶⁶And while Peter was down in the open square of the building, one of the servant-girls of the high priest came;

⁶⁷And seeing Peter warming himself by the fire, she gave him a look, and said, You were with this Nazarene, even Jesus.

⁶⁸But he said, I have no knowledge of him, or of what you are saying: and he went out into the doorway; and there came the cry of a cock.

⁶⁹And the girl saw him, and said again to those who were near, This is one of them.

⁷⁰But again he said it was not so. And after a little time, again those who were near said to Peter, Truly you are one of them; for you are a Galilaean.

⁷¹But, with curses and oaths, he said, I have no knowledge of the man about whom you are talking.

⁷²And in the same minute, the cock gave a second cry. And it came to Peter's mind how Jesus had said to him, Before the cock's second cry, you will say three times that you have no knowledge of me. And at this thought he was overcome with weeping.

15And the first thing in the morning the chief priests, with those in authority and the scribes and all the Sanhedrin, had a meeting, and put cords round Jesus, and took him away, and gave him up to Pilate.

²And Pilate put a question to him, Are you the King of the Jews? And he, answering, said to him, You say so.

³And the chief priests said a number of things against him.

⁴And Pilate again put a question, Do you say nothing in answer? see how much evil they say you have done.

⁵But Jesus gave no more answers, so that Pilate was full of wonder.

⁶Now at the feast every year he let one prisoner go free at their request.

⁷And there was one named Barabbas, in prison with those who had gone against the government and in the fight had taken life.

⁸And the people went up, requesting him to do as he had done for them in other years.

⁹And Pilate said in answer to them, Is it your desire that I let the King of the Jews go free?

¹⁰For he saw that the chief priests had given him up through envy.

¹¹But the people were moved by the chief priests to make him let Barabbas go free.

¹²And Pilate again said in answer to them, What then am I to do to him to whom you give the name of the King of the Jews?

¹³And they said again loudly, To the cross with him!

¹⁴And Pilate said to them, Why, what evil has he done? But their cry was the louder, To the cross!

¹⁵And Pilate, desiring to do what was pleasing to the people, let Barabbas go free, and gave up Jesus, when he had been whipped, to be put to death on the cross.

¹⁶And the men of the army took him away into the square in front of the building which is the Praetorium, and they got together all the band.

¹⁷And they put a purple robe on him, and twisting a crown of thorns, they put it on him;

¹⁸And, as if honouring him, they said, Long life to the King of the Jews!

¹⁹And they gave him blows on the head with a stick and put shame on him and, going down on their knees, gave him worship.

²⁰And when they had made sport of him, they took the purple robe off him and put his clothing on him. And they took him out to put him to death on the cross.

²¹And they made one, Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus, who was going by, coming from the country, go with them, so that he might take his cross.

²²And they took him to the place named Golgotha, which is, Dead Man's Head.

²³And they gave him wine mixed with myrrh; but he did not take it.

²⁴And he was nailed to the cross; and they made a division of his clothing among them, putting to the decision of chance what everyone was to take.

²⁵And it was the third hour when they put him on the cross.

²⁶And the statement of his crime was put in writing on the cross, THE KING OF THE JEWS.

²⁷And they put two thieves on crosses with him, one on his right side, and one on his left.

²⁸[]

²⁹And those who went by made sport of him, shaking their heads, and saying, Ha! you who give the Temple to destruction, and put it up again in three days,

³⁰Keep yourself from death, and come down from the cross.

³¹In the same way the chief priests, laughing at him among themselves with the scribes, said, A saviour of others, he has no salvation for himself.

³²Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross, so that we may see and have belief. And those who were put on crosses with him said evil things against him.

³³And when the sixth hour had come, it was dark over all the land till the ninth hour.

³⁴And at the ninth hour, Jesus said in a loud voice, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, My God, my God, why are you turned away from me?

³⁵And some of those who were near, hearing it, said, See, he is crying to Elijah.

³⁶And one of them went quickly and, getting a sponge full of bitter wine, put it on a rod, and gave it to him for drink, saying, Let be; let us see if Elijah will come to take him down.

³⁷And Jesus gave a loud cry, and gave up his spirit.

³⁸And the curtain of the Temple was parted in two from end to end.

³⁹And when the captain, who was near, saw how he gave up his spirit, he said, Truly this man was a son of God.

⁴⁰And there were women watching from a distance: among them were Mary Magdalene, and Mary, the mother of James the less and of Joses, and Salome,

⁴¹Who went with him when he was in Galilee and took care of him; and a number of other women who came up with him to Jerusalem.

⁴²And when it was evening, because it was the time of getting ready, that is, the day before the Sabbath,

⁴³There came Joseph of Arimathaea, a responsible man in high honour, who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God; and he went in to Pilate without fear, and made a request for the body of Jesus.

⁴⁴And Pilate was surprised that he was dead; and, sending for the captain, he put a question to see if he had been dead for long.

⁴⁵And when he had news of it from the captain, he let Joseph have the body.

⁴⁶And he got a linen cloth and, taking him down, put the linen cloth round him, and put him in a place for the dead which had been cut out of a rock; and a stone was rolled against the door.

⁴⁷And Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of Joses, saw where he was put.

16And when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of James, and Salome, got spices, so that they might come and put them on him.

²And very early after dawn on the first day of the week, they came at the time of the coming up of the sun to the place where the body had been put.

³And they were saying among themselves, Who will get the stone rolled away from the door for us?

⁴And looking up, they saw that the stone was rolled back; and it was of great size.

⁵And when they went in, they saw a young man seated on the right side, dressed in a white robe; and they were full of wonder.

⁶And he said to them, Do not be troubled: you are looking for Jesus, the Nazarene, who has been put to death on the cross; he has come back from the dead; he is not here: see, the place where they put him!

⁷But go, say to his disciples and to Peter, He goes before you into Galilee: there you will see him, as he said to you.

⁸And they went out quickly from the place, because fear and great wonder had come on them: and they said nothing to anyone, because they were full of fear that ...

⁹Now when he came back from the dead early on the first day of the week, he went first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had sent out seven evil spirits.

¹⁰She went and gave news of it to those who had been with him, while they were sorrowing and weeping.

¹¹And they, when it came to their ears that he was living, and had been seen by her, had no belief in it.

¹²And after these things he was seen in another form by two of them, while they were walking on their way into the country.

¹³And they went away and gave news of it to the rest; and they had no belief in what was said.

¹⁴And later he was seen by the eleven themselves while they were taking food; and he said sharp words to them because they had no faith and their hearts were hard, and because they had no belief in those who had seen him after he had come back from the dead.

¹⁵And he said to them, Go into all the world, and give the good news to everyone.

¹⁶He who has faith and is given baptism will get salvation; but he who has not faith will be judged.

¹⁷And these signs will be with those who have faith: in my name they will send out evil spirits; and they will make use of new languages;

¹⁸They will take up snakes, and if there is poison in their drink, it will do them no evil; they will put their hands on those who are ill, and they will get well.

¹⁹So then the Lord Jesus, after he had said these words to them, was taken up into heaven and took his seat at the right hand of God.

²⁰And they went out, preaching everywhere, the Lord working with them, and giving witness to the word by the signs which came after. So be it.

1As a number of attempts have been made to put together in order an account of those events which took place among us,

²As they were handed down to us by those who saw them from the first and were preachers of the word,

³It seemed good to me, having made observation, with great care, of the direction of events in their order, to put the facts in writing for you, most noble Theophilus;

⁴So that you might have certain knowledge of those things about which you were given teaching.

⁵In the days of Herod, king of Judaea, there was a certain priest, by name Zacharias, of the order of Abijah; and he had a wife of the family of Aaron, and her name was Elisabeth.

⁶They were upright in the eyes of God, keeping all the rules and orders of God, and doing no wrong.

⁷And they were without children, because Elisabeth had never given birth, and they were at that time very old.

⁸Now it came about that in his turn he was acting as priest before God,

⁹And as was the way of the priests, he had to go into the Temple to see to the burning of perfumes.

¹⁰And all the people were offering prayers outside, at the time of the burning of perfumes.

¹¹And he saw an angel of the Lord in his place on the right side of the altar.

¹²And Zacharias was troubled when he saw him, and fear came on him.

¹³But the angel said, Have no fear, Zacharias, for your prayer has come to the ears of God, and your wife Elisabeth will have a son, and his name will be John.

¹⁴And you will be glad and have great delight; and numbers of people will have joy at his birth.

¹⁵For he will be great in the eyes of the Lord; he will not take wine or strong drink; and he will be full of the Spirit of God from his birth.

¹⁶And through him great numbers of the children of Israel will be turned to the Lord their God.

¹⁷And he will go before his face in the spirit and power of Elijah, turning the hearts of fathers to their children, and wrongdoers to the way of righteousness; to make ready a people whose hearts have been turned to the Lord.

¹⁸And Zacharias said to the angel, How may I be certain of this? For I am an old man, and my wife is far on in years.

¹⁹And the angel, answering, said, I am Gabriel, whose place is before God; I have been sent to say these words to you and to give you this good news.

²⁰Now, see, you will be without voice or language till the day when these things come about, because you had not faith in my words, which will have effect at the right time.

²¹And the people were waiting for Zacharias and were surprised because he was in the Temple for such a long time.

²²And when he came out he was not able to say anything, and they saw that he had seen a vision in the Temple; and he was making signs to them without words.

²³And when the days of his work in the Temple were ended, he went back to his house.

²⁴After that time, Elisabeth, being certain that she was to become a mother, kept herself from men's eyes for five months, saying,

²⁵The Lord has done this to me, for his eyes were on me, to take away my shame in the eyes of men.

²⁶Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a town in Galilee, named Nazareth,

²⁷To a virgin who was to be married to a man named Joseph, of the family of David; and the name of the virgin was Mary.

²⁸And the angel came in to her and said, Peace be with you, to whom special grace has been given; the Lord is with you.

²⁹But she was greatly troubled at his words, and said to herself, What may be the purpose of these words?

³⁰And the angel said to her, Have no fear, Mary, for you have God's approval.

³¹And see, you will give birth to a son, and his name will be Jesus.

³²He will be great, and will be named the Son of the Most High: and the Lord God will give him the kingdom of David, his father:

³³He will have rule over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.

³⁴And Mary said to the angel, How may this be, because I have had no knowledge of a man?

³⁵And the angel in answer said to her, The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will come to rest on you, and so that which will come to birth will be named holy, Son of God.

³⁶Even now Elisabeth, who is of your family, is to be a mother, though she is old: and this is the sixth month with her who was without children.

³⁷For there is nothing which God is not able to do.

³⁸And Mary said: I am the servant of the Lord; may it be to me as you say. And the angel went away.

³⁹Then Mary got up and went quickly into the high lands, to a town of Judah;

⁴⁰And went into the house of Zacharias and took Elisabeth in her arms.

⁴¹And when the voice of Mary came to the ears of Elisabeth, the baby made a sudden move inside her; then Elisabeth was full of the Holy Spirit,

⁴²And she said with a loud voice: May blessing be on you among women, and a blessing on the child of your body.

⁴³How is it that the mother of my Lord comes to me?

⁴⁴For, truly, when the sound of your voice came to my ears, the baby in my body made a sudden move for joy.

⁴⁵Happy will she be who had faith that the things which the Lord has said to her will be done.

⁴⁶And Mary said: My soul gives glory to God;

⁴⁷My spirit is glad in God my Saviour.

⁴⁸For he has had pity on his servant, though she is poor and lowly placed: and from this hour will all generations give witness to the blessing which has come to me.

⁴⁹For he who is strong has done great things for me; and holy is his name.

⁵⁰His mercy is for all generations in whom is the fear of him.

⁵¹With his arm he has done acts of power; he has put to flight those who have pride in their hearts.

⁵²He has put down kings from their seats, lifting up on high the men of low degree.

⁵³Those who had no food he made full of good things; the men of wealth he sent away with nothing in their hands;

⁵⁴His help he has given to Israel, his servant, so that he might keep in mind his mercy to Abraham and his seed for ever,

⁵⁵As he gave his word to our fathers.

⁵⁶And Mary was with her for about three months and then went back to her house.

⁵⁷Now it was time for Elisabeth to give birth, and she had a son.

⁵⁸And it came to the ears of her neighbours and relations that the Lord had been very good to her, and they took part in her joy.

⁵⁹And on the eighth day they came to see to the circumcision of the child, and they would have given him the name of Zacharias, his father's name;

⁶⁰But his mother made answer and said, No, his name is John.

⁶¹And they said, Not one of your relations has that name.

⁶²And they made signs to his father, to say what name was to be given to him.

⁶³And he sent for writing materials and put down: His name is John; and they were all surprised.

⁶⁴And straight away his mouth was open and his tongue was free and he gave praise to God.

⁶⁵And fear came on all those who were living round about them: and there was much talk about all these things in all the hill-country of Judaea.

⁶⁶And all who had word of them kept them in their minds and said, What will this child be? For the hand of the Lord was with him.

⁶⁷And his father, Zacharias, was full of the Holy Spirit, and with the voice of a prophet said these words:

⁶⁸Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, for he has come to his people and made them free,

⁶⁹Lifting up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David,

⁷⁰(As he said, by the mouth of his holy prophets, from the earliest times,)

⁷¹Salvation from those who are against us, and from the hands of those who have hate for us;

⁷²To do acts of mercy to our fathers and to keep in mind his holy word,

⁷³The oath which he made to Abraham, our father,

⁷⁴That we, being made free from the fear of those who are against us, might give him worship,

⁷⁵In righteousness and holy living before him all our days.

⁷⁶And you, child, will be named the prophet of the Most High: you will go before the face of the Lord, to make ready his ways;

⁷⁷To give knowledge of salvation to his people, through the forgiveness of sins,

⁷⁸Because of the loving mercies of our God, by which the dawn from heaven has come to us,

⁷⁹To give light to those in dark places, and in the shade of death, so that our feet may be guided into the way of peace.

⁸⁰And the child became tall, and strong in spirit; and he was living in the waste land till the day when he came before the eyes of Israel.

2Now it came about in those days that an order went out from Caesar Augustus that there was to be a numbering of all the world.

²This was the first numbering, which was made when Quirinius was ruler of Syria.

³And all men went to be numbered, everyone to his town.

⁴And Joseph went up from Galilee, out of the town of Nazareth, into Judaea, to Beth-lehem, the town of David, because he was of the house and family of David,

⁵To be put on the list with Mary, his future wife, who was about to become a mother.

⁶And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth.

⁷And she had her first son; and folding him in linen, she put him to rest in the place where the cattle had their food, because there was no room for them in the house.

⁸And in the same country there were keepers of sheep in the fields, watching over their flock by night.

⁹And an angel of the Lord came to them, and the glory of the Lord was shining round about them: and fear came on them.

¹⁰And the angel said, Have no fear; for truly, I give you good news of great joy which will be for all the people:

¹¹For on this day, in the town of David, a Saviour has come to birth, who is Christ the Lord.

¹²And this is the sign to you: you will see a young child folded in linen, in the place where the cattle have their food.

¹³And suddenly there was with the angel a great band of spirits from heaven, giving praise to God, and saying,

¹⁴Glory to God in the highest, and on the earth peace among men with whom he is well pleased.

¹⁵And when the angels had gone away from them into heaven, the keepers of the sheep said to one another, Let us go now to Beth-lehem, and see this thing which has come about, which the Lord has made clear to us.

¹⁶And they came quickly, and saw Mary and Joseph, and the child in the place where the cattle had their food.

¹⁷And when they saw it, they gave them an account of the things which had been said to them about the child.

¹⁸And all those to whose ears it came were full of wonder at the things said by the keepers of the sheep.

¹⁹But Mary kept all these words in her heart, and gave much thought to them.

²⁰Then the keepers of the sheep went back, giving glory and praise to God for all the things which had come to their ears and which they had seen, as it had been said to them.

²¹And when, after eight days, the time came for his circumcision, he was named Jesus, the name which the angel had given to him before his birth.

²²And when the necessary days for making them clean by the law of Moses had come to an end, they took him to Jerusalem to give him to the Lord

²³(As it says in the law of the Lord, Every mother's first male child is to be holy to the Lord),

²⁴And to make an offering, as it is ordered in the law of the Lord, of two doves or other young birds.

²⁵And there was then in Jerusalem a man whose name was Simeon; and he was an upright man, fearing God and waiting for the comfort of Israel: and the Holy Spirit was on him.

²⁶And he had knowledge, through the Holy Spirit, that he would not see death till he had seen the Lord's Christ.

²⁷And full of the Spirit he came into the Temple; and when the father and mother came in with the child Jesus, to do with him what was ordered by the law,

²⁸Then he took him in his arms and gave praise to God and said,

²⁹Now you are letting your servant go in peace, O Lord, as you have said;

³⁰For my eyes have seen your salvation,

³¹Which you have made ready before the face of all nations;

³²A light of revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel.

³³And his father and mother were full of wonder at the things which were said about him.

³⁴And Simeon gave them his blessing and said to Mary, his mother, See, this child will be the cause of the downfall and the lifting up of great numbers of people in Israel, and he will be a sign against which hard words will be said;

³⁵(And a sword will go through your heart;) so that the secret thoughts of men may come to light.

³⁶And there was one, Anna, a woman prophet, the daughter of Phanuel, of the family of Asher (she was very old, and after seven years of married life

³⁷She had been a widow for eighty-four years); she was in the Temple at all times, worshipping with prayers and going without food, night and day.

³⁸And coming up at that time, she gave praise to God, talking of him to all those who were waiting for the freeing of Jerusalem.

³⁹And when they had done all the things which were ordered by the law of the Lord, they went back to Galilee, to Nazareth, the town where they were living.

⁴⁰And the child became tall and strong and full of wisdom, and the grace of God was on him.

⁴¹And every year his father and mother went to Jerusalem at the feast of the Passover.

⁴²And when he was twelve years old, they went up, as their way was, to the feast;

⁴³And when the days of the feast came to an end and they were going back, the boy Jesus was still in Jerusalem, but they had no knowledge of it:

⁴⁴And in the belief that he was with some of their number, they went a day's journey; and after looking for him among their relations and friends,

⁴⁵And seeing that he was not there, they went back to Jerusalem, to make search for him.

⁴⁶And after three days they came across him in the Temple, seated among the wise men, giving ear to their words and putting questions to them.

⁴⁷And all to whose ears it came were full of wonder at his knowledge and the answers which he gave.

⁴⁸And when they saw him they were surprised, and his mother said to him, Son, why have you done this to us? see, your father and I have been looking for you with sorrow.

⁴⁹And he said to them, Why were you looking for me? was it not clear to you that my right place was in my Father's house?

⁵⁰And his words seemed strange to them.

⁵¹And he went down with them and came to Nazareth; and did as he was ordered: and his mother kept all these words in her heart.

⁵²And Jesus was increasing in wisdom and in years, and in grace before God and men.

3Now in the fifteenth year of the rule of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being ruler of Judaea, and Herod being king of Galilee, his brother Philip king of the country of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias king of Abilene,

²When Annas and Caiaphas were high priests, the word of the Lord came to John, the son of Zacharias, in the waste land.

³And he came into all the country round about Jordan, preaching baptism as a sign of forgiveness of sin for those whose hearts were changed.

⁴As it says in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet, The voice of one crying in the waste land, Make ready the way of the Lord, make his roads straight.

⁵Every valley will be lifted up, and all the mountains and hills made low, and the twisted will be made straight, and the rough ways smooth;

⁶And all flesh will see the salvation of God.

⁷So he said to the people who went out to him for baptism: You offspring of snakes, at whose word are you going in flight from the wrath to come?

⁸Make clear by your acts that your hearts have been changed; and do not say to yourselves, We have Abraham for our father: for I say to you that God is able from these stones to make children of Abraham.

⁹And even now the axe is put to the root of the trees; and every tree which does not have good fruit will be cut down and put into the fire.

¹⁰And the people put questions to him, saying, What have we to do?

¹¹And he made answer and said to them, He who has two coats, let him give to him who has not even one; and he who has food, let him do the same.

¹²Then tax-farmers came to him for baptism and said to him, Master, what have we to do?

¹³And he said to them, Do not make an attempt to get more money than the right amount.

¹⁴And men of the army put questions to him, saying, And what have we to do? And he said to them, Do no violent acts to any man, and do not take anything without right, and let your payment be enough for you.

¹⁵And while the people were waiting, and all men were questioning in their hearts about John, if he was the Christ or not,

¹⁶John made answer, saying to them all, Truly, I give you baptism with water, but one is coming who is greater than I, whose shoes I am not good enough to undo: he will give you baptism with the Holy Spirit, and with fire:

¹⁷In whose hand is the instrument with which he will make clean his grain; he will put the good grain in his store, but the waste will be burned in the fire which will never be put out.

¹⁸And so comforting them with these and other words, he gave the good news to the people;

¹⁹But Herod the king, because John had made a protest on account of Herodias, his brother's wife, and other evil things which Herod had done,

²⁰Did this most evil thing of all, and had John shut up in prison.

²¹Now it came about that when all the people had been given baptism, Jesus, having had baptism with them, was in prayer, when, the heaven being open,

²²The Holy Spirit came down in the form of a dove, and a voice came from heaven, saying, You are my dearly loved Son, with whom I am well pleased.

²³And Jesus at this time was about thirty years old, being the son (as it seemed) of Joseph, the son of Heli,

²⁴The son of Matthat, the son of Levi, the son of Melchi, the son of Jannai, the son of Joseph,

²⁵The son of Mattathias, the son of Amos, the son of Nahum, the son of Esli, the son of Naggai,

²⁶The son of Maath, the son of Mattathias, the son of Semein, the son of Josech, the son of Joda,

²⁷The son of Joanan, the son of Rhesa, the son of Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, the son of Neri,

²⁸The son of Melchi, the son of Addi, the son of Cosam, the son of Elmadam, the son of Er,

²⁹The son of Jesus, the son of Eliezer, the son of Jorim, the son of Matthat, the son of Levi,

³⁰The son of Symeon, the son of Judas, the son of Joseph, the son of Jonam, the son of Eliakim,

³¹The son of Melea, the son of Menna, the son of Mattatha, the son of Nathan, the son of David,

³²The son of Jesse, the son of Obed, the son of Boaz, the son of Salmon, the son of Nahshon,

³³The son of Amminadab, the son of Arni, the son of Hezron, the son of Perez, the son of Judah,

³⁴The son of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham, the son of Terah, the son of Nahor,

³⁵The son of Serug, the son of Reu, the son of Peleg, the son of Eber, the son of Shelah,

³⁶The son of Cainan, the son of Arphaxad, the son of Shem, the son of Noah, the son of Lamech,

³⁷The son of Methuselah, the son of Enoch, the son of Jared, the son of Mahalaleel, the son of Cainan,

³⁸The son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.

4And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, came back from the Jordan, and was guided by the Spirit in the waste land

²For forty days, being tested by the Evil One. And he had no food in those days; and when they came to an end, he was in need of food.

³And the Evil One said to him, If you are the Son of God, give orders to this stone to become bread.

⁴And Jesus made answer to him, It has been said in the Writings, Bread is not man's only need.

⁵And he took him up and let him see all the kingdoms of the earth in a minute of time.

⁶And the Evil One said, I will give you authority over all these, and the glory of them, for it has been given to me, and I give it to anyone at my pleasure.

⁷If then you will give worship to me, it will all be yours.

⁸And Jesus in answer said to him, It has been said in the Writings, Give worship to the Lord your God, and be his servant only.

⁹And he took him to Jerusalem and put him on the highest point of the Temple and said to him, If you are the Son of God, let yourself go down from here; for it is said in the Writings,

¹⁰He will give his angels orders to take care of you:

¹¹And, In their hands they will keep you up, so that your foot may not be crushed against a stone.

¹²And Jesus made answer and said to him, It is said in the Writings, You may not put the Lord your God to the test.

¹³And when all these tests were ended the Evil One went away from him for a time.

¹⁴And Jesus came back to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and the news of him went through all the country round about.

¹⁵And he was teaching in their Synagogues and all men gave him praise.

¹⁶And he came to Nazareth, where he had been as a child, and he went, as his way was, into the Synagogue on the Sabbath, and got up to give a reading.

¹⁷And the book of the prophet Isaiah was given to him and, opening the book, he came on the place where it is said,

¹⁸The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because I am marked out by him to give good news to the poor; he has sent me to make well those who are broken-hearted; to say that the prisoners will be let go, and the blind will see, and to make the wounded free from their chains,

¹⁹To give knowledge that the year of the Lord's good pleasure is come.

²⁰And shutting the book he gave it back to the servant and took his seat: and the eyes of all in the Synagogue were fixed on him.

²¹Then he said to them, Today this word has come true in your hearing.

²²And they were all giving witness, with wonder, to the words of grace which came from his mouth: and they said, Is not this the son of Joseph?

²³And he said to them, Without doubt you will say to me, Let the medical man make himself well: the things which to our knowledge were done at Capernaum, do them here in your country.

²⁴And he said to them, Truly I say to you, No prophet is honoured in his country.

²⁵Truly I say to you, There were a number of widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up for three years and six months and there was no food in the land;

²⁶But Elijah was not sent to one of them, but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow.

²⁷And there were a number of lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, and not one of them was made clean, but only Naaman the Syrian.

²⁸And all who were in the Synagogue were very angry when these things were said to them.

²⁹And they got up and took him out of the town to the edge of the mountain on which their town was, so that they might send him down to his death.

³⁰But he came through them and went on his way.

³¹And he came down to Capernaum, a town of Galilee; and he was giving them teaching on the Sabbath.

³²And they were surprised at his teaching, for his word was with authority.

³³And there was a man in the Synagogue who had an unclean spirit; and he gave a loud cry and said,

³⁴Let us be! what have we to do with you, Jesus of Nazareth? have you come to put an end to us? I have knowledge who you are, the Holy One of God.

³⁵And Jesus said to him, Be quiet, and come out of him. And when the evil spirit had put him down on the earth in the middle of them, he came out of him, having done him no damage.

³⁶And wonder came on them all and they said to one another, What are these words? for with authority and power he gives orders to the evil spirits and they come out.

³⁷And there was much talk about him in all the places round about.

³⁸And he got up and went out of the Synagogue and went into the house of Simon. And Simon's wife's mother was very ill with a burning heat; and in answer to their prayers for her

³⁹He went near her, and with a sharp word he gave orders to the disease and it went away from her; and straight away she got up and took care of their needs.

⁴⁰And at sundown all those who had anyone ill with any sort of disease, took them to him, and he put his hands on every one of them and made them well.

⁴¹And evil spirits came out of a number of them, crying out and saying, You are the Son of God. But he gave them sharp orders not to say a word, because they had knowledge that he was the Christ.

⁴²And when it was day, he came out and went to a waste place; and great numbers of people came looking for him, and they came to him and would have kept him from going away.

⁴³But he said to them, I have to give the good news of the kingdom of God in other towns, because that is why I was sent.

⁴⁴And he was teaching in the Synagogues of Galilee.

5Now it came about that while the people came pushing to be near him, and to have knowledge of the word of God, he was by a wide stretch of water named Gennesaret;

²And he saw two boats by the edge of the water, but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets.

³And he got into one of the boats, the property of Simon, and made a request to him to go a little way out from the land. And being seated he gave the people teaching from the boat.

⁴And when his talk was ended, he said to Simon, Go out into deep water, and let down your nets for fish.

⁵And Simon, answering, said, Master, we were working all night and we took nothing: but at your word I will let down the nets.

⁶And when they had done this, they got such a great number of fish that it seemed as if their nets would be broken;

⁷And they made signs to their friends in the other boat to come to their help. And they came, and the two boats were so full that they were going down.

⁸But Simon, when he saw it, went down at the knees of Jesus and said, Go away from me, O Lord, for I am a sinner.

⁹For he was full of wonder and so were all those who were with him, at the number of fish which they had taken;

¹⁰And so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were working with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, Have no fear; from this time forward you will be a fisher of men.

¹¹And when they had got their boats to the land, they gave up everything and went after him.

¹²And it came about that while he was in one of the towns, there was a leper there: and when he saw Jesus he went down on his face in prayer to him, saying, Lord, if it is your pleasure, you have power to make me clean.

¹³And he put out his hand to him and said, It is my pleasure; be clean. And straight away his disease went from him.

¹⁴And he gave him orders: Say nothing to any man, but let the priest see you and give an offering so that you may be made clean, as the law of Moses says, and for a witness to them.

¹⁵But news of him went out all the more, in every direction, and great numbers of people came together to give hearing to his words and to be made well from their diseases.

¹⁶But he went away by himself to a waste place for prayer.

¹⁷And it came about that on one of these days he was teaching; and some Pharisees and teachers of the law were seated there, who had come from every town of Galilee and Judaea and from Jerusalem; and the power of the Lord was with him, to make those who were ill free from their diseases.

¹⁸And some men had with them, on a bed, a man who was ill, without power of moving; and they made attempts to get him in and put him before Jesus.

¹⁹And because of the mass of people, there was no way to get him in; so they went up on the top of the house and let him down through the roof, on his bed, into the middle in front of Jesus.

²⁰And seeing their faith he said, Man, you have forgiveness for your sins.

²¹And the scribes and Pharisees were having an argument, saying, Who is this, who has no respect for God? who is able to give forgiveness for sins, but God only?

²²But Jesus, who had knowledge of their thoughts, said to them, Why are you reasoning in your hearts?

²³Which is the simpler: to say, You have forgiveness for your sins; or to say, Get up and go?

²⁴But so that you may see that on earth the Son of man has authority for the forgiveness of sins, (he said to the man who was ill,) I say to you, Get up, and take up your bed, and go into your house.

²⁵And straight away he got up before them, and took up his bed and went away to his house giving praise to God.

²⁶And wonder overcame them all, and they gave glory to God; and they were full of fear, saying, We have seen strange things today.

²⁷And after these things he went out, and saw Levi, a tax-farmer, seated at the place where taxes were taken, and said to him, Come after me.

²⁸And giving up his business, he got up and went after him.

²⁹And Levi made a great feast for him in his house: and a great number of tax-farmers and others were seated at table with them.

³⁰And the Pharisees and their scribes made protests against his disciples, saying, Why do you take food and drink with tax-farmers and sinners?

³¹And Jesus, answering, said to them, Those who are well have no need of a medical man, but those who are ill.

³²I have come, not to get the upright, but sinners, so that they may be turned from their sins.

³³And they said to him, The disciples of John frequently go without food, and make prayers, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees; but your disciples take food and drink.

³⁴And Jesus said, Are you able to make the friends of the newly-married man go without food when he is with them?

³⁵But the days will come when he will be taken away from them, and then they will go without food.

³⁶And he said to them, in a story, No man takes a bit of cloth from a new coat and puts it on to an old coat, for so the new coat would be damaged and the bit from the new would not go well with the old.

³⁷And no man puts new wine into old wine-skins, for fear that the skins will be burst by the new wine, and the wine be let out, and the skins come to destruction.

³⁸But new wine has to be put into new wine-skins.

³⁹And no man, having had old wine, has any desire for new, for he says, The old is better.

6Now it came about that on the Sabbath he was going through the fields of grain, and his disciples took the heads of the grain for food, crushing them in their hands.

²But some of the Pharisees said, Why do you do what it is not right to do on the Sabbath?

³And Jesus said, Have you not seen in the Writings what David did when he was in need of food, he, and those who were with him;

⁴How he went into the house of God and took for food the holy bread, which only the priests may take, and gave it to those who were with him?

⁵And he said, The Son of man is lord even of the Sabbath.

⁶And it came about, on another Sabbath, that he went into the Synagogue and was teaching there. And a man was there whose right hand was dead.

⁷And the scribes and Pharisees were watching him to see if he would make him well on the Sabbath, so that they might be able to say something against him.

⁸But he had knowledge of their thoughts; and he said to the man whose hand was dead, Get up and come into the middle. And he got up and came forward.

⁹And Jesus said, I put the question to you, Is it right to do good on the Sabbath or to do evil? to give life or to take it away?

¹⁰And looking round on all of them, he said to him, Put out your hand. And he did so: and his hand was made well.

¹¹But they were full of wrath, and were talking together about what they might do to Jesus.

¹²And it came about in those days that he went out to the mountain for prayer; and he was all night in prayer to God.

¹³And the day came and, turning to his disciples, he made a selection from among them of twelve, to whom he gave the name of Apostles;

¹⁴Simon, to whom he gave the name of Peter, and Andrew, his brother, and James and John and Philip and Bartholomew

¹⁵And Matthew and Thomas and James, the son of Alphaeus, and Simon, who was named the Zealot,

¹⁶And Judas, the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, he who was false to him.

¹⁷And he came down with them to a level place, and a great band of his disciples, and a very great number of people from all Judaea and Jerusalem and from the parts of Tyre and Sidon by the sea, came to give hearing to him, and to be made well from their diseases;

¹⁸And those who were troubled with unclean spirits were made well.

¹⁹And all the people were desiring to be touched by him, for power came from him and made them all well.

²⁰And turning his eyes to his disciples he said, Happy are you who are poor: for the kingdom of God is yours.

²¹Happy are you who are in need of food now: for you will be made full. Happy are you who are weeping now; for you will be glad.

²²Happy are you, when men have hate for you, and put you away from among them and say angry words to you, turning away in disgust at your name, because of the Son of man.

²³Be glad in that day, and be lifted up for joy, for your reward in heaven will be great: for their fathers did these same things to the prophets.

²⁴But unhappy are you who have wealth: for you have been comforted now.

²⁵Unhappy are you who are full of food now: for you will be in need. Unhappy are you who are laughing now: for you will be crying in sorrow.

²⁶Unhappy are you when all men give you their approval: for so their fathers did to the false prophets.

²⁷But I say to you who give ear to me, Have love for those who are against you, do good to those who have hate for you,

²⁸Give blessing to those who give you curses, say prayers for those who are cruel to you.

²⁹If a man gives you a blow on one side of your face, then let the other side be turned to him; from him who takes away your coat, do not keep back your robe.

³⁰Give to everyone who comes with a request, and if a man takes away your property, make no attempt to get it back again.

³¹Do to others as you would have them do to you.

³²If you have love for those who have love for you, what credit is it to you? for even sinners have love for those who have love for them.

³³And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is it to you? for even sinners do the same.

³⁴And if you let those have the use of your money, from whom you are hoping to get it back, what credit is it to you? even sinners do so to sinners, hoping to get back as much as they gave.

³⁵But be loving to those who are against you and do them good, and give them your money, not giving up hope, and your reward will be great and you will be the sons of the Most High: for he is kind to evil men, and to those who have hard hearts.

³⁶Be full of pity, even as your Father is full of pity.

³⁷Be not judges of others, and you will not be judged: do not give punishment to others, and you will not get punishment yourselves: make others free, and you will be made free:

³⁸Give, and it will be given to you; good measure, crushed down, full and running over, they will give to you. For in the same measure as you give, it will be given to you again.

³⁹And he gave them teaching in the form of a story, saying, Is it possible for one blind man to be guide to another? will they not go falling together into a hole?

⁴⁰The disciple is not greater than his master, but everyone whose learning is complete will be like his master.

⁴¹And why do you take note of the grain of dust in your brother's eye, but take no note of the bit of wood which is in your eye?

⁴²How will you say to your brother, Brother, let me take the grain of dust out of your eye, when you yourself do not see the bit of wood in your eye? O false one! first take the wood out of your eye and then you will see clearly to take the dust out of your brother's eye.

⁴³For no good tree gives bad fruit, and no bad tree gives good fruit.

⁴⁴For every tree is judged by its fruit. Men do not get figs from thorns, or grapes from blackberry plants.

⁴⁵The good man, out of the good store of his heart, gives good things; and the evil man, out of his evil store, gives evil: for out of the full store of the heart come the words of the mouth.

⁴⁶Why do you say to me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?

⁴⁷Everyone who comes to me and gives ear to my words and does them, I will make clear to you what he is like:

⁴⁸He is like a man building a house, who went deep and put the base of it on a rock; and when the water came up and the river was driving against that house, it was not moved, because the building was good.

⁴⁹But he who gives hearing, without doing, is like a man building a house on the earth without a base for it; and when the force of the river came against it, straight away it came down; and the destruction of that house was great.

7After he had come to the end of all his words in the hearing of the people, he went into Capernaum.

²And a certain captain had a servant who was very dear to him; this servant was ill and near to death.

³And when news of Jesus came to his ears, he sent to him rulers of the Jews, requesting that he would come and make his servant well.

⁴And they, when they came to Jesus, made their request warmly, saying,

⁵It is right for you to do this for him, because he is a friend to our nation, and himself has put up a Synagogue for us.

⁶And Jesus went with them. And when he was not far from the house, the man sent friends to him, saying, Lord, do not give yourself trouble: for I am not important enough for you to come into my house:

⁷And I had the feeling that I was not even good enough to come to you: but say the word only, and my servant will be well.

⁸For I, myself, am a man under authority, having men under me; and 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.

⁹And when these things were said to Jesus, he was surprised, and, turning to the mass of people coming after him, said, I have not seen such great faith, no, not in Israel.

¹⁰And when those who were sent came back to the house they saw that the servant was well.

¹¹And it came about, after a little time, that he went to a town named Nain; and his disciples went with him, and a great number of people.

¹²Now when he came near the door of the town, a dead man was being taken out, the only son of his mother, who was a widow: and a great number of people from the town were with her.

¹³And when the Lord saw her, he had pity on her and said to her, Be not sad.

¹⁴And he came near, and put his hand on the stretcher where the dead man was: and those who were moving it came to a stop. And he said, Young man, I say to you, Get up.

¹⁵And the dead man got up, and words came from his lips. And he gave him to his mother.

¹⁶And fear came on all, and they gave praise to God, saying, A great prophet is among us: and, God has given thought to his people.

¹⁷And this story about him went through all Judaea and the places round about.

¹⁸And the disciples of John gave him an account of all these things.

¹⁹Then John sent two of his disciples to the Lord, saying, Are you he who is to come, or are we waiting for another?

²⁰And when the men came to him they said, John the Baptist has sent us to you, saying, Are you he who is to come, or are we waiting for another?

²¹At that time, he made a number of people free from their diseases and their pains, and from evil spirits; and to others who were blind he gave back the use of their eyes.

²²And answering them he said, Go back and give news to John of what you have seen, and the things which have come to your ears; the blind now see, those who had no power in their legs are walking, lepers are made clean, those who had no hearing now have their ears open, dead men come to life again, and the poor have the good news given to them.

²³And a blessing will be on him who has no doubts about me.

²⁴And when the men who were sent by John had gone away, he said to the people, about John, What did you go out into the waste land to see? a tall stem moving in the wind?

²⁵But what did you go out to see? a man in soft clothing? See now, those who have beautiful clothing and delicate food are in kings' houses.

²⁶But what did you go out to see? a prophet? Yes, I say to you, and more than a prophet.

²⁷This is he of whom it has been said, See, I send my servant before your face, who will make ready your way before you.

²⁸I say to you, Among all the sons of women, not one is greater than John: but he who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.

²⁹(And all the people, and the tax-farmers, to whom John had given baptism, when they had knowledge of these things, gave glory to God.

³⁰But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law were against the purpose of God for themselves, not having had his baptism.)

³¹What comparison am I to make of the men of this generation? what are they like?

³²They are like children who are seated in the market-place, crying out to one another, and saying, We made music for you, but you did not take part in the dance; we gave cries of sorrow, but you were not sad.

³³For John the Baptist came, taking no food or drink, and you say, He has an evil spirit.

³⁴The Son of man came feasting, and you say, Here is a lover of food and wine, a friend of tax-farmers and sinners.

³⁵But wisdom is judged to be right by all her children.

³⁶And one of the Pharisees made a request that he would take a meal with him. And he went into the Pharisee's house and took his seat at the table.

³⁷And there was a woman in the town who was a sinner; and when she had news that he was a guest in the Pharisee's house, she took a bottle of perfume,

³⁸And went in and took her place at the back of him, near his feet, weeping, so that his feet were washed with the drops from her eyes, and with her hair she made them dry, and kissing his feet she put the perfume on them.

³⁹Now when the Pharisee in whose house he was saw it, he said to himself, This man, if he was a prophet, would be conscious what sort of woman this is who has put her hands on him, that she is a sinner.

⁴⁰And Jesus, answering, said, Simon, I have something to say to you. And he said, Master, say on.

⁴¹And he said, Two men were in debt to a certain man of business: one had a debt of five hundred pence, and the other of fifty.

⁴²When they were unable to make payment, he made the two of them free of their debts. Which of them, now, will have the greater love for him?

⁴³Simon, in answer, said, It seems he whose debt was greater. And he said, Your decision is right.

⁴⁴And turning to the woman he said to Simon, You see this woman? I came into your house; you did not give me water for my feet: but she has been washing my feet with the drops from her eyes, and drying them with her hair.

⁴⁵You did not give me a kiss: but she, from the time when I came in, has gone on kissing my feet.

⁴⁶You put no oil on my head: but she has put perfume on my feet.

⁴⁷And so I say to you, She will have forgiveness for her sins which are great in number, because of her great love: but he who has small need of forgiveness gives little love.

⁴⁸And he said to her, You have forgiveness for your sins.

⁴⁹And those who were seated at table with him said to themselves, Who is this who even gives forgiveness of sins?

⁵⁰And he said to the woman, By your faith you have salvation; go in peace.

8And it came about, after a short time, that he went through town and country giving the good news of the kingdom of God, and with him were the twelve,

²And certain women who had been made free from evil spirits and diseases, Mary named Magdalene, from whom seven evil spirits had gone out,

³And Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod's chief house-servant, and Susanna and a number of others, who gave him of their wealth for his needs.

⁴And when a great number of people came together, and men from every town went out to him, he gave them teaching in the form of a story:

⁵A man went out to put in seed, and while he was doing it, some was dropped by the wayside and it was crushed under foot, and was taken by the birds of heaven.

⁶And some went on the rock, and when it came up it became dry and dead because it had no water.

⁷And some went among thorns, and the thorns came up with it and it had no room for growth.

⁸And some falling on good earth, came up and gave fruit a hundred times as much. And with these words he said in a loud voice, He who has ears, let him give ear.

⁹And his disciples put questions to him about the point of the story.

¹⁰And he said, To you is given knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God; but to the others, they are given in stories, so that seeing, they may not see, and though they give hearing, the sense will not be clear to them.

¹¹Now this is the point of the story: The seed is the word of God.

¹²Those by the side of the road are those who have given hearing; then the Evil One comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not have faith and get salvation.

¹³And those on the rock are those who with joy give hearing to the word; but having no root, they have faith for a time, and when the test comes they give up.

¹⁴And those which went among thorns are those who have given hearing, and go on their way, but they are overcome by cares and wealth and the pleasures of life, and they give no fruit.

¹⁵And those in the good earth are those who, having given ear to the word, keep it with a good and true heart, and in quiet strength give fruit.

¹⁶No man, when the light is lighted, puts a cover over it, or puts it under a bed, but he puts it on its table, so that those who come in may see the light.

¹⁷For nothing is put out of view which will not be made clear, and nothing is secret of which the knowledge will not come to light.

¹⁸So take care how you give hearing, for to him who has will be given, and from him who has not will be taken even what he seems to have.

¹⁹And his mother and his brothers came to him, and they were not able to get near him because of the great number of people.

²⁰And someone said to him, Your mother and your brothers are outside desiring to see you.

²¹But he said to them in answer, My mother and my brothers are those who have knowledge of the word of God and do it.

²²Now it came about on one of those days that he got into a boat with his disciples; and he said to them, Let us go over to the other side of the water: and they put out the boat.

²³But while they were sailing he went to sleep: and a storm of wind came down on the sea, and the boat became full of water and they were in danger.

²⁴Then they came to him and, awaking him out of his sleep, said, Master, Master, destruction is near. And he, when he was awake, gave orders to the wind and the rolling waves, and the storm came to an end, and all was calm.

²⁵And he said to them, Where is your faith? And fear and wonder overcame them, and they said to one another, Who then is this, who gives orders even to the winds and the water and they do what he says?

²⁶And they came to the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee.

²⁷And when he had come to the land, there came to him a certain man from the town who had evil spirits; and for a long time he had had no clothing on, and was not living in a house but in the place of the dead.

²⁸And when he saw Jesus, he gave a loud cry and went down on the earth before him and in a loud voice said, What have I to do with you, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? Do not be cruel to me.

²⁹For he gave an order to the evil spirit to come out of the man. For frequently it would take a grip of him: and he was kept under control, and prisoned with chains; but parting the chains in two, he would be sent by the driving of the evil spirit into waste places.

³⁰And Jesus said to him, What is your name? And he said, Legion; for a number of spirits had gone into him.

³¹And they made a request to him that he would not give them an order to go away into the deep.

³²Now there was a great herd of pigs in that place, getting food on the mountain: and the evil spirits made a request to him that he would let them go into the pigs, and he let them.

³³And the evil spirits came out of the man and went into the pigs: and the herd went rushing down a sharp slope into the water and came to destruction.

³⁴And when the men who took care of them saw what had come about, they went quickly and gave news of it in the town and the country.

³⁵And they went out to see what had taken place, and they came to Jesus and saw the man out of whom the evil spirits had gone, seated, clothed and with full use of his senses, at the feet of Jesus; and fear came on them.

³⁶And those who had seen it gave them an account of how the man who had the evil spirits was made well.

³⁷And all the people of the country of the Gerasenes made a request to him to go away from them; for they were in great fear: and he got into a boat and went back.

³⁸But the man from whom the evil spirits had gone out had a great desire to be with him, but he sent him away, saying,

³⁹Go back to your house and let them have news of all the great things which God has done for you. And he went away, giving word through all the town of the great things which Jesus had done for him.

⁴⁰And when Jesus went back, the people were glad to see him, for they were all waiting for him.

⁴¹Then there came a man named Jairus, who was a ruler in the Synagogue: and he went down at the feet of Jesus, desiring him to come to his house;

⁴²For he had an only daughter, about twelve years old, and she was near to death. But while he was on his way, the people were pushing to be near him.

⁴³And a woman, who had had a flow of blood for twelve years, and had given all her money to medical men, and not one of them was able to make her well,

⁴⁴Came after him and put her hand on the edge of his robe, and straight away the flowing of her blood was stopped.

⁴⁵And Jesus said, Who was touching me? And when they all said, It is not I, Peter and those who were with him said, Master, the people are pushing round you on every side.

⁴⁶But Jesus said, Someone was touching me, for I had the feeling that power had gone out from me.

⁴⁷And when the woman saw that she was not able to keep it secret, she came, shaking with fear, and falling down before him she made clear before all the people the reason for her touching him, and how she was made well straight away.

⁴⁸And he said to her, Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace.

⁴⁹While he was still talking, someone came from the house of the ruler of the Synagogue, saying, Your daughter is dead; do not go on troubling the Master.

⁵⁰But Jesus at these words said to him, Have no fear, only have faith, and she will be made well.

⁵¹And when he came to the house he did not let any man go in with him, but only Peter and John and James, and the father of the girl and her mother.

⁵²And all the people were weeping and crying for her; but he said, Do not be sad, for she is not dead, but sleeping.

⁵³And they were laughing at him, being certain that she was dead.

⁵⁴But he, taking her hand, said to her, My child, get up.

⁵⁵And her spirit came back to her and she got up straight away: and he gave orders that food was to be given to her.

⁵⁶And her father and mother were full of wonder, but he gave orders to them to say nothing about it to anyone.

9And getting the twelve together, he gave them power and authority over all evil spirits and over diseases, to make them well.

²And he sent them out to be preachers of the kingdom of God, and to make well those who were ill.

³And he said to them, Take nothing for your journey, no stick or bag or bread or money, and do not take two coats.

⁴And if you go into a house, let that house be your resting-place till you go away.

⁵And if any people will not take you in, when you go away from that town, put off its dust from your feet for a witness against them.

⁶And they went away, journeying through all the towns, preaching the good news and making people free from diseases in all places.

⁷Now Herod the king had news of all these things: and he was in doubt, because it was said by some people that John had come back from the dead;

⁸And by some, that Elijah had come; and by others, that one of the old prophets had come back to life.

⁹And Herod said, I put John to death: but who is this, of whom such stories are given to me? And he had a desire to see him.

¹⁰And the twelve, when they came back, gave him an account of what they had done. And he took them with him and went away from the people to a town named Beth-saida.

¹¹But the people, getting news of it, went after him: and he was pleased to see them, and gave them teaching about the kingdom of God, and made those well who were in need of it.

¹²And the day went on; and the twelve came to him and said, Send these people away so that they may go into the towns and the country round about and get resting-places and food for themselves, for we are in a waste place.

¹³But he said, Give them food yourselves. And they said, We have only five cakes of bread and two fishes, if we do not go and get food for all these people.

¹⁴For there were about five thousand men. And he said to his disciples, Make them be seated in groups, about fifty to a group.

¹⁵And they did so, and made them all be seated.

¹⁶And he took the five cakes of bread and the two fishes and, looking up to heaven, he said words of blessing over them, and when they had been broken, he gave them to the disciples to give to the people.

¹⁷And they all took the food and had enough; and they took up of the broken bits which were over, twelve baskets full.

¹⁸And it came about that when he was in prayer, by himself, and the disciples were with him, he put a question to them, saying, Who do the people say I am?

¹⁹And they, answering, said, John the Baptist; but others say Elijah; and others, that one of the old prophets has come back.

²⁰And he said, But who do you say that I am? And Peter, answering, said, The Christ of God.

²¹But he gave them special orders, not to say this to any man;

²²Saying, The Son of man will undergo much and be put on one side by the rulers and the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and be put to death, and on the third day he will come back to life.

²³And he said to them all, If any man has a desire to come after me, let him give up all, and take up his cross every day, and come after me.

²⁴For whoever has a desire to keep his life will have it taken from him, but whoever gives up his life because of me, will keep it.

²⁵For what profit will a man have if he gets all the world, but undergoes loss or destruction himself?

²⁶For if any man has a feeling of shame because of me or of my words, the Son of man will have shame because of him when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.

²⁷But truly I say to you, Some of those who are here now will have no taste of death till they see the kingdom of God.

²⁸And about eight days after he had said these things, he took Peter and John and James with him and went up into the mountain for prayer.

²⁹And while he was in prayer, his face was changed and his clothing became white and shining.

³⁰And two men, Moses and Elijah, were talking with him;

³¹Who were seen in glory and were talking of his death which was about to take place in Jerusalem.

³²Now Peter and those who were with him were overcome with sleep: but when they were fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men who were with him.

³³And when they were about to go away from him, Peter said to Jesus, Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three tents, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah: having no knowledge of what he was saying.

³⁴And while he said these things, the shade of a cloud came over them, and they were full of fear when they went into the cloud.

³⁵And there was a voice from the cloud saying, This is my Son, the man of my selection; give ear to him.

³⁶And after the voice was gone they saw that Jesus was by himself. And they kept quiet, and said nothing at that time to anyone of the things which they had seen.

³⁷And on the day after, when they came down from the mountain, a great band of people came to him.

³⁸And a man from among them, crying out, said, Master, I make a request to you, give a thought to my son, for he is my only child:

³⁹And see, a spirit takes him, and suddenly he gives a cry, twisted in pain and streaming at the lips, and when it goes away from him at last, he is marked as from blows.

⁴⁰And I made a request to your disciples to send it out of him, but they were not able to do it.

⁴¹And Jesus said, O generation without faith and false in heart, how long will I have to be with you and put up with you? let your son come here.

⁴²And while he was coming, he was pushed violently down and twisted by the evil spirit. But Jesus gave sharp orders to the unclean spirit, and made the boy well, and gave him back to his father.

⁴³And they were full of wonder at the great power of God. But while they were all wondering at all the things which he did, he said to his disciples,

⁴⁴Let these words go deep into your ears, for the Son of man will be given up into the hands of men.

⁴⁵But this saying was not clear to them and its sense was kept secret from them so that they were not able to see it: and they had fear of questioning him about it.

⁴⁶Now there was a discussion among them about which of them would be the greatest.

⁴⁷But when Jesus saw the reasoning of their hearts, he took a small child and put him by his side,

⁴⁸And said to them, Whoever gives honour to this child in my name, gives honour to me: and whoever gives honour to me, gives honour to him who sent me: for whoever is least among you all, that man is great.

⁴⁹And John, answering, said, Master, we saw a man driving out evil spirits in your name, and we did not let him do it, because he was not one of us.

⁵⁰But Jesus said to him, Let him do it, for he who is not against you is for you.

⁵¹And it came about that when the days were near for him to be taken up, his face was turned to go to Jerusalem,

⁵²And he sent men before: and they came to a small town of Samaria to make ready for him.

⁵³But they would not have him there, because he was clearly going to Jerusalem.

⁵⁴And when his disciples, James and John, saw this, they said, Lord, may we send fire from heaven and put an end to them?

⁵⁵But turning round he said sharp words to them.

⁵⁶And they went to another small town.

⁵⁷And when they were on the way, a certain man said to him, I will come after you wherever you go.

⁵⁸And Jesus said to him, Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have resting-places, but the Son of man has nowhere to put his head.

⁵⁹And he said to another, Come after me. But he said, Lord, let me first go and give the last honours to my father.

⁶⁰But he said to him, Let the dead take care of their dead; it is for you to go and give news of the kingdom of God.

⁶¹And another man said, I will come with you, Lord, but first let me say a last good-day to those who are at my house.

⁶²But Jesus said, No man, having put his hand to the plough and looking back, is good enough for the kingdom of God.

10Now after these things, the Lord made selection of seventy others and sent them before him, two together, into every town and place where he himself was about to come.

²And he said to them, There is much grain ready to be cut, but not enough workers: so make prayer to the Lord of the grain-fields that he will send workers to get in the grain.

³Go on your way: see, I send you out like lambs among wolves.

⁴Take no bag for money or for food, and no shoes; say no word to any man on the way.

⁵And whenever you go into a house, first say, Peace be to this house.

⁶And if a son of peace is there, your peace will be with him: but if not, it will come back to you again.

⁷And keep in that same house, taking what food and drink they give you: for the worker has a right to his reward. Do not go from house to house.

⁸And into whatever town you go, if they take you in, take whatever food is given to you:

⁹And make well those in it who are ill and say to them, The kingdom of God is near to you.

¹⁰But if you go into a town where they will not have you, go out into the streets of it and say,

¹¹Even the dust of your town, which is on our feet, we put off as a witness against you; but be certain of this, that the kingdom of God is near.

¹²I say to you, It will be better in that day for Sodom than for that town.

¹³A curse is on you, Chorazin! A curse is on you, Beth-saida! For if such works of power had been done in Tyre and Sidon as have been done in you, they would have been turned from their sins, in days gone by, seated in the dust.

¹⁴But it will be better for Tyre and Sidon, in the day of judging, than for you.

¹⁵And you, Capernaum, were you not lifted up to heaven? you will go down to hell.

¹⁶Whoever gives ear to you, gives ear to me; and whoever is against you, is against me; and whoever is against me, is against him who sent me.

¹⁷And the seventy came back with joy, saying, Lord, even the evil spirits are under our power in your name.

¹⁸And he said, I was watching for Satan, falling from heaven like a star.

¹⁹See, I have given you power to put your feet on snakes and evil beasts, and over all the strength of him who is against you: and nothing will do you damage.

²⁰Do not be glad, however, because you have power over spirits, but because your names are recorded in heaven.

²¹In that same hour he was full of joy in the Holy Spirit and said, I give praise to you, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have kept these things secret from the wise and the men of learning, and have made them clear to little children: for so, O Father, it was pleasing in your eyes.

²²All things have been given to me by my Father: and no one has knowledge of the Son, but only the Father: and of the Father, but only the Son, and he to whom the Son will make it clear.

²³And, turning to the disciples, he said privately, Happy are the eyes which see the things you see:

²⁴For I say to you that numbers of prophets and kings have had a desire to see the things which you see, and have not seen them, and to have knowledge of the things which have come to your ears, and they had it not.

²⁵And a certain teacher of the law got up and put him to the test, saying, Master, what have I to do so that I may have eternal life?

²⁶And he said to him, What does the law say, in your reading of it?

²⁷And he, answering, said, Have love for the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind; and for your neighbour as for yourself.

²⁸And he said, You have given the right answer: do this and you will have life.

²⁹But he, desiring to put himself in the right, said to Jesus, And who is my neighbour?

³⁰And Jesus, answering him, said, A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he got into the hands of thieves, who took his clothing and gave him cruel blows, and when they went away, he was half dead.

³¹And by chance a certain priest was going down that way: and when he saw him, he went by on the other side.

³²And in the same way, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, went by on the other side.

³³But a certain man of Samaria, journeying that way, came where he was, and when he saw him, he was moved with pity for him,

³⁴And came to him and put clean linen round his wounds, with oil and wine; and he put him on his beast and took him to a house and took care of him.

³⁵And the day after he took two pennies and gave them to the owner of the house and said, Take care of him; and if this money is not enough, when I come again I will give you whatever more is needed.

³⁶Which of these three men, in your opinion, was neighbour to the man who came into the hands of thieves?

³⁷And he said, The one who had mercy on him. And Jesus said, Go and do the same.

³⁸Now, while they were on their way, he came to a certain town; and a woman named Martha took him into her house.

³⁹And she had a sister, by name Mary, who took her seat at the Lord's feet and gave attention to his words.

⁴⁰But Martha had her hands full of the work of the house, and she came to him and said, Lord, is it nothing to you that my sister has let me do all the work? Say to her that she is to give me some help.

⁴¹But the Lord, answering, said to her, Martha, Martha, you are full of care and troubled about such a number of things:

⁴²Little is needed, or even one thing only: for Mary has taken that good part, which will not be taken away from her.

11And it came about that he was in prayer in a certain place, and when he came to an end, one of his disciples said to him, Lord, will you give us teaching about prayer, as John did to his disciples?

²And he said to them, When you say your prayers, say, Father, may your name be kept holy and your kingdom come.

³Give us every day bread for our needs.

⁴May we have forgiveness for our sins, as we make free all those who are in debt to us. And let us not be put to the test.

⁵And he said to them, Which of you, having a friend, would go to him in the middle of the night and say to him, Friend, let me have three cakes of bread;

⁶Because a friend of mine has come to me on a journey, and I have nothing to put before him;

⁷And he, from inside the house, would say in answer, Do not be a trouble to me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; it is not possible for me to get up and give to you?

⁸I say to you, Though he will not get up and give to him, because he is his friend, still, if he keeps on making his request, he will get up and give him as much as he has need of.

⁹And I say to you, Make requests, and they will be answered; what you are searching for, you will get; when you give the sign, the door will be open to you.

¹⁰For to everyone who makes a request, it will be given; and he who is searching will get his desire; and to him who gives the sign, the door will be open.

¹¹And which of you, being a father, will give a stone to his son, who makes request for bread? or for a fish, will give him a snake?

¹²Or for an egg, will give him a scorpion?

¹³If, then, you who are evil are able to give good things to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who make request to him?

¹⁴And he was sending an evil spirit out of a man who was without the power of talking. And it came about that when the spirit had gone the man had the power of talking; and the people were full of wonder.

¹⁵But some of them said, He sends out evil spirits by Beelzebul, the ruler of evil spirits.

¹⁶And others, testing him, were looking for a sign from heaven from him.

¹⁷But he, having knowledge of their thoughts, said to them, Every kingdom in which there is division is made waste; and a house in which there is division comes to destruction.

¹⁸If, then, Satan is at war with himself, how will he keep his kingdom? because you say that I send evil spirits out of men by the help of Beelzebul.

¹⁹And if I, by Beelzebul, send out evil spirits, by whose help do your sons send them out? so let them be your judges.

²⁰But if I, by the finger of God, send out evil spirits, then the kingdom of God has overtaken you.

²¹When the strong man armed keeps watch over his house, then his goods are safe:

²²But when one who is stronger makes an attack on him and overcomes him, he takes away his instruments of war, in which he had put his faith, and makes division of his goods.

²³He who is not with me is against me, and he who will not give me help in getting people together is driving them away.

²⁴The unclean spirit, when he has gone out of a man, goes through dry places, looking for rest; and when he does not get it, he says, I will go back to my house from which I came.

²⁵And when he comes, he sees that it has been made fair and clean.

²⁶Then he goes and gets seven other spirits more evil than himself, and they go in, and take their places there: and the last condition of that man is worse than the first.

²⁷And it came about that when he said these things, a certain woman among the people said in a loud voice, Happy is the body which gave you birth, and the breasts from which you took milk.

²⁸But he said, More happy are they who give hearing to the word of God and keep it.

²⁹And when a great number of people came together to him, he said, This generation is an evil generation: it is looking for a sign and no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah.

³⁰For even as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so will the Son of man be to this generation.

³¹The queen of the South will come up on the day of judging and give her decision against the men of this generation: for she came from the ends of the earth to give ear to the wisdom of Solomon; and now something greater than Solomon is here.

³²The men of Nineveh will come up in the day of judging and give their decision against this generation: for they were turned away from their sins at the preaching of Jonah; but now something greater than Jonah is here.

³³No man, when the light has been lighted, puts it in a secret place, or under a vessel, but on its table, so that those who come in may see the light.

³⁴The light of the body is the eye: when your eye is true, all your body is full of light; but when it is evil, your body is dark.

³⁵So take care that the light which is in you is not dark.

³⁶If, then, all your body is light, with no part of it dark, it will be completely full of light, as when a flame with its bright shining gives you light.

³⁷Now, while he was talking, a Pharisee made a request that he would come to a meal with him; and he went in and took his seat at the meal.

³⁸And when the Pharisee saw it, he was surprised because he came to the meal without first washing himself.

³⁹And the Lord said to him, You Pharisees make the outside of the cup and the plate clean; but inside you are thieves and full of evil.

⁴⁰O you foolish ones! did not he who made the outside in the same way make the inside?

⁴¹But if you give to the poor such things as you are able, then all things are clean to you.

⁴²But a curse is on you, Pharisees! for you make men give a tenth of every sort of plant, and give no thought to right and the love of God; but it is right for you to do these things, and not let the others be undone.

⁴³A curse is on you, Pharisees! for your desires are for the most important seats in the Synagogues and for words of respect said to you in the market-place.

⁴⁴A curse is on you! for you are like the resting-places of dead men, which are not seen, and men go walking over them without knowledge of it.

⁴⁵And one of the teachers of the law, answering, said to him, Master, in saying this, you give a bad name to us as to them.

⁴⁶And he said, A curse is on you, teachers of the law! for while other men are crushed under the weight of the rules you make for them, you yourselves do not put so much as one finger to them.

⁴⁷A curse is on you! for you make resting-places for the bodies of the prophets, but your fathers put them to death.

⁴⁸So you are witnesses and give approval to the work of your fathers; for they put them to death and you make their last resting-places.

⁴⁹For this reason the wisdom of God has said, I will send them prophets and teachers, and to some of them they will give death and cruel pains;

⁵⁰So that punishment may come on this generation for the blood of all the prophets which was given from the earliest days;

⁵¹From the blood of Abel to the blood of Zachariah, who was put to death between the altar and the Temple. Yes, I say to you, It will come on this generation.

⁵²A curse is on you, teachers of the law! for you have taken away the key of knowledge: you did not go in yourselves, and you got in the way of those who were going in.

⁵³And when he had come out of that place, the scribes and the Pharisees came round him angrily, questioning him about more things;

⁵⁴And watching him, for a chance to get something from his words which might be used against him.

12At that time, when thousands of the people had come together, in such numbers that they were crushing one another, he said first to his disciples, Have nothing to do with the leaven of the Pharisees, which is deceit.

²But nothing is covered up, which will not come to light, or secret, which will not be made clear.

³So, whatever you have said in the dark, will come to men's hearing in the light, and what you have said secretly inside the house, will be made public from the house-tops.

⁴And I say to you, my friends, Have no fear of those who may put the body to death, and are able to do no more than that.

⁵But I will make clear to you of whom you are to be in fear: of him who after death has power to send you to hell; yes, truly I say, Have fear of him.

⁶Are not five sparrows given in exchange for two farthings? and God has every one of them in mind.

⁷But even the hairs of your head are numbered. Have no fear: you are of more value than a flock of sparrows.

⁸And I say to you that to everyone who gives witness to me before men, the Son of man will give witness before the angels of God.

⁹But if anyone says before men that he has no knowledge of me, I will say that I have no knowledge of him before the angels of God.

¹⁰And if anyone says a word against the Son of man, he will have forgiveness: but for him who says evil words against the Holy Spirit, there will be no forgiveness.

¹¹And when they take you before the Synagogues and the authorities and the rulers, take no thought about what answers you will give, or what you will say:

¹²For the Holy Spirit will make clear to you in that very hour what to say.

¹³And one of the people said to him, Master, give an order to my brother to make division of the heritage with me.

¹⁴But he said, Man, who made me a judge or a maker of decisions for you?

¹⁵And he said to them, Take care to keep yourselves free from the desire for property; for a man's life is not made up of the number of things which he has.

¹⁶And he said to them, in a story, The land of a certain man of great wealth was very fertile:

¹⁷And he said to himself, What is to be done? for I have no place in which to put all my fruit.

¹⁸And he said, This I will do: I will take down my store-houses and make greater ones, and there I will put all my grain and my goods.

¹⁹And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have a great amount of goods in store, enough for a number of years; be at rest, take food and wine and be happy.

²⁰But God said to him, You foolish one, tonight I will take your soul from you, and who then will be the owner of all the things which you have got together?

²¹So that is what comes to the man who gets wealth for himself, and has not wealth in the eyes of God.

²²And he said to his disciples, For this reason I say to you, Take no thought for your life, about what food you will take, or for your body, how it may be clothed.

²³Is not life more than food, and the body than its clothing?

²⁴Give thought to the ravens; they do not put seeds into the earth, or get together grain; they have no store-houses or buildings; and God gives them their food: of how much greater value are you than the birds!

²⁵And which of you by taking thought is able to make himself any taller?

²⁶If, then, you are not able to do even that which is least, why are you troubled about the rest?

²⁷Give thought to the flowers: they do no work, they make no thread; and still I say to you, Even Solomon, in all his glory, was not clothed like one of these.

²⁸But if God gives such clothing to the grass in the field, which today is living, and tomorrow will be burned in the oven, how much more will he give clothing to you, O men of little faith?

²⁹And do not give overmuch thought to your food and drink, and let not your mind be full of doubts.

³⁰For the nations of the world go in search of all these things: but your Father has knowledge that you have need of them.

³¹But let your chief care be for his kingdom, and these other things will be given to you in addition.

³²Have no fear, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

³³Give what property you have in exchange for money, and give the money to the poor; make for yourselves money-bags which will not get old, wealth stored up in heaven which will be yours for ever, where thieves will not come nor worms put it to destruction.

³⁴For where your wealth is, there will your heart be.

³⁵Be ready, dressed as for a journey, with your lights burning.

³⁶And be like men who are looking for their lord, when he comes back from the bride-feast; so that when he comes to the door, it will be open to him quickly.

³⁷Happy are those servants who are watching when the lord comes; truly I say to you, he will make himself their servant and, placing them at the table, he will come out and give them food.

³⁸And if he comes in the second division of the night or in the third, and they are watching for him, happy are those servants.

³⁹But be certain of this, that if the master of the house had had knowledge of the time when the thief was coming, he would have been watching, and would not have let his house be broken into.

⁴⁰So be ready: for the Son of man is coming at a time when you are not looking for him.

⁴¹And Peter said to him, Lord, are these words said to us only, or to all men?

⁴²And the Lord said, Who then is the wise and responsible servant whom his lord will put in control of his family, to give them their food at the right time?

⁴³Happy is that servant who, when his lord comes, is doing so.

⁴⁴Truly I say to you, he will put him in control of all his goods.

⁴⁵But if that servant says to himself, My lord is a long time coming; and goes about giving blows to the men-servants and the women-servants, feasting and taking overmuch wine;

⁴⁶The lord of that servant will come at a time when he is not looking for him, and at an hour when he is not ready for him, and he will have him cut in two and will give him his part in the fate of those who have no faith;

⁴⁷And the servant who had knowledge of his lord's desires and was not ready for him and did not do as he was ordered, will be given a great number of blows;

⁴⁸But he who, without knowledge, did things for which punishment is given, will get only a small number of blows. The man to whom much is given, will have to give much; if much is given into his care, of him more will be requested.

⁴⁹I came to send a fire on the earth, and it may even now have been lighted.

⁵⁰But there is a baptism which I have to undergo; and how am I kept back till it is complete!

⁵¹Is it your opinion that I have come to give peace on earth? I say to you, No, but division:

⁵²For from this time, a family of five in one house will be on opposite sides, three against two and two against three.

⁵³They will be at war, the father against his son, and the son against his father; mother against daughter, and daughter against mother; mother-in-law against daughter-in-law, and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.

⁵⁴Then he said to the people, When you see a cloud coming up in the west, straight away you say, There will be rain; and so it is.

⁵⁵And when you see a south wind blowing, you say, There will be heat; and so it is.

⁵⁶O false ones! the face of the earth and the heaven is clear to you; how is it that the signs of these times are not as clear to you?

⁵⁷And why are you, in your hearts, unable to be judges of what is right?

⁵⁸For if anyone has a cause at law against you, and you are going with him before the ruler, make an attempt, on the way, to come to an agreement with him, for if you do not, he may take you before the judge and the judge will give you up to the police, and they will put you in prison.

⁵⁹I say to you, You will not come out of it till you have made payment to the very last farthing.

13Now some people who were there at that time, gave him an account of how the blood of some Galilaeans had been mixed by Pilate with their offerings.

²And he, in answer, said to them, Are you of the opinion that these Galilaeans were worse than all other Galilaeans, because these things were done to them?

³I say to you, It is not so: but if your hearts are not changed, you will all come to the same end.

⁴Or those eighteen men who were crushed by the fall of the tower of Siloam, were they worse than all the other men living in Jerusalem?

⁵I say to you, It is not so: but if your hearts are not changed, you will all come to an end in the same way.

⁶And he made up this story for them: A certain man had a fig-tree in his garden, and he came to get fruit from it, and there was no fruit.

⁷And he said to the gardener, See, for three years I have been looking for fruit from this tree, and I have not had any: let it be cut down; why is it taking up space?

⁸And he said, Lord, let it be for this year, and I will have the earth turned up round it, and put animal waste on it, to make it fertile:

⁹And if, after that, it has fruit, it is well; if not, let it be cut down.

¹⁰And he was teaching in one of the Synagogues on the Sabbath.

¹¹And there was a woman who had had a disease for eighteen years; she was bent, and was not able to make herself straight.

¹²And when Jesus saw her, he said to her, Woman, you are made free from your disease.

¹³And he put his hands on her, and she was made straight, and gave praise to God.

¹⁴And the ruler of the Synagogue was angry because Jesus had made her well on the Sabbath, and he said to the people, There are six days in which men may do work: so come on those days to be made well, and not on the Sabbath.

¹⁵But the Lord gave him an answer and said, O you false men! do you not, every one of you, on the Sabbath, let loose his ox and his ass and take it to the water?

¹⁶And is it not right for this daughter of Abraham, who has been in the power of Satan for eighteen years, to be made free on the Sabbath?

¹⁷And when he said these things, those who were against him were shamed, and all the people were full of joy because of the great things which were done by him.

¹⁸Then he said, What is the kingdom of God like? what comparison may I make of it?

¹⁹It is like a grain of mustard seed which a man took and put in his garden, and it became a tree, and the birds of heaven made their resting-places in its branches.

²⁰And again he said, What is the kingdom of God like?

²¹It is like leaven, which a woman put into three measures of meal, and it was all leavened.

²²And he went on his way, through towns and country places, teaching and journeying to Jerusalem.

²³And someone said to him, Lord, will only a small number have salvation? And he said to them,

²⁴Do your best to go in by the narrow door, for I say to you, A number will make the attempt to go in, but will not be able to do so.

²⁵When the master of the house has got up, and the door has been shut, and you, still outside, give blows on the door, saying, Lord, let us in; he will make answer and say, I have no knowledge of where you come from.

²⁶Then you will say, We have taken food and drink with you, and you were teaching in our streets.

²⁷But he will say, Truly, I have no knowledge of you or where you come from; go away from me, you workers of evil.

²⁸There will be weeping and cries of sorrow when you see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves are shut outside.

²⁹And they will come from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south, and take their places in the kingdom of God.

³⁰And the last will be first, and the first will be last.

³¹At that time, certain Pharisees came to him and said, Go away from this place, because Herod's purpose is to put you to death.

³²And he said, Go and say to that fox, I send out evil spirits and do works of mercy today and tomorrow, and on the third day my work will be complete.

³³But I have to go on my way today and tomorrow and the third day, for it is not right for a prophet to come to his death outside Jerusalem.

³⁴O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, putting to death the prophets, and stoning those who were sent to her! again and again would I have taken your children to myself, as a bird takes her young ones under her wings, but you would not!

³⁵Now see, your house is waste, and I say to you, You will not see me again till you say, A blessing on him who comes in the name of the Lord.

14And it came about that when he went into the house of one of the chief Pharisees on the Sabbath, to have a meal, they were watching him.

²And a certain man was there who had a disease.

³And Jesus, answering, said to the scribes and Pharisees, Is it right to make people well on the Sabbath or not?

⁴But they said nothing. And he made him well and sent him away.

⁵And he said to them, Which of you, whose ox or ass has got into a water-hole, will not straight away get him out on the Sabbath?

⁶And they had no answer to that question.

⁷And he gave teaching in the form of a story to the guests who came to the feast, when he saw how they took the best seats; saying to them,

⁸When you get a request to come to a feast, do not take the best seat, for a more important man than you may be coming,

⁹And then the giver of the feast will come to you and say, Give your place to this man; and you, with shame, will have to take the lowest seat.

¹⁰But when you come, go and take the lowest seat, so that when the giver of the feast comes, he may say to you, Friend, come up higher; and then you will have honour in the eyes of all the others who are there.

¹¹For every man who gives himself a high place will be put down, but he who takes a low place will be lifted up.

¹²And he said to the master of the house, When you give a feast, do not send for your friends and your brothers and your family or your neighbours who have wealth, for they may give a feast for you, and so you will get a reward.

¹³But when you give a feast, send for the poor and the blind and those who are broken in body:

¹⁴And you will have a blessing, because they will not be able to give you any payment, and you will get your reward when the upright come back from the dead.

¹⁵And, hearing these words, one of those who were at table with him said to him, Happy is the man who will be a guest in the kingdom of God.

¹⁶And he said to them, A certain man gave a great feast, and sent word of it to a number of people.

¹⁷And when the time had come, he sent his servants to say to them, Come, for all things are now ready.

¹⁸And they all gave reasons why they were not able to come. The first said to him, I have got a new field, and it is necessary for me to go and see it: I am full of regret that I am unable to come.

¹⁹And another said, I have got some cattle, and I am going to make a test of them: I am full of regret that I am unable to come.

²⁰And another said, I have been married, and so I am not able to come.

²¹And the servant came back and gave his master an account of these things. Then the master of the house was angry and said to the servant, Go out quickly into the streets of the town and get the poor, the blind, and those who are broken in body.

²²And the servant said, Lord, your orders have been done, and still there is room.

²³And the lord said to the servant, Go out into the roads and the fields, and make them come in, so that my house may be full.

²⁴For I say to you that not one of those who were requested to come will have a taste of my feast.

²⁵Now a great number of people went with him.

²⁶And turning round, he said to them, If any man comes to me, and has not hate for his father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, and even for his life, he may not be my disciple.

²⁷Whoever does not take up his cross and come after me may not be my disciple.

²⁸For which of you, desiring to put up a tower, does not first give much thought to the price, if he will have enough to make it complete?

²⁹For fear that if he makes a start and is not able to go on with it to the end, all who see it will be laughing at him,

³⁰And saying, This man made a start at building and is not able to make it complete.

³¹Or what king, going to war with another king, will not first take thought if he will be strong enough, with ten thousand men, to keep off him who comes against him with twenty thousand?

³²Or while the other is still a great distance away, he sends representatives requesting conditions of peace.

³³And so whoever is not ready to give up all he has may not be my disciple.

³⁴For salt is good, but if the taste goes from it, of what use is it?

³⁵It is no good for the land or for the place of waste; no one has a use for it. He who has ears, let him give ear.

15Now all the tax-farmers and sinners came near to give ear to him.

²And the Pharisees and scribes were angry, saying, This man gives approval to sinners, and takes food with them.

³And he made a story for them, saying,

⁴What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if one of them gets loose and goes away, will not let the ninety-nine be in the waste land by themselves, and go after the wandering one, till he sees where it is?

⁵And when he has got it again, he takes it in his arms with joy.

⁶And when he gets back to his house, he sends for his neighbours and friends, saying to them, Be glad with me, for I have got back my sheep which had gone away.

⁷I say to you that even so there will be more joy in heaven when one sinner is turned away from his wrongdoing, than for ninety-nine good men, who have no need of a change of heart.

⁸Or what woman, having ten bits of silver, if one bit has gone from her hands, will not get a light, and go through her house, searching with care till she sees it?

⁹And when she has it again, she gets her friends and neighbours together, saying, Be glad with me, for I have got back the bit of silver which had gone from me.

¹⁰Even so, I say to you, There is joy among the angels of God, when one sinner is turned away from his wrongdoing.

¹¹And he said, A certain man had two sons:

¹²And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me that part of your property which will be mine. And he made division of his goods between them.

¹³And not long after, the younger son got together everything which was his and took a journey into a far-away country, and there all his money went in foolish living.

¹⁴And when everything was gone, there was no food to be had in that country, and he was in need.

¹⁵And he went and put himself into the hands of one of the people of that country, and he sent him into his fields to give the pigs their food.

¹⁶And so great was his need that he would have been glad to take the pigs' food, and no one gave him anything.

¹⁷But when he came to his senses, he said, What numbers of my father's servants have bread enough, and more, while I am near to death here through need of food!

¹⁸I will get up and go to my father, and will say to him, Father, I have done wrong, against heaven and in your eyes:

¹⁹I am no longer good enough to be named your son: make me like one of your servants.

²⁰And he got up and went to his father. But while he was still far away, his father saw him and was moved with pity for him and went quickly and took him in his arms and gave him a kiss.

²¹And his son said to him, Father, I have done wrong, against heaven and in your eyes: I am no longer good enough to be named your son.

²²But the father said to his servants, Get out the first robe quickly, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet:

²³And get the fat young ox and put it to death, and let us have a feast, and be glad.

²⁴For this, my son, who was dead, is living again; he had gone away from me, and has come back. And they were full of joy.

²⁵Now the older son was in the field: and when he came near the house, the sounds of music and dancing came to his ears.

²⁶And he sent for one of the servants, questioning him about what it might be.

²⁷And he said to him, Your brother has come; and your father has had the young ox put to death because he has come back safely.

²⁸But he was angry and would not go in; and his father came out and made a request to him to come in.

²⁹But he made answer and said to his father, See, all these years I have been your servant, doing your orders in everything: and you never gave me even a young goat so that I might have a feast with my friends:

³⁰But when this your son came, who has been wasting your property with bad women, you put to death the fat young ox for him.

³¹And he said to him, Son, you are with me at all times, and all I have is yours.

³²But it was right to be glad and to have a feast; for this your brother, who was dead, is living again; he had gone away and has come back.

16And another time he said to the disciples, There was a certain man of great wealth who had a servant; and it was said to him that this servant was wasting his goods.

²And he sent for him and said, What is this which is said about you? give me an account of all you have done, for you will no longer be the manager of my property.

³And the servant said to himself, What am I to do now that my lord takes away my position? I have not enough strength for working in the fields, and I would be shamed if I made requests for money from people in the streets.

⁴I have come to a decision what to do, so that when I am put out of my position they will take me into their houses.

⁵And sending for every one who was in debt to his lord he said to the first, What is the amount of your debt to my lord?

⁶And he said, A hundred measures of oil. And he said, Take your account straight away and put down fifty.

⁷Then he said to another, What is the amount of your debt? And he said, A hundred measures of grain. And he said to him, Take your account and put down eighty.

⁸And his lord was pleased with the false servant, because he had been wise; for the sons of this world are wiser in relation to their generation than the sons of light.

⁹And I say to you, Make friends for yourselves through the wealth of this life, so that when it comes to an end, you may be taken into the eternal resting-places.

¹⁰He who is true in a little, is true in much; he who is false in small things, is false in great.

¹¹If, then, you have not been true in your use of the wealth of this life, who will give into your care the true wealth?

¹²And if you have not been true in your care of the property of other people, who will give you that which is yours?

¹³No man may be a servant to two masters: for he will have hate for the one and love for the other; or he will keep to the one and have no respect for the other. You may not be servants of God and of wealth.

¹⁴And the Pharisees, who had a great love of money, hearing these things, were making sport of him.

¹⁵And he said, You take care to seem right in the eyes of men, but God sees your hearts: and those things which are important in the opinion of men, are evil in the eyes of God.

¹⁶The law and the prophets were till John: but then came the preaching of the kingdom of God, and everyone makes his way into it by force.

¹⁷But heaven and earth will come to an end before the smallest letter of the law may be dropped out.

¹⁸Everyone who puts away his wife and takes another, is a false husband: and he who is married to a woman whose husband has put her away, is no true husband to her.

¹⁹Now there was a certain man of great wealth, who was dressed in fair clothing of purple and delicate linen, and was shining and glad every day.

²⁰And a certain poor man, named Lazarus, was stretched out at his door, full of wounds,

²¹Desiring the broken bits of food which came from the table of the man of wealth; and even the dogs came and put their tongues on his wounds.

²²And in time the poor man came to his end, and angels took him to Abraham's breast. And the man of wealth came to his end, and was put in the earth.

²³And in hell, being in great pain, lifting up his eyes he saw Abraham, far away, and Lazarus on his breast.

²⁴And he gave a cry and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus, so that he may put the end of his finger in water and put it on my tongue, for I am cruelly burning in this flame.

²⁵But Abraham said, Keep in mind, my son, that when you were living, you had your good things, while Lazarus had evil things: but now, he is comforted and you are in pain.

²⁶And in addition, there is a deep division fixed between us and you, so that those who might go from here to you are not able to do so, and no one may come from you to us.

²⁷And he said, Father, it is my request that you will send him to my father's house;

²⁸For I have five brothers; and let him give them an account of these things, so that they may not come to this place of pain.

²⁹But Abraham said, They have Moses and the prophets; let them give ear to what they say.

³⁰And he said, No, father Abraham, but if someone went to them from the dead, their hearts would be changed.

³¹And he said to him, If they will not give attention to Moses and the prophets, they will not be moved even if someone comes back from the dead.

17And he said to his disciples, It is necessary for causes of trouble to come about, but unhappy is he by whom they come.

²It would be well for him if a great stone was put round his neck and he was dropped into the sea, before he made trouble for any of these little ones.

³Give attention to yourselves: if your brother does wrong, say a sharp word to him; and if he has sorrow for his sin, let him have forgiveness.

⁴And if he does you wrong seven times in a day, and seven times comes to you and says, I have regret for what I have done; let him have forgiveness.

⁵And the twelve said to the Lord, Make our faith greater.

⁶And the Lord said, If your faith was only as great as a grain of mustard seed, you might say to this tree, Be rooted up and planted in the sea; and it would be done.

⁷But which of you, having a servant who is ploughing or keeping sheep, will say to him, when he comes in from the field, Come now and be seated and have a meal,

⁸Will he not say, Get a meal for me, and make yourself ready and see to my needs till I have had my food and drink; and after that you may have yours?

⁹Does he give praise to the servant because he did what was ordered?

¹⁰In the same way, when you have done all the things which are given you to do, say, There is no profit in us, for we have only done what we were ordered to do.

¹¹And it came about that when they were on the way to Jerusalem he went through Samaria and Galilee.

¹²And when he went into a certain small town he came across ten men who were lepers, and they, keeping themselves at a distance,

¹³Said, in loud voices, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.

¹⁴And when he saw them he said, Go, and let the priests see you. And, while they were going, they were made clean.

¹⁵And one of them, when he saw that he was clean, turning back, gave praise to God in a loud voice;

¹⁶And, falling down on his face at the feet of Jesus, he gave the credit to him; and he was a man of Samaria.

¹⁷And Jesus said, Were there not ten men who were made clean? where are the nine?

¹⁸Have not any of them come back to give glory to God, but only this one from a strange land?

¹⁹And he said to him, Get up, and go on your way; your faith has made you well.

²⁰And when the Pharisees put questions to him about when the kingdom of God would come, he gave them an answer and said, The kingdom of God will not come through observation:

²¹And men will not say, See, it is here! or, There! for the kingdom of God is among you.

²²And he said to his disciples, The time will come when you will have a great desire to see one of the days of the Son of man, but you will not see it.

²³And if they say to you, See, it is there! or, It is here! do not go away, or go after them.

²⁴For as in a thunderstorm the bright light is seen from one end of the sky to the other, so will the Son of man be when his time comes.

²⁵But first, he will have to undergo much and be put on one side by this generation.

²⁶And as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the day of the Son of man.

²⁷They were feasting and taking wives and getting married, till the day of the overflowing of the waters, when Noah went into the ark, and they all came to destruction.

²⁸In the same way, in the days of Lot; they were feasting and trading, they were planting and building;

²⁹But on the day when Lot went out of Sodom, fire came down from heaven and destruction came on them all.

³⁰So will it be in the day of the revelation of the Son of man.

³¹On that day, if anyone is on the roof of the house, and his goods are in the house, let him not go down to take them away; and let him who is in the field not go back to his house.

³²Keep in mind Lot's wife.

³³If anyone makes an attempt to keep his life, it will be taken from him, but if anyone gives up his life, he will keep it.

³⁴I say to you, In that night there will be two men sleeping in one bed, and one will be taken away and the other let go.

³⁵Two women will be crushing grain together; one will be taken away and the other let go.

³⁶[]

³⁷And they, answering him, said, Where, Lord? And he said to them, Where the body is, there will the eagles come together.

18And he made a story for them, the point of which was that men were to go on making prayer and not get tired;

²Saying, There was a judge in a certain town, who had no fear of God or respect for man:

³And there was a widow in that town, and she kept on coming to him and saying, Give me my right against the man who has done me wrong.

⁴And for a time he would not: but later, he said to himself, Though I have no fear of God or respect for man,

⁵Because this widow is a trouble to me, I will give her her right; for if not, I will be completely tired out by her frequent coming.

⁶And the Lord said, Give ear to the words of the evil judge.

⁷And will not God do right in the cause of his saints, whose cries come day and night to his ears, though he is long in doing it?

⁸I say to you that he will quickly do right in their cause. But when the Son of man comes, will there be any faith on earth?

⁹And he made this story for some people who were certain that they were good, and had a low opinion of others:

¹⁰Two men went up to the Temple for prayer; one a Pharisee, and the other a tax-farmer.

¹¹The Pharisee, taking up his position, said to himself these words: God, I give you praise because I am not like other men, who take more than their right, who are evil-doers, who are untrue to their wives, or even like this tax-farmer.

¹²Twice in the week I go without food; I give a tenth of all I have.

¹³The tax-farmer, on the other hand, keeping far away, and not lifting up even his eyes to heaven, made signs of grief and said, God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

¹⁴I say to you, This man went back to his house with God's approval, and not the other: for everyone who makes himself high will be made low and whoever makes himself low will be made high.

¹⁵And they took their children to him, so that he might put his hands on them: but when the disciples saw it, they said sharp words to them

¹⁶But Jesus sent for them, saying, Let the children come to me, and do not keep them away, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.

¹⁷Truly I say to you, Whoever does not put himself under the kingdom of God like a little child, will not come into it at all.

¹⁸And a certain ruler put a question to him, saying, Good Master, what have I to do so that I may have eternal life?

¹⁹And Jesus said to him, Why do you say that I am good? No one is good, but only God.

²⁰You have knowledge of what the law says: Do not be untrue to your wife, Do not put anyone to death, Do not take what is not yours, Do not give false witness, Give honour to your father and mother.

²¹And he said, All these things I have done from the time when I was a boy.

²²And Jesus, hearing it, said to him, One thing you still have need of; get money for your goods, and give it away to the poor, and you will have wealth in heaven; and come after me.

²³But at these words he became very sad, for he had great wealth.

²⁴And Jesus, looking at him, said, How hard it is for those who have wealth to get into the kingdom of God!

²⁵It is simpler for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a man who has much money to come into the kingdom of God.

²⁶And those who were present said, Then who may have salvation?

²⁷But he said, Things which are not possible with man are possible with God.

²⁸And Peter said, See, we have given up what is ours to come after you.

²⁹And he said to them, Truly I say to you, There is no man who has given up house or wife or brothers or father or mother or children, because of the kingdom of God,

³⁰Who will not get much more in this time, and in the world to come, eternal life.

³¹And he took with him the twelve and said to them, Now we are going up to Jerusalem, and all the things which were said by the prophets will be done to the Son of man.

³²For he will be given up to the Gentiles, and will be made sport of and put to shame:

³³And he will be given cruel blows and put to death, and on the third day he will come back to life.

³⁴But they did not take in the sense of any of these words, and what he said was not clear to them, and their minds were not able to see it.

³⁵And it came about that when he got near Jericho, a certain blind man was seated by the side of the road, making requests for money from those who went by.

³⁶And hearing the sound of a great number of people going by, he said, What is this?

³⁷And they said to him, Jesus of Nazareth is going by.

³⁸And he said in a loud voice, Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.

³⁹And those who were in front made protests and said to him, Be quiet: but he said all the more, O Son of David, have mercy on me.

⁴⁰And Jesus, stopping, gave orders that he was to come to him, and when he came near, he said to him,

⁴¹What would you have me do for you? And he said, Lord, that I may be able to see again.

⁴²And Jesus said, See again: your faith has made you well.

⁴³And straight away he was able to see, and he went after him, giving glory to God; and all the people when they saw it gave praise to God.

19And he went into Jericho, and when he was going through it,

²A man, named Zacchaeus, who was the chief tax-farmer, and a man of wealth,

³Made an attempt to get a view of Jesus, and was not able to do so, because of the people, for he was a small man.

⁴And he went quickly in front of them and got up into a tree to see him, for he was going that way.

⁵And when Jesus came to the place, looking up, he said to him, Zacchaeus, be quick and come down, for I am coming to your house today.

⁶And he came down quickly, and took him into his house with joy.

⁷And when they saw it, they were all angry, saying, He has gone into the house of a sinner.

⁸And Zacchaeus, waiting before him, said to the Lord, See, Lord, half of my goods I give to the poor, and if I have taken anything from anyone wrongly, I give him back four times as much.

⁹And Jesus said to him, Today salvation has come to this house, for even he is a son of Abraham.

¹⁰For the Son of man came to make search for those who are wandering from the way, and to be their Saviour.

¹¹And while they were giving ear to these words, he made another story for them, because he was near Jerusalem, and because they were of the opinion that the kingdom of God was coming straight away.

¹²So he said, A certain man of high birth went into a far-away country to get a kingdom for himself, and to come back.

¹³And he sent for ten of his servants and gave them ten pounds and said to them, Do business with this till I come.

¹⁴But his people had no love for him, and sent representatives after him, saying, We will not have this man for our ruler.

¹⁵And when he came back again, having got his kingdom, he gave orders for those servants to whom he had given the money to come to him, so that he might have an account of what business they had done.

¹⁶And the first came before him, saying, Lord, your pound has made ten pounds.

¹⁷And he said to him, You have done well, O good servant: because you have done well in a small thing you will have authority over ten towns.

¹⁸And another came, saying, Your pound has made five pounds.

¹⁹And he said, You will be ruler over five towns.

²⁰And another came, saying, Lord, here is your pound, which I put away in a cloth;

²¹Because I was in fear of you, for you are a hard man: you take up what you have not put down, and get in grain where you have not put seed.

²²He said to him, By the words of your mouth you will be judged, you bad servant. You had knowledge that I am a hard man, taking up what I have not put down and getting in grain where I have not put seed;

²³Why then did you not put my money in a bank, so that when I came I would get it back with interest?

²⁴And he said to the others who were near, Take the pound away from him, and give it to the man who has ten.

²⁵And they say to him, Lord, he has ten pounds.

²⁶And I say to you that to everyone who has, more will be given, but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away.

²⁷And as for those who were against me, who would not have me for their ruler, let them come here, and be put to death before me.

²⁸And when he had said this, he went on in front of them, going up to Jerusalem.

²⁹And it came about that when he got near Beth-phage and Bethany by the mountain which is named the Mountain of Olives, he sent two of the disciples,

³⁰Saying, Go into the little town in front of you, and on going in you will see a young ass fixed with a cord, on which no man has ever been seated; let him loose and take him.

³¹And if anyone says to you, Why are you taking him? say, The Lord has need of him.

³²And those whom he sent went away, and it was as he said.

³³And when they were getting the young ass, the owners of it said to them, Why are you taking the young ass?

³⁴And they said, The Lord has need of him.

³⁵And they took him to Jesus, and they put their clothing on the ass, and Jesus got on to him.

³⁶And while he went on his way they put their clothing down on the road in front of him.

³⁷And when he came near the foot of the Mountain of Olives, all the disciples with loud voices gave praise to God with joy, because of all the great works which they had seen;

³⁸Saying, A blessing on the King who comes in the name of the Lord; peace in heaven and glory in the highest.

³⁹And some of the Pharisees among the people said to him, Master, make your disciples be quiet.

⁴⁰And he said in answer, I say to you, if these men keep quiet, the very stones will be crying out.

⁴¹And when he got near and saw the town, he was overcome with weeping for it,

⁴²Saying, If you, even you, had knowledge today, of the things which give peace! but you are not able to see them.

⁴³For the time will come when your attackers will put a wall round you, and come all round you and keep you in on every side,

⁴⁴And will make you level with the earth, and your children with you; and there will not be one stone resting on another in you, because you did not see that it was your day of mercy.

⁴⁵And he went into the Temple and put out those who were trading there,

⁴⁶Saying to them, It has been said, My house is to be a house of prayer, but you have made it a hole of thieves.

⁴⁷And every day he was teaching in the Temple. But the chief priests and the scribes and the rulers of the people were attempting to put him to death;

⁴⁸But they were not able to do anything, because the people all kept near him, being greatly interested in his words.

20And it came about on one of those days, when he was teaching the people in the Temple and preaching the good news,

²That the chief priests and the scribes and the rulers of the people came to him and said, Make clear to us by what authority you do these things and who gave you this authority.

³And in answer he said to them, I will put a question to you, and do you give me an answer:

⁴The baptism of John, was it from heaven or of men?

⁵And they said among themselves, If we say, From heaven; he will say, Why did you not have faith in him?

⁶But if we say, Of men; we will be stoned by the people, for they are certain that John was a prophet.

⁷And they made answer that they had no idea where it came from.

⁸And Jesus said, And I will not make clear to you by what authority I do these things.

⁹And he gave the people this story: A man made a vine-garden and gave the use of it to some field-workers and went into another country for a long time.

¹⁰And at the right time he sent a servant to the workers to get part of the fruit from the vines; but the workmen gave him blows and sent him away with nothing.

¹¹And he sent another servant, and they gave blows to him in the same way, and put shame on him, and sent him away with nothing.

¹²And he sent a third, and they gave him wounds and put him out.

¹³And the lord of the garden said, What am I to do? I will send my dearly loved son; they may give respect to him.

¹⁴But when the workmen saw him, they said to one another, This is he who will one day be the owner of the property: let us put him to death and the heritage will be ours.

¹⁵And driving him out of the garden they put him to death. Now what will the lord do to these workmen?

¹⁶He will come and put them to destruction and give the garden to others. And when he said this, they said, May it not be so.

¹⁷But he, looking on them, said, Is it not in the Writings, The stone which the builders put on one side, the same has become the chief stone of the building?

¹⁸Everyone falling on that stone will be broken, but the man on whom the stone comes down will be crushed to dust.

¹⁹And the chief priests and the scribes made attempts to get their hands on him in that very hour; and they were in fear of the people, for they saw that he had made up this story against them.

²⁰And they kept watch on him, and sent out secret representatives, who were acting the part of good men, in order that they might get something from his words, on account of which they might give him up to the government and into the power of the ruler.

²¹And they put a question to him, saying, Master, we are certain that your teaching and your words are right, and that you have no respect for a man's position, but you are teaching the true way of God:

²²Is it right for us to make payment of taxes to Caesar or not?

²³But he saw through their trick and said to them,

²⁴Let me see a penny. Whose image and name are on it? And they said, Caesar's.

²⁵And he said, Then give to Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and to God the things which are God's.

²⁶And they were not able to get anything from these words before the people: but they were full of wonder at his answer, and said nothing.

²⁷And some of the Sadducees came to him, who say that there is no coming back from the dead; and they said to him,

²⁸Master, Moses said that if a man's brother comes to his end, having a wife, but no children, his brother is to take the wife, and get a family for his brother.

²⁹Now there were seven brothers, and the first had a wife and came to his end, having no children;

³⁰And the second;

³¹And the third took her; and in the same way, all the seven, without having any children, came to their end.

³²And last of all, the woman came to her end.

³³When they come back from the dead, whose wife will she be? for all the seven had her.

³⁴And Jesus said to them, The sons of this world are married and have wives;

³⁵But those to whom is given the reward of the world to come, and to come back from the dead, have no wives, and are not married;

³⁶And death has no more power over them, for they are equal to the angels, and are sons of God, being of those who will come back from the dead.

³⁷But even Moses made it clear that the dead come back to life, saying, in the story of the burning thorn-tree, The Lord, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.

³⁸Now he is not the God of the dead but of the living: for all men are living to him.

³⁹And some of the scribes, in answer to this, said, Master, you have said well.

⁴⁰And they had fear of putting any more questions to him.

⁴¹And he said to them, Why do they say that the Christ is the son of David?

⁴²For David himself says in the book of Psalms, The Lord said to my Lord, Take your seat at my right hand,

⁴³Till I put under your feet all those who are against you.

⁴⁴David then gives him the name of Lord, so how is it possible for him to be his son?

⁴⁵And in the hearing of all the people he said to his disciples,

⁴⁶Keep away from the scribes, whose pleasure it is to go about in long robes, and to have words of respect said to them in the market-places, and to take the chief seats in the Synagogues and the first places at feasts;

⁴⁷Who take the property of widows and before the eyes of men make long prayers; they will get a greater punishment.

21And looking up, he saw the men of wealth putting their offerings in the money-box.

²And he saw a certain poor widow putting in a farthing.

³And he said, Truly I say to you, This poor widow has given more than all of them:

⁴For they gave out of their wealth, having more than enough for themselves: but she, even out of her need, has put in all her living.

⁵And some were talking about the Temple, how it was made fair with beautiful stones and with offerings, but he said,

⁶As for these things which you see, the days will come when not one stone will be resting on another, but all will be broken down.

⁷And they said to him, Master, when will these things be? and what sign will there be when these events are to take place?

⁸And he said, Take care that you are not tricked: for a number of people will come in my name, saying, I am he; and, The time is near: do not go after them.

⁹And when news of wars and troubled times comes to your ears, have no fear; for these things have to be, but the end will not be now.

¹⁰Then he said to them, Nation will be moved against nation and kingdom against kingdom:

¹¹There will be great earth-shocks and outbursts of disease in a number of places, and men will be without food; and there will be wonders and great signs from heaven.

¹²But before all this, they will take you and be very cruel to you, giving you up to the Synagogues and to prisons, taking you before kings and rulers, because of my name.

¹³And it will be turned to a witness for you.

¹⁴So take care not to be troubled before the time comes, about what answers you will give:

¹⁵For I will give you words and wisdom, so that not one of those who are against you will be able to get the better of you, or to put you in the wrong.

¹⁶But you will be given up even by your fathers and mothers, your brothers and relations and friends; and some of you will be put to death.

¹⁷And you will be hated by all men, because of me.

¹⁸But not a hair of your head will come to destruction.

¹⁹By going through all these things, you will keep your lives.

²⁰But when you see armies all round about Jerusalem, then be certain that her destruction is near.

²¹Then let those who are in Judaea go in flight to the mountains; and those who are in the middle of the town go out; and let not those who are in the country come in.

²²For these are the days of punishment, in which all the things in the Writings will be put into effect.

²³It will be hard for women who are with child, and for her with a baby at the breast, in those days. For great trouble will come on the land, and wrath on this people.

²⁴And they will be put to death with the sword, and will be taken as prisoners into all the nations; and Jerusalem will be crushed under the feet of the Gentiles, till the times of the Gentiles are complete.

²⁵And there will be signs in the sun and moon and stars; and on the earth, fear among the nations and doubt because of the loud noise of the sea and the waves;

²⁶Men's strength will go from them in fear and in waiting for the things which are coming on the earth; for the powers of the heavens will be moved.

²⁷And then they will see the Son of man coming in a cloud, with power and great glory.

²⁸But when these things come about, let your heads be lifted up, because your salvation is near.

²⁹And he made a story for them: See the fig-tree, and all the trees;

³⁰When they put out their young leaves, you take note of it, and it is clear to you that summer is coming.

³¹In the same way, when you see these things taking place you may be certain that the kingdom of God is near.

³²Truly I say to you, This generation will not come to an end till all things are complete.

³³Heaven and earth will come to an end, but my words will not come to an end.

³⁴But give attention to yourselves, for fear that your hearts become over-full of the pleasures of food and wine, and the cares of this life, and that day may come on you suddenly, and take you as in a net:

³⁵For so it will come on all those who are living on the face of all the earth.

³⁶But keep watch at all times with prayer, that you may be strong enough to come through all these things and take your place before the Son of man.

³⁷And every day he was teaching in the Temple and every night he went out to the mountain which is named the Mountain of Olives to take his rest.

³⁸And all the people came early in the morning to give ear to his words in the Temple.

22Now the feast of unleavened bread was near, which is called the Passover.

²And the chief priests and the scribes were looking for a chance to put him to death, but they went in fear of the people.

³And Satan came into Judas Iscariot, who was one of the twelve.

⁴And he went away and had a discussion with the chief priests and the rulers, about how he might give him up to them.

⁵And they were glad, and undertook to give him money.

⁶And he made an agreement with them to give him up to them, if he got a chance, when the people were not present.

⁷And the day of unleavened bread came, when the Passover lamb is put to death.

⁸And Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, Go and make the Passover ready for us, so that we may take it.

⁹And they said to him, Where are we to get it ready?

¹⁰And he said to them, When you go into the town you will see a man coming to you with a vessel of water; go after him into the house into which he goes.

¹¹And say to the master of the house, The Master says, Where is the guest-room, where I may take the Passover with my disciples?

¹²And he will take you up to a great room with a table and seats: there make ready.

¹³And they went, and it was as he had said: and they made the Passover ready.

¹⁴And when the time had come, he took his seat, and the Apostles with him.

¹⁵And he said, I have had a great desire to keep this Passover with you before I come to my death;

¹⁶For I say to you, I will not take it till it is made complete in the kingdom of God.

¹⁷And he took a cup and, having given praise, he said, Make division of this among yourselves;

¹⁸For I say to you, I will not take of the fruit of the vine till the kingdom of God has come.

¹⁹And he took bread and, having given praise, he gave it to them when it had been broken, saying, This is my body, which is given for you: do this in memory of me.

²⁰And in the same way, after the meal, he took the cup, saying, This cup is the new testament, made with my blood which is given for you.

²¹But the hand of him who is false to me is with me at the table.

²²For it will be done to the Son of man after the purpose of God, but unhappy is that man by whom he is given up.

²³And they were wondering among themselves which of them it was who would do this thing.

²⁴And there was an argument among them about which of them was the greatest.

²⁵And he said, The kings of the Gentiles are lords over them, and those who have authority are given names of honour.

²⁶But let it not be so with you; but he who is greater, let him become like the younger; and he who is chief, like a servant.

²⁷For which is greater, the guest who is seated at a meal or the servant who is waiting on him? is it not the guest? but I am among you as a servant.

²⁸But you are those who have kept with me through my troubles;

²⁹And I will give you a kingdom as my Father has given one to me,

³⁰So that you may take food and drink at my table in my kingdom, and be seated like kings, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

³¹Simon, Simon, Satan has made a request to have you, so that he may put you to the test as grain is tested:

³²But I have made prayer for you, that your faith may not go from you: and when you are turned again, make your brothers strong.

³³And he said to him, Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death.

³⁴And he said, I say to you, Peter, before the cock's second cry today, you will say three times that you have no knowledge of me.

³⁵And he said to them, When I sent you out without money or bag or shoes, were you in need of anything? And they said, Nothing.

³⁶And he said to them, But now, he who has a money-bag, or a bag for food, let him take it: and he who has not, let him give his coat for money and get a sword.

³⁷For I say to you that these words will be put into effect in me, And he was numbered among the evil-doers: for what has been said in the Writings about me has an end.

³⁸And they said, Lord, here are two swords. And he said, It is enough.

³⁹And he came out, and went, as his way was, to the Mountain of Olives, and the disciples went with him.

⁴⁰And when he came to the place, he said to them, Make a prayer that you may not be put to the test.

⁴¹And he went a little distance away from them and, falling on his knees in prayer, he said,

⁴²Father, if it is your pleasure, take this cup from me: but still, let your pleasure, not mine, be done.

⁴³And an angel from heaven came to him, to give him strength.

⁴⁴And being in great trouble of soul, the force of his prayer became stronger, and great drops, like blood, came from him, falling to the earth.

⁴⁵And, getting up from prayer, he came to the disciples, and saw that they were sleeping for sorrow.

⁴⁶And he said, Why are you sleeping? Get up, and give yourselves to prayer, so that you may not be put to the test.

⁴⁷And while he was saying these words, there came a band of people, and Judas, one of the twelve, was in front of them, and he came near to Jesus to give him a kiss.

⁴⁸But Jesus said to him, Judas, will you be false to the Son of man with a kiss?

⁴⁹And when those who were with him saw what was coming, they said, Lord, may we not make use of our swords?

⁵⁰And one of them gave a blow to the servant of the high priest, cutting off his right ear.

⁵¹But Jesus, answering, said, Put up with this, at least. And touching his ear, he made it well.

⁵²And Jesus said to the chief priests and the captains of the Temple and the rulers, who had come against him, Have you come out as against a thief, with swords and sticks?

⁵³When I was in the Temple with you every day, your hands were not stretched out against me: but this is your hour, and the authority of the dark power.

⁵⁴And they made him a prisoner and took him away to the house of the high priest. But Peter went after them at a distance.

⁵⁵And a fire was lighted in the middle of the open square, and they were seated together, and Peter was among them.

⁵⁶And a certain woman-servant, seeing him in the light of the fire, and looking at him with attention, said, This man was with him.

⁵⁷But he said, Woman, it is not true; I have no knowledge of him.

⁵⁸And after a little time, another saw him and said, You are one of them; and he said, Man, I am not.

⁵⁹And after about an hour, another man said, with decision, Certainly this man was with him, for he is a Galilaean.

⁶⁰And Peter said, Man, I have no knowledge of these things of which you are talking. And straight away, while he was saying these words, there came the cry of a cock.

⁶¹And the Lord, turning, gave Peter a look. And the words of the Lord came to Peter's mind, how he had said, This night, before the hour of the cock's cry, you will be false to me three times.

⁶²And he went out, weeping bitterly.

⁶³And the men in whose hands Jesus was, made sport of him and gave him blows.

⁶⁴And, covering his eyes, they said to him, Are you prophet enough to say who gave you that blow?

⁶⁵And they said a number of other evil things against him.

⁶⁶And when it was day, the rulers of the people came together, with the chief priests and the scribes, and they took him before their Sanhedrin, saying,

⁶⁷If you are the Christ, say so. But he said, If I say so you will not have belief;

⁶⁸And if I put a question to you, you will not give an answer.

⁶⁹But in the future the Son of man will be seated at the right hand of the power of God.

⁷⁰And they all said, Are you then the Son of God? and he said, You say that I am.

⁷¹And they said, What more need have we of witness? we have the very words of his mouth.

23And they all went and took him before Pilate.

²And they made statements against him, saying, This man has to our knowledge been teaching our nation to do wrong, and not to make payment of taxes to Caesar, even saying that he himself is Christ, a king.

³And Pilate said to him, Are you the King of the Jews? And he said in answer, You say so.

⁴And Pilate said to the chief priests and the people, In my opinion this man has done no wrong.

⁵But they became more violent than before, saying, He has made trouble among the people, teaching through all Judaea from Galilee to this place.

⁶But at these words Pilate said, Is the man a Galilaean?

⁷And when he saw that he was under the authority of Herod, he sent him to Herod, who was in Jerusalem himself at that time.

⁸Now when Herod saw Jesus he was very glad, having for a long time had a desire to see him, for he had had accounts of him, and was hoping to see some wonders done by him.

⁹And he put a great number of questions to him, but he said nothing.

¹⁰And the chief priests and the scribes were there, making statements against him violently.

¹¹And Herod, with the men of his army, put shame on him and made sport of him, and dressing him in shining robes, he sent him back to Pilate.

¹²And that day Herod and Pilate became friends with one another, for before they had been against one another.

¹³And Pilate sent for the chief priests and the rulers and the people, and said to them,

¹⁴You say that this man has been teaching the people evil things: now I, after going into the question before you, see nothing wrong in this man in connection with the things which you have said against him:

¹⁵And Herod is of the same opinion, for he has sent him back to us; for, you see, he has done nothing for which I might put him to death.

¹⁶And so I will give him punishment and let him go.

¹⁷[]

¹⁸But with loud voices they said all together, Put this man to death, and make Barabbas free.

¹⁹Now this man was in prison because of an attack against the government in the town, in which there had been loss of life.

²⁰And Pilate again said to them that it was his desire to let Jesus go free.

²¹But crying out they said, To the cross with him!

²²And he said to them a third time, Why, what evil has he done? I see no reason for putting him to death: I will give him punishment and let him go.

²³But they went on crying out loudly, Let him be put to death on the cross. And they had their way.

²⁴And Pilate gave his decision for their desire to be put into effect.

²⁵And in answer to their request, he let that man go free who had been in prison for acting against the government and causing death, and Jesus he gave up to their pleasure.

²⁶And while they were taking him away, they put their hands on Simon of Cyrene, who was coming from the country, and made him take the cross after Jesus.

²⁷And a great band of people went after him, and of women making signs of grief and weeping for him.

²⁸But Jesus, turning to them, said, Daughters of Jerusalem, let not your weeping be for me, but for yourselves and for your children.

²⁹For the days are coming in which they will say, Happy are those who have had no children, whose bodies have never given birth, whose breasts have never given milk.

³⁰And they will say to the mountains, Come down on us, and to the hills, Be a cover over us.

³¹For if they do these things when the tree is green, what will they do when it is dry?

³²And two others, evil-doers, were taken with him to be put to death.

³³And when they came to the place which is named Golgotha, they put him on the cross, and the evil-doers, one on the right side, and the other on the left.

³⁴And Jesus said, Father, let them have forgiveness, for they have no knowledge of what they are doing. And they made division of his clothing among them by the decision of chance.

³⁵And the people were looking on. And the rulers made sport of him, saying, He was a saviour of others; let him do something for himself, if he is the Christ, the man of God's selection.

³⁶And the men of the army made sport of him, coming to him and giving him bitter wine,

³⁷And saying, If you are the King of the Jews, get yourself free.

³⁸And these words were put in writing over him, THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.

³⁹And one of the evil-doers on the cross, with bitter feeling, said to him, Are you not the Christ? Get yourself and us out of this.

⁴⁰But the other, protesting, said, Have you no fear of God? for you have a part in the same punishment,

⁴¹And with reason; for we have the right reward of our acts, but this man has done nothing wrong.

⁴²And he said, Jesus, keep me in mind when you come in your kingdom.

⁴³And he said to him, Truly I say to you, Today you will be with me in Paradise.

⁴⁴And it was now about the sixth hour; and all the land was dark till the ninth hour;

⁴⁵The light of the sun went out, and the curtain in the Temple was parted in two.

⁴⁶And Jesus gave a loud cry and said, Father, into your hands I give my spirit: and when he had said this, he gave up his spirit.

⁴⁷And when the captain saw what was done, he gave praise to God, saying, Without doubt this was an upright man.

⁴⁸And all the people who had come together to see it, when they saw the things which were done, went back again making signs of grief.

⁴⁹And all his friends and the women who came with him from Galilee, were waiting at a distance, watching these things.

⁵⁰Now there was a man named Joseph, a man of authority and a good and upright man

⁵¹(He had not given his approval to their decision or their acts), of Arimathaea, a town of the Jews, who was waiting for the kingdom of God:

⁵²This man went to Pilate and made a request for the body of Jesus.

⁵³And he took it down, and folding it in a linen cloth, he put it in a place cut in the rock for a dead body; and no one had ever been put in it.

⁵⁴Now it was the day of making ready and the Sabbath was coming on.

⁵⁵And the women who had come with him from Galilee went after him and saw the place and how his body had been put to rest;

⁵⁶And they went back and got ready spices and perfumes; and on the Sabbath they took their rest, in agreement with the law.

24But on the first day of the week, at dawn, they came to the place where his body had been put, taking the spices which they had got ready.

²And they saw that the stone had been rolled away.

³And they went in, but the body of the Lord Jesus was not there.

⁴And while they were in doubt about it, they saw two men in shining clothing by them:

⁵And while their faces were bent down to the earth in fear, these said to them, Why are you looking for the living among the dead?

⁶He is not here, he has come back to life: have in mind what he said to you when he was still in Galilee, saying,

⁷The Son of man will be given up into the hands of evil-doers, and be put to death on the cross, and on the third day he will come back to life.

⁸And his words came back into their minds,

⁹And they went away from that place and gave an account of all these things to the eleven disciples and all the others.

¹⁰Now they were Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary, the mother of James: and the other women with them said these things to the Apostles.

¹¹But these words seemed foolish to them, and they had no belief in them.

¹²But Peter got up and went to the place where the body had been put, and looking in he saw nothing but the linen cloths, and he went to his house full of wonder at what had taken place.

¹³And then, two of them, on that very day, were going to a little town named Emmaus, which was about seven miles from Jerusalem.

¹⁴And they were talking together about all those things which had taken place.

¹⁵And while they were talking and questioning together, Jesus himself came near and went with them.

¹⁶But their eyes were not open that they might have knowledge of him.

¹⁷And he said to them, What are you talking about together while you go?

¹⁸Then stopping, and looking sadly at him, one of them, named Cleopas, said to him, Are you the only man living in Jerusalem who has not had news of the things which have taken place there at this time?

¹⁹And he said to them, What things? And they said, The things to do with Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet, great in his acts and his words, before God and all the people:

²⁰And how the chief priests and our rulers gave him up to be put to death on the cross.

²¹But we were hoping that he would be the Saviour of Israel. In addition to all this he has now let three days go by from the time when these things took place;

²²And certain women among us gave us cause for wonder, for they went early to the place where his body had been put,

²³And it was not there; then they came saying that they had seen a vision of angels who said that he was living.

²⁴And some of those who were with us went to the place, and saw that it was as the women had said, but him they did not see.

²⁵And he said, O foolish men! how slow you are to give belief to what the prophets have said.

²⁶Was it not necessary for the Christ to go through these things, and to come into his glory?

²⁷And he made clear to them all the things in the Writings, from Moses and from all the prophets, which had to do with himself.

²⁸And they came near the town to which they were going, and he seemed as if he was going on;

²⁹But they kept him back, saying, Do not go, for evening is near, the day is almost gone. And he went in with them.

³⁰And when he was seated with them at table, he took the bread, and said words of blessing and, making division of it, he gave it to them.

³¹And then their eyes were open, and they had knowledge of him, but he went from their view.

³²And they said to one another, Were not our hearts burning in us while he was talking to us on the way, making clear to us the holy Writings?

³³And that very hour they got up and went back to Jerusalem, where the eleven and the others had come together.

³⁴And they said to them, The Lord has truly come back to life again, and Simon has seen him.

³⁵And they gave an account of the things which had taken place on the way, and how, when he gave them bread, they had knowledge of him.

³⁶And while they were saying these things, he himself was among them, and said to them, Peace be with you!

³⁷But they were full of fear, being of the opinion that they were seeing a spirit.

³⁸And he said to them, Why are you troubled, and why are your hearts full of doubt?

³⁹See; my hands and my feet: it is I myself; put your hands on me and make certain; for a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see that I have.

⁴⁰And when he had said this, he let them see his hands and his feet.

⁴¹And because, for joy and wonder, they were still in doubt, he said to them, Have you any food here?

⁴²And they gave him a bit of cooked fish.

⁴³And before their eyes he took a meal.

⁴⁴And he said to them, These are the words which I said to you when I was still with you, how it was necessary for all the things which are in the writings of Moses and the prophets and in the Psalms about me, to be put into effect.

⁴⁵Then he made the holy Writings clear to their minds.

⁴⁶And he said to them, So it is in the Writings that the Christ would undergo death, and come back to life again on the third day;

⁴⁷And that teaching about a change of heart and forgiveness of sins is to be given to Jerusalem first and to all nations in his name.

⁴⁸You are witnesses of these things.

⁴⁹And now I will send to you what my father has undertaken to give you, but do not go from the town, till the power from heaven comes to you.

⁵⁰And he took them out till they were near Bethany, and lifting up his hands, he gave them a blessing.

⁵¹And while he was doing so, he went from them and was taken up into heaven.

⁵²And they gave him worship and went back to Jerusalem with great joy.

⁵³And they were in the Temple at all times, giving praise to God.

1From the first he was the Word, and the Word was in relation with God and was God.

²This Word was from the first in relation with God.

³All things came into existence through him, and without him nothing was.

⁴What came into existence in him was life, and the life was the light of men.

⁵And the light goes on shining in the dark; it is not overcome by the dark.

⁶There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.

⁷He came for witness, to give witness about the light, so that all men might have faith through him.

⁸He himself was not the light: he was sent to give witness about the light.

⁹The true light, which gives light to every man, was then coming into the world.

¹⁰He was in the world, the world which came into being through him, but the world had no knowledge of him.

¹¹He came to the things which were his and his people did not take him to their hearts.

¹²To all those who did so take him, however, he gave the right of becoming children of God--that is, to those who had faith in his name:

¹³Whose birth was from God and not from blood, or from an impulse of the flesh and man's desire.

¹⁴And so the Word became flesh and took a place among us for a time; and we saw his glory--such glory as is given to an only son by his father--saw it to be true and full of grace.

¹⁵John gave witness about him, crying, This is he of whom I said, He who is coming after me is put over me because he was in existence before me.

¹⁶From his full measure we have all been given grace on grace.

¹⁷For the law was given through Moses; grace and the true way of life are ours through Jesus Christ.

¹⁸No man has seen God at any time; the only Son, who is on the breast of the Father, he has made clear what God is.

¹⁹And this is the witness of John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to him with the question, Who are you?

²⁰He said quite openly and straightforwardly, I am not the Christ.

²¹And they said to him, What then? Are you Elijah? And he said, I am not. Are you the prophet? And his answer was, I am not.

²²So they said to him, Who are you then? We have to give some answer to those who sent us. What have you to say about yourself?

²³He said, I am the voice of one crying in the waste land, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said Isaiah the prophet.

²⁴Those who had been sent came from the Pharisees.

²⁵And they put this question to him, saying, Why then are you giving baptism if you are not the Christ, or Elijah, or the prophet?

²⁶John's answer was: I give baptism with water; but there is one among you of whom you have no knowledge;

²⁷It is he who is coming after me; I am not good enough to undo his shoes.

²⁸These things took place at Bethany on the other side of the Jordan, where John was giving baptism.

²⁹The day after, John sees Jesus coming to him and says, See, here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!

³⁰This is he of whom I said, One is coming after me who is put over me because he was in existence before me.

³¹I myself had no knowledge of him, but I came giving baptism with water so that he might be seen openly by Israel.

³²And John gave this witness, saying, I saw the Spirit coming down from heaven like a dove and resting on him.

³³I had no knowledge who he was, but he who sent me to give baptism with water said to me, The one on whom you see the Spirit coming down and resting, it is he who gives baptism with the Holy Spirit.

³⁴This I saw myself and my witness is that he is the Son of God.

³⁵The day after, John was there again with two of his disciples;

³⁶And looking at Jesus while he was walking he said, See, there is the Lamb of God!

³⁷Hearing what he said, the two disciples went after Jesus.

³⁸And Jesus, turning round, saw them coming after him and said to them, What are you looking for? They said to him, Rabbi (which is to say, Master), where are you living?

³⁹He said to them, Come and see. They went with him then and saw where he was living; and they were with him all that day: it was then about the tenth hour of the day.

⁴⁰Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, was one of the two men who, hearing what John said, went after Jesus.

⁴¹Early in the morning he came across his brother and said to him, We have made discovery! It is the Messiah! (which is to say, the Christ).

⁴²And he took him to Jesus. Looking at him fixedly Jesus said, You are Simon, the son of John; your name will be Cephas (which is to say, Peter).

⁴³The day after this, Jesus had a desire to go into Galilee. He came across Philip and said to him, Come and be my disciple.

⁴⁴Now Philip's town was Beth-saida, where Andrew and Peter came from.

⁴⁵Philip came across Nathanael and said to him, We have made a discovery! It is he of whom Moses, in the law, and the prophets were writing, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.

⁴⁶Nazareth! said Nathanael, Is it possible for any good to come out of Nazareth? Philip said to him, Come and see.

⁴⁷Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him and said of him, See, here is a true son of Israel in whom there is nothing false.

⁴⁸Nathanael said to him, Where did you get knowledge of me? In answer Jesus said, Before Philip was talking with you, while you were still under the fig-tree, I saw you.

⁴⁹Nathanael said to him, Rabbi, you are the Son of God, you are King of Israel!

⁵⁰In answer Jesus said to him, You have faith because I said to you, I saw you under the fig-tree. You will see greater things than these.

⁵¹And he said to him, Truly I say to you all, You will see heaven opening and God's angels going up and coming down on the Son of man.

2On the third day two people were going to be married at Cana in Galilee. The mother of Jesus was there:

²And Jesus with his disciples came as guests.

³When they had not enough wine, the mother of Jesus said to him, They have no wine.

⁴Jesus said to her, Woman, this is not your business; my time is still to come.

⁵His mother said to the servants, Whatever he says to you, do it.

⁶Now six pots of stone, every one taking two or three firkins of water, were placed there for the purpose of washing, as is the way of the Jews.

⁷Jesus said to the servants, Make the pots full of water. And they made them full to the top.

⁸Then he said to them, Now take some, and give it to the master of the feast. So they took it to him.

⁹After tasting the water which had now become wine, the master of the feast (having no idea where it came from, though it was clear to the servants who took the water out) sent for the newly-married man,

¹⁰And said to him, Every man first puts out his best wine and when all have had enough he puts out what is not so good; but you have kept the good wine till now.

¹¹This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee and let his glory be seen openly; and his disciples put their faith in him.

¹²After this he went down to Capernaum, with his mother, his brothers, and his disciples, and they were there not more than two or three days.

¹³The time of the Passover of the Jews was near and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

¹⁴And there in the Temple he saw men trading in oxen and sheep and doves, and he saw the changers of money in their seats:

¹⁵And he made a whip of small cords and put them all out of the Temple, with the sheep and the oxen, sending in all directions the small money of the changers and overturning their tables;

¹⁶And to those who were trading in doves he said, Take these things away; do not make my Father's house a market.

¹⁷And it came to the minds of the disciples that the Writings say, I am on fire with passion for your house.

¹⁸Then the Jews put this question to him: What sign of authority have you to give us, seeing that you do these things?

¹⁹And Jesus said to them, Send destruction on this Temple and I will put it up again in three days.

²⁰The Jews said, The building of this Temple took forty-six years; and you will put it up in three days!

²¹But his words were about that holy building which was his body.

²²So when he had come back again from the dead, the memory of these words came back to the disciples, and they had faith in the holy Writings and in the word which Jesus had said.

²³Now while he was in Jerusalem at the feast of the Passover, a great number of people came to have faith in his name, after seeing the signs which he did.

²⁴But Jesus did not have faith in them, because he had knowledge of them all.

²⁵He had no need for any witness about man; for he himself had knowledge of what was in man.

3Now there was among the Pharisees a man named Nicodemus, who was one of the rulers of the Jews.

²He came to Jesus by night and said to him, Rabbi, we are certain that you have come from God as a teacher, because no man would be able to do these signs which you do if God was not with him.

³Jesus said to him, Truly, I say to you, Without a new birth no man is able to see the kingdom of God.

⁴Nicodemus said to him, How is it possible for a man to be given birth when he is old? Is he able to go into his mother's body a second time and come to birth again?

⁵Jesus said in answer, Truly, I say to you, If a man's birth is not from water and from the Spirit, it is not possible for him to go into the kingdom of God.

⁶That which has birth from the flesh is flesh, and that which has birth from the Spirit is spirit.

⁷Do not be surprised that I say to you, It is necessary for you to have a second birth.

⁸The wind goes where its pleasure takes it, and the sound of it comes to your ears, but you are unable to say where it comes from and where it goes: so it is with everyone whose birth is from the Spirit.

⁹And Nicodemus said to him, How is it possible for these things to be?

¹⁰And Jesus, answering, said, Are you the teacher of Israel and have no knowledge of these things?

¹¹Truly, I say to you, We say that of which we have knowledge; we give witness of what we have seen; and you do not take our witness to be true.

¹²If you have no belief when my words are about the things of earth, how will you have belief if my words are about the things of heaven?

¹³And no one has ever gone up to heaven but he who came down from heaven, the Son of man.

¹⁴As the snake was lifted up by Moses in the waste land, even so it is necessary for the Son of man to be lifted up:

¹⁵So that whoever has faith may have in him eternal life.

¹⁶For God had such love for the world that he gave his only Son, so that whoever has faith in him may not come to destruction but have eternal life.

¹⁷God did not send his Son into the world to be judge of the world; he sent him so that the world might have salvation through him.

¹⁸The man who has faith in him does not come up to be judged; but he who has no faith in him has been judged even now, because he has no faith in the name of the only Son of God.

¹⁹And this is the test by which men are judged: the light has come into the world and men have more love for the dark than for the light, because their acts are evil.

²⁰The light is hated by everyone whose acts are evil and he does not come to the light for fear that his acts will be seen.

²¹But he whose life is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his acts have been done by the help of God.

²²After these things Jesus and his disciples went into the land of Judaea, and there he was with them for some time, giving baptism.

²³Now John was then giving baptism at Aenon near Salim, because there was much water there; and people came and were given baptism.

²⁴For at this time John had not been put into prison.

²⁵Then a question came up between John's disciples and a Jew about washing.

²⁶And they went to John and said to him, Rabbi, the man who was with you on the other side of the Jordan, the man to whom you gave witness, is now giving baptism, and everyone is going to him.

²⁷And this was John's answer: A man is unable to have anything if it is not given to him from heaven.

²⁸You yourselves give witness that I said, I am not the Christ. What I said was, I am sent before the Christ.

²⁹He who has the bride is the husband: but the husband's friend, whose place is by his side and whose ears are open to him, is full of joy because of the husband's voice: such is my joy, and it is complete.

³⁰He has to become greater while I become less.

³¹He who comes from heaven is greater than all others: he who comes from earth is of the earth, and of the earth are his words: he who comes from heaven is over all.

³²He gives witness of what he has seen and of what has come to his ears; and no man takes his witness as true.

³³He who so takes his witness has made clear his faith that God is true.

³⁴For he whom God has sent says God's words; and God does not give him the Spirit by measure.

³⁵The Father has love for the Son and has put all things into his hands.

³⁶He who has faith in the Son has eternal life; but he who has not faith in the Son will not see life; God's wrath is resting on him.

4Now when it was clear to the Lord that word had come to the ears of the Pharisees that Jesus was making more disciples than John and was giving them baptism

²(Though, in fact, it was his disciples who gave baptism, not Jesus himself),

³He went out of Judaea into Galilee again.

⁴And it was necessary for him to go through Samaria.

⁵So he came to a town of Samaria which was named Sychar, near to the bit of land which Jacob gave to his son Joseph:

⁶Now Jacob's fountain was there. Jesus, being tired after his journey, was resting by the fountain. It was about the sixth hour.

⁷A woman of Samaria came to get water, and Jesus said to her, Give me some water.

⁸For his disciples had gone to the town to get food.

⁹The woman of Samaria said to him, Why do you, a Jew, make a request for water to me, a woman of Samaria? She said this because Jews have nothing to do with the people of Samaria.

¹⁰In answer Jesus said, If you had knowledge of what God gives freely and who it is who says to you, Give me water, you would make your prayer to him, and he would give you living water.

¹¹The woman said to him, Sir, you have no vessel and the fountain is deep; from where will you get the living water?

¹²Are you greater than our father Jacob who gave us the fountain and took the water of it himself, with his children and his cattle?

¹³Jesus said to her, Everyone who takes this water will be in need of it again:

¹⁴But whoever takes the water I give him will never be in need of drink again; for the water I give him will become in him a fountain of eternal life.

¹⁵The woman said to him, Sir, give me this water, so that I may not be in need again of drink and will not have to come all this way for it.

¹⁶Jesus said to her, Go, get your husband and come back here with him.

¹⁷In answer, the woman said, I have no husband. Jesus said to her, You have said rightly, I have no husband:

¹⁸You have had five husbands, and the man you have now is not your husband: that was truly said.

¹⁹The woman said to him, Sir, I see that you are a prophet.

²⁰Our fathers gave worship on this mountain, but you Jews say that the right place for worship is in Jerusalem.

²¹Jesus said to her, Woman, take my word for this; the time is coming when you will not give worship to the Father on this mountain or in Jerusalem.

²²You give worship, but without knowledge of what you are worshipping: we give worship to what we have knowledge of: for salvation comes from the Jews.

²³But the time is coming, and is even now here, when the true worshippers will give worship to the Father in the true way of the spirit, for these are the worshippers desired by the Father.

²⁴God is Spirit: then let his worshippers give him worship in the true way of the spirit.

²⁵The woman said to him, I am certain that the Messiah, who is named Christ, is coming; when he comes he will make all things clear to us.

²⁶Jesus said to her, I, who am talking to you, am he.

²⁷At that point the disciples came back, and they were surprised to see him talking to a woman; but not one of them said to him, What is your purpose? or, Why are you talking to her?

²⁸Then the woman put down her water-pot and went into the town, and said to the people,

²⁹Come and see a man who has been talking to me of everything I ever did! Is it possible that this is the Christ?

³⁰So they went out of the town and came to him.

³¹While this was taking place, the disciples were saying to Jesus, Master, take some food.

³²But he said to them, I have food of which you have no knowledge.

³³So the disciples said one to another, Did anyone give him food?

³⁴Jesus said, My food is to do the pleasure of him who sent me and to make his work complete.

³⁵You would say, Four months from now is the time of the grain-cutting. Take a look, I say to you, at the fields; they are even now white for cutting.

³⁶He who does the cutting now has his reward; he is getting together fruit for eternal life, so that he who did the planting and he who gets in the grain may have joy together.

³⁷In this the saying is a true one, One does the planting, and another gets in the grain.

³⁸I sent you to get in grain which you had no hand in planting: other men did that work, and you take the reward.

³⁹Now a number of the people of that town had faith in him because of the woman's witness: He has been talking to me of everything I ever did.

⁴⁰So when the people came to him they made request to him to be among them for a time, and he was there two days.

⁴¹And a great number more of them came to have faith in him because of what he himself said.

⁴²And they said to the woman, Now we have faith, but not because of your story: we ourselves have given ear to his words, and we are certain that he is truly the Saviour of the world.

⁴³And after the two days he went on from there into Galilee.

⁴⁴For Jesus himself said that a prophet has no honour in the country of his birth.

⁴⁵So when he came into Galilee, the Galilaeans took him to their hearts because of the things which they had seen him do in Jerusalem at the feast--they themselves having been there at the feast.

⁴⁶So he came to Cana in Galilee, where he had made the water wine. And there was a certain man of high position whose son was ill at Capernaum.

⁴⁷When it came to his ears that Jesus had come from Judaea into Galilee, he went to him and made a request that he would come down to his son, who was near to death, and make him well.

⁴⁸Then Jesus said to him, You will not have faith if you do not see signs and wonders.

⁴⁹The man said, Sir, come down before my boy is dead.

⁵⁰And Jesus said, Go in peace; your son is living. The man had faith in the word which Jesus said to him and went away.

⁵¹And while he was going down, his servants came to him and said, Your boy is living.

⁵²So he put a question to them as to the hour when he became better; and they said to him, The disease went from him yesterday at the seventh hour.

⁵³It was clear then to the father that this was the very time at which Jesus said to him, Your son is living. And he had faith in Jesus, he and all his family.

⁵⁴Now this is the second sign which Jesus did after he had come out of Judaea into Galilee.

5After these things there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

²Now in Jerusalem near the sheep-market there is a public bath which in Hebrew is named Beth-zatha. It has five doorways.

³In these doorways there were a great number of people with different diseases: some unable to see, some without the power of walking, some with wasted bodies.

⁴[]

⁵One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years.

⁶When Jesus saw him there on the floor it was clear to him that he had been now a long time in that condition, and so he said to the man, Is it your desire to get well?

⁷The ill man said in answer, Sir, I have nobody to put me into the bath when the water is moving; and while I am on the way down some other person gets in before me.

⁸Jesus said to him, Get up, take your bed and go.

⁹And the man became well straight away, and took up his bed and went. Now that day was the Sabbath.

¹⁰So the Jews said to the man who had been made well, It is the Sabbath; and it is against the law for you to take up your bed.

¹¹He said to them, But he who made me well, said to me, Take up your bed and go.

¹²Then they put to him the question: Who is the man who said to you, Take it up and go?

¹³Now he who had been made well had no knowledge who it was, Jesus having gone away because of the number of people who were in that place.

¹⁴After a time Jesus came across him in the Temple and said to him, See, you are well and strong; do no more sin for fear a worse thing comes to you.

¹⁵The man went away and said to the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.

¹⁶And for this reason the Jews were turned against Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath.

¹⁷But his answer was: My Father is still working even now, and so I am working.

¹⁸For this cause the Jews had an even greater desire to put Jesus to death, because not only did he not keep the Sabbath but he said God was his Father, so making himself equal with God.

¹⁹So Jesus made answer and said, Truly I say to you, The Son is not able to do anything himself; he is able to do only what he sees the Father doing; whatever the Father does the Son does it in the same way.

²⁰For the Father has love for the Son and lets him see everything which he does: and he will let him see greater works than these so that you may be full of wonder.

²¹In the same way, as the Father gives life to the dead, even so the Son gives life to those to whom he is pleased to give it.

²²The Father is not the judge of men, but he has given all decisions into the hands of the Son;

²³So that all men may give honour to the Son even as they give honour to the Father. He who gives no honour to the Son gives no honour to the Father who sent him.

²⁴Truly I say to you, The man whose ears are open to my word and who has faith in him who sent me, has eternal life; he will not be judged, but has come from death into life.

²⁵Truly I say to you, The time is coming, it has even now come, when the voice of the Son of God will come to the ears of the dead, and those hearing it will have life.

²⁶For even as the Father has life in himself, so he has given to the Son to have life in himself.

²⁷And he has given him authority to be judge because he is the Son of man.

²⁸Do not be surprised at this: for the time is coming when his voice will come to all who are in the place of the dead,

²⁹And they will come out; those who have done good, into the new life; and those who have done evil, to be judged.

³⁰Of myself I am unable to do anything: as the voice comes to me so I give a decision: and my decision is right because I have no desire to do what is pleasing to myself, but only what is pleasing to him who sent me.

³¹If I gave witness about myself, my witness would not be true.

³²There is another who gives witness about me and I am certain that the witness he gives about me is true.

³³You sent to John and he gave true witness.

³⁴But I have no need of a man's witness: I only say these things so that you may have salvation.

³⁵He was a burning and shining light, and for a time you were ready to be happy in his light.

³⁶But the witness which I have is greater than that of John: the work which the Father has given me to do, the very work which I am now doing, is a witness that the Father has sent me.

³⁷And the Father himself who sent me has given witness about me. Not one of you has ever given ear to his voice; his form you have not seen.

³⁸And you have not kept his word in your hearts, because you have not faith in him whom he has sent.

³⁹You make search in the holy Writings, in the belief that through them you get eternal life; and it is those Writings which give witness about me.

⁴⁰And still you have no desire to come to me so that you may have life.

⁴¹I do not take honour from men;

⁴²But I have knowledge of you that you have no love for God in your hearts.

⁴³I have come in my Father's name, and your hearts are not open to me. If another comes with no other authority but himself, you will give him your approval.

⁴⁴How is it possible for you to have faith while you take honour one from another and have no desire for the honour which comes from the only God?

⁴⁵Put out of your minds the thought that I will say things against you to the Father: the one who says things against you is Moses, on whom you put your hopes.

⁴⁶If you had belief in Moses you would have belief in me; for his writings are about me.

⁴⁷If you have no belief in his writings, how will you have belief in my words?

6After these things Jesus went away to the other side of the sea of Galilee--that is, the sea of Tiberias.

²And a great number of people went after him because they saw the signs which he did on those who were ill.

³Then Jesus went up the mountain and was seated there with his disciples.

⁴Now the Passover, a feast of the Jews, was near.

⁵Lifting up his eyes, Jesus saw a great number of people coming to where he was, and he said to Philip, Where may we get bread for all these people?

⁶This he said, testing him: for he had no doubt what he himself would do.

⁷Philip made answer, Bread to the value of two hundred pence would not be enough even to give everyone a little.

⁸One of his disciples, Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, said to Jesus,

⁹There is a boy here with five barley cakes and two fishes: but what is that among such a number?

¹⁰Jesus said, Let the people be seated. Now there was much grass in that place. And those seated on the grass were about five thousand.

¹¹Then Jesus took the cakes and having given praise to God, he gave them to the people who were seated, and the fishes in the same way, as much as they had need of.

¹²And when they had had enough, Jesus said to his disciples, Take up the broken bits which are over, so that nothing may be wasted.

¹³So they took them up: twelve baskets full of broken bits of the five cakes which were over after the people had had enough.

¹⁴And when the people saw the sign which he had done, they said, Truly, this is the prophet who is to come into the world.

¹⁵Now when Jesus saw that the people were about to come and take him by force to make him a king, he went away again up the mountain by himself.

¹⁶When evening came the disciples went down to the sea;

¹⁷And they took a boat and went across the sea in the direction of Capernaum. By then it was dark and still Jesus had not come to them.

¹⁸The sea was getting rough because of a strong wind which was blowing.

¹⁹After they had gone three or four miles they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near to the boat; and they had great fear.

²⁰But he said to them, It is I, have no fear.

²¹Then they readily took him into the boat: and straight away the boat was at the land to which they were going.

²²The day after, the people who were on the other side of the sea saw that only one small boat had been there, that Jesus had not gone in that boat with the disciples, but that the disciples had gone away by themselves.

²³Some other boats, however, came from Tiberias near to the place where they had taken the bread after the Lord had given praise.

²⁴So when the people saw that Jesus was not there, or his disciples, they got into those boats and went over to Capernaum looking for Jesus.

²⁵And when they came across him on the other side of the sea they said, Rabbi, when did you come here?

²⁶Jesus, answering them, said, Truly I say to you, You come after me, not because you saw signs, but because you were given the bread and had enough.

²⁷Let your work not be for the food which comes to an end, but for the food which goes on for eternal life, which the Son of man will give to you, for on him has God the Father put his mark.

²⁸Then they said to him, How may we do the works of God?

²⁹Jesus, answering, said to them, This is to do the work of God: to have faith in him whom God has sent.

³⁰So they said, What sign do you give us, so that we may see and have faith in you? What do you do?

³¹Our fathers had the manna in the waste land, as the Writings say, He gave them bread from heaven.

³²Jesus then said to them, Truly I say to you, What Moses gave you was not the bread from heaven; it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven.

³³The bread of God is the bread which comes down out of heaven and gives life to the world.

³⁴Ah, Lord, they said, give us that bread for ever!

³⁵And this was the answer of Jesus: I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never be in need of food, and he who has faith in me will never be in need of drink.

³⁶But it is as I said to you: you have seen me, and still you have no faith.

³⁷Whatever the Father gives to me will come to me; and I will not send away anyone who comes to me.

³⁸For I have come down from heaven, not to do my pleasure, but the pleasure of him who sent me.

³⁹And this is the pleasure of him who sent me, that I am not to let out of my hands anything which he has given me, but I am to give it new life on the last day.

⁴⁰This, I say, is my Father's pleasure, that everyone who sees the Son and has faith in him may have eternal life: and I will take him up on the last day.

⁴¹Now the Jews said bitter things about Jesus because of his words, I am the bread which came down from heaven.

⁴²And they said, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we have seen? How is it then that he now says, I have come down from heaven?

⁴³Jesus made answer and said, Do not say things against me, one to another.

⁴⁴No man is able to come to me if the Father who sent me does not give him the desire to come: and I will take him up from the dead on the last day.

⁴⁵The writings of the prophets say, And they will all have teaching from God. Everyone whose ears have been open to the teaching of the Father comes to me.

⁴⁶Not that anyone has ever seen the Father; only he who is from God, he has seen the Father.

⁴⁷Truly I say to you, He who has faith in me has eternal life.

⁴⁸I am the bread of life.

⁴⁹Your fathers took the manna in the waste land--and they are dead.

⁵⁰The bread which comes from heaven is such bread that a man may take it for food and never see death.

⁵¹I am the living bread which has come from heaven: if any man takes this bread for food he will have life for ever: and more than this, the bread which I will give is my flesh which I will give for the life of the world.

⁵²Then the Jews had an angry discussion among themselves, saying, How is it possible for this man to give us his flesh for food?

⁵³Then Jesus said to them, Truly I say to you, If you do not take the flesh of the Son of man for food, and if you do not take his blood for drink, you have no life in you.

⁵⁴He who takes my flesh for food and my blood for drink has eternal life: and I will take him up from the dead at the last day.

⁵⁵My flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.

⁵⁶He who takes my flesh for food and my blood for drink is in me and I in him.

⁵⁷As the living Father has sent me, and I have life because of the Father, even so he who takes me for his food will have life because of me.

⁵⁸This is the bread which has come down from heaven. It is not like the food which your fathers had: they took of the manna, and are dead; but he who takes this bread for food will have life for ever.

⁵⁹Jesus said these things in the Synagogue while he was teaching at Capernaum.

⁶⁰Then, hearing this, a number of his disciples said, This is a hard saying; who is able to take in such teaching?

⁶¹When Jesus became conscious that his disciples were protesting about what he said, he said to them, Does this give you trouble?

⁶²What then will you say if you see the Son of man going up to where he was before?

⁶³The spirit is the life giver; the flesh is of no value: the words which I have said to you are spirit and they are life.

⁶⁴But still some of you have no faith. For it was clear to Jesus from the first who they were who had no faith, and who it was who would be false to him.

⁶⁵And he said, This is why I said to you, No man is able to come to me if he is not given the power to do so by the Father.

⁶⁶Because of what he said, a number of the disciples went back and would no longer go with him.

⁶⁷So Jesus said to the twelve, Have you a desire to go away?

⁶⁸Then Simon Peter gave this answer: Lord, to whom are we to go? you have the words of eternal life;

⁶⁹And we have faith and are certain that you are the Holy One of God.

⁷⁰Then Jesus said, Did I not make a selection of you, the twelve, and one of you is a son of the Evil One?

⁷¹He was talking of Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. It was he who was to be false to Jesus--one of the twelve.

7After this, Jesus went from place to place in Galilee. He did not go about in Judaea, because the Jews were looking for a chance to put him to death.

²But the feast of the Jews, the feast of tents, was near.

³So his brothers said to him, Go away from here into Judaea so that your disciples may see the works which you do.

⁴Because no man does things secretly if he has a desire that men may have knowledge of him. If you do these things, let yourself be seen by all men.

⁵For even his brothers had no belief in him.

⁶Jesus said to them, My time is still to come, but any time is good for you.

⁷It is not possible for you to be hated by the world; but I am hated by it, because I give witness that what it does is evil.

⁸Go you up to the feast: I am not going up now to the feast because my time has not fully come.

⁹Having said these things to them, he still kept in Galilee.

¹⁰But after his brothers had gone up to the feast, then he went up, not publicly, but in secret.

¹¹At the feast the Jews were looking for him and saying, Where is he?

¹²And there was much discussion about him among the mass of the people. Some said, He is a good man; but others said, No, he is giving people false ideas.

¹³But no man said anything about him openly for fear of the Jews.

¹⁴Now in the middle of the feast Jesus went up to the Temple and was teaching.

¹⁵Then the Jews were surprised and said, How has this man got knowledge of books? He has never been to school.

¹⁶Jesus gave them this answer: It is not my teaching, but his who sent me.

¹⁷If any man is ready to do God's pleasure he will have knowledge of the teaching and of where it comes from--from God or from myself.

¹⁸The man whose words come from himself is looking for glory for himself, but he who is looking for the glory of him who sent him--that man is true and there is no evil in him.

¹⁹Did not Moses give you the law? Even so, not one of you keeps the law. Why have you a desire to put me to death?

²⁰The people said in answer, You have an evil spirit: who has any desire to put you to death?

²¹This was the answer of Jesus: I have done one work and you are all surprised at it.

²²Moses gave you circumcision--not that it comes from Moses, but from the fathers--and even on the Sabbath you give a child circumcision.

²³If a child is given circumcision on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses may not be broken, why are you angry with me because I made a man completely well on the Sabbath?

²⁴Let not your decisions be based on what you see, but on righteousness.

²⁵Then some of the people of Jerusalem said, Is not this the man whose death is desired?

²⁶And here he is talking openly and they say nothing to him! Is it possible that the rulers have knowledge that this is truly the Christ?

²⁷However, it is clear to us where this man comes from: but when the Christ comes no one will have knowledge where he comes from.

²⁸Then, when he was teaching in the Temple, Jesus said with a loud voice, You have knowledge of me and you have knowledge of where I come from; and I have not come of myself; but there is One who has sent me; he is true, but you have no knowledge of him.

²⁹I have knowledge of him because I came from him and he sent me.

³⁰Then they had a desire to take him: but no man put hands on him because his hour was still to come.

³¹And numbers of the people had belief in him, and they said, When the Christ comes will he do more signs than this man has done?

³²This discussion of the people came to the ears of the Pharisees; and the chief priests and the Pharisees sent servants to take him.

³³Then Jesus said, I will be with you a little longer and then I go to him who sent me.

³⁴You will be looking for me, and you will not see me: and where I am you may not come.

³⁵So the Jews said among themselves, To what place is he going where we will not see him? will he go to the Jews living among the Greeks and become the teacher of the Greeks?

³⁶What is this saying of his, You will be looking for me and will not see me, and where I am you may not come?

³⁷On the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus got up and said in a loud voice, If any man is in need of drink let him come to me and I will give it to him.

³⁸He who has faith in me, out of his body, as the Writings have said, will come rivers of living water.

³⁹This he said of the Spirit which would be given to those who had faith in him: the Spirit had not been given then, because the glory of Jesus was still to come.

⁴⁰When these words came to their ears, some of the people said, This is certainly the prophet.

⁴¹Others said, This is the Christ. But others said, Not so; will the Christ come from Galilee?

⁴²Do not the Writings say that the Christ comes of the seed of David and from Beth-lehem, the little town where David was?

⁴³So there was a division among the people because of him.

⁴⁴And some of them had a desire to take him; but no man put hands on him.

⁴⁵Then the servants went back to the chief priests and Pharisees, who said to them, Why have you not got him with you?

⁴⁶The servants made answer, No man ever said things like this man.

⁴⁷Then the Pharisees said to them, Have you, like the others, been given false ideas?

⁴⁸Have any of the rulers belief in him, or any one of the Pharisees?

⁴⁹But these people who have no knowledge of the law are cursed.

⁵⁰Nicodemus--he who had come to Jesus before, being himself one of them--said to them,

⁵¹Is a man judged by our law before it has given him a hearing and has knowledge of what he has done?

⁵²This was their answer: And do you come from Galilee? Make search and you will see that no prophet comes out of Galilee.

⁵³[And every man went to his house;

8But Jesus went to the Mountain of Olives.

²And early in the morning he came again into the Temple and all the people came to him and he was seated teaching them.

³Now the scribes and Pharisees came, with a woman who had been taken in the act of sinning against the married relation;

⁴And putting her forward, they said to him, Master, this woman has been taken in the very act of sinning against the married relation.

⁵Now in the law Moses gave directions that such women were to be stoned; what do you say about it?

⁶They said this, testing him, so that they might have something against him. But Jesus, with his head bent down, made letters on the floor with his finger.

⁷But when they went on with their questions, he got up and said to them, Let him among you who is without sin be the first to send a stone at her.

⁸And again, with bent head, he made letters on the floor.

⁹And when his words came to their ears, they went out one by one, starting with the oldest even to the last, because they were conscious of what was in their hearts: and Jesus was there by himself with the woman before him.

¹⁰Then Jesus got up, and seeing nobody but the woman, he said to her, Where are the men who said things against you? did no one give a decision against you?

¹¹And she said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said, And I do not give a decision against you: go, and never do wrong again.]

¹²Then again Jesus said to them, I am the light of the world; he who comes with me will not be walking in the dark but will have the light of life.

¹³So the Pharisees said to him, The witness you give is about yourself: your witness is not true.

¹⁴Jesus said in answer, Even if I give witness about myself, my witness is true, because I have knowledge of where I came from and where I am going; but you have no knowledge of where I come from or of where I am going.

¹⁵You are judging from what you see; I am judging no man.

¹⁶Even if I am judging, my decision is right, because I am not by myself--with me is the Father who sent me.

¹⁷Even in your law it is said that the witness of two men is true.

¹⁸I give witness about myself and the Father who sent me gives witness about me.

¹⁹Then they said to him, Where is your Father? Jesus said in answer, You have no knowledge of me or of my Father: if you had knowledge of me you would have knowledge of my Father.

²⁰Jesus said these words in the place where the offerings were stored, while he was teaching in the Temple: but no man took him because his time was still to come.

²¹Then he said to them again, I am going away and you will be looking for me, but death will overtake you in your sins. It is not possible for you to come where I am going.

²²So the Jews said, Will he take his life? Is that why he says, Where I go it is not possible for you to come?

²³And he said to them, You are of the earth; I am from heaven: you are of this world; I am not of this world.

²⁴For this reason I said to you that death will overtake you in your sins: for if you have not faith that I am he, death will come to you while you are in your sins.

²⁵Then they said to him, Who are you? Jesus said, What I said to you from the first.

²⁶I have much to say about you and against you: but he who sent me is true and what he has said to me I say to the world.

²⁷They did not see that his words were about the Father.

²⁸So Jesus said, When the Son of man has been lifted up by you, then it will be clear to you who I am, and that I do nothing of myself, but say as the Father gave me teaching.

²⁹He who sent me is with me; he has not gone from me, because at all times I do the things which are pleasing to him.

³⁰When he said this a number came to have faith in him.

³¹Then Jesus said to the Jews who had faith in him, If you keep my word, then you are truly my disciples;

³²And you will have knowledge of what is true, and that will make you free.

³³They said to him in answer, We are Abraham's seed and have never been any man's servant: why do you say, You will become free?

³⁴And this was the answer Jesus gave them: Truly I say to you, Everyone who does evil is the servant of sin.

³⁵Now the servant does not go on living in the house for ever, but the son does.

³⁶If then the son makes you free, you will be truly free.

³⁷I am conscious that you are Abraham's seed; but you have a desire to put me to death because my word has no place in you.

³⁸I say the things which I have seen in my Father's house: and you do the things which come to you from your father's house.

³⁹In answer they said to him, Our father is Abraham. Jesus said to them, If you were Abraham's children you would do what Abraham did.

⁴⁰But now you have a desire to put me to death, a man who has said to you what is true, as I had it from God: Abraham did not do that.

⁴¹You are doing the works of your father. They said to him, We are true sons of Abraham; we have one Father, who is God.

⁴²Jesus said to them, If God was your Father you would have love for me, because it was from God I came and am here. I did not come of myself, but he sent me.

⁴³Why are my words not clear to you? It is because your ears are shut to my teaching.

⁴⁴You are the children of your father the Evil One and it is your pleasure to do his desires. From the first he was a taker of life; and he did not go in the true way because there is no true thing in him. When he says what is false, it is natural to him, for he is false and the father of what is false.

⁴⁵But because I say what is true, you have no belief in me.

⁴⁶Which of you is able truly to say that I am a sinner? If I say what is true, why have you no belief in me?

⁴⁷He who is a child of God gives ear to the words of God: your ears are not open to them because you are not from God.

⁴⁸The Jews said to him in answer, Are we not right in saying that you are of Samaria and have an evil spirit?

⁴⁹And this was the answer of Jesus: I have not an evil spirit; but I give honour to my Father and you do not give honour to me.

⁵⁰I, however, am not in search of glory for myself: there is One who is searching for it and he is judge.

⁵¹Truly I say to you, If a man keeps my word he will never see death.

⁵²The Jews said to him, Now we are certain that you have an evil spirit. Abraham is dead, and the prophets are dead; and you say, If a man keeps my word he will never see death.

⁵³Are you greater than our father Abraham, who is dead? and the prophets are dead: who do you say that you are?

⁵⁴Jesus said in answer, If I take glory for myself, my glory is nothing: it is my Father who gives me glory, of whom you say that he is your God.

⁵⁵You have no knowledge of him, but I have knowledge of him; and if I said I have no knowledge of him I would be talking falsely like you: but I have full knowledge of him, and I keep his word.

⁵⁶Your father Abraham was full of joy at the hope of seeing my day: he saw it and was glad.

⁵⁷Then the Jews said to him, You are not fifty years old; have you seen Abraham?

⁵⁸Jesus said to them, Truly I say to you, Before Abraham came into being, I am.

⁵⁹So they took up stones to send at him: but Jesus got secretly out of their way and went out of the Temple.

9And when he went on his way, he saw a man blind from birth.

²And his disciples put a question to him, saying, Master, was it because of this man's sin, or the sin of his father and mother, that he has been blind from birth?

³Jesus said in answer, It was not because of his sin, or because of his father's or mother's; it was so that the works of God might be seen openly in him.

⁴While it is day we have to do the works of him who sent me: the night comes when no work may be done.

⁵As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.

⁶Having said these words, he put earth, mixed with water from his mouth, on the man's eyes,

⁷And said to him, Go and make yourself clean in the bath of Siloam (the sense of the name is, Sent). So he went away and, after washing, came back able to see.

⁸Then the neighbours and others who had seen him before in the street, with his hand out for money, said, Is not this the man who got money from people?

⁹Some said, It is he: others said, No, but he is like him. He said, I am he.

¹⁰So they said to him, How then were your eyes made open?

¹¹His answer was: The man who is named Jesus put earth mixed with water on my eyes, and said to me, Go and make yourself clean in Siloam: so I went away and, after washing, am now able to see.

¹²And they said to him, Where is he? His answer was: I have no knowledge.

¹³They took him before the Pharisees--this man who had been blind.

¹⁴Now the day on which the earth was mixed by Jesus and the man's eyes were made open was the Sabbath.

¹⁵So the Pharisees put more questions to him about how his eyes had been made open. And he said to them, He put earth on my eyes, and I had a wash and am able to see.

¹⁶Then some of the Pharisees said, That man has not come from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath. Others said, How is it possible for a sinner to do such signs? So there was a division among them.

¹⁷Again they said to the blind man, What have you to say about him for opening your eyes? And he said, He is a prophet.

¹⁸Now the Jews had no belief in the statement that he had been blind and was now able to see, till they sent for the father and mother of the man whose eyes had been made open,

¹⁹And put the question to them, saying, Is this your son, of whom you say that he was blind at birth? how is it then that he is now able to see?

²⁰In answer his father and mother said, We are certain that this is our son and that he was blind at birth:

²¹But how it is he is now able to see, or who made his eyes open, we are not able to say: put the question to him; he is old enough to give an answer for himself.

²²They said this because of their fear of the Jews: for the Jews had come to an agreement that if any man said that Jesus was the Christ he would be put out of the Synagogue.

²³That was the reason why they said, He is old enough; put the question to him.

²⁴So they sent a second time for the man who had been blind and they said to him, Give glory to God: it is clear to us that this man is a sinner.

²⁵He said in answer, I have no knowledge if he is a sinner or not, but one thing I am certain about; I was blind, and now I see.

²⁶Then they said to him, What did he do to you? how did he give you the use of your eyes?

²⁷His answer was: I have said it before, but your ears were shut: why would you have me say it again? is it your desire to become his disciples?

²⁸And they were angry with him and said, You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses.

²⁹We are certain that God gave his word to Moses: but as for this man, we have no knowledge where he comes from.

³⁰The man said in answer, Why, here is a strange thing! You have no knowledge where he comes from though he gave me the use of my eyes.

³¹We have knowledge that God does not give ear to sinners, but if any man is a worshipper of God and does his pleasure, to him God's ears are open.

³²In all the years nobody has ever before seen the eyes of a man blind from birth made open.

³³If this man did not come from God he would be unable to do anything.

³⁴Their answer was: You came to birth through sin; do you make yourself our teacher? And they put him out of the Synagogue.

³⁵It came to the ears of Jesus that they had put him out, and meeting him he said, Have you faith in the Son of man?

³⁶He said in answer, And who is he, Lord? Say, so that I may have faith in him.

³⁷Jesus said to him, You have seen him; it is he who is talking to you.

³⁸And he said, Lord, I have faith. And he gave him worship.

³⁹And Jesus said, I came into this world to be a judge, so that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.

⁴⁰These words came to the ears of the Pharisees who were with him and they said to him, Are we, then, blind?

⁴¹Jesus said to them, If you were blind you would have no sin: but now that you say, We see; your sin is there still.

10Truly I say to you, He who does not go through the door into the place where the sheep are kept, but gets in by some other way, is a thief and an outlaw.

²He who goes in by the door is the keeper of the sheep.

³The porter lets him in; and the sheep give ear to his voice; he says over the names of the sheep, and takes them out.

⁴When he has got them all out, he goes before them, and the sheep go after him, for they have knowledge of his voice.

⁵They will not go after another who is not their keeper, but will go from him in flight, because his voice is strange to them.

⁶In this Jesus was teaching them in the form of a story: but what he said was not clear to them.

⁷So Jesus said again, Truly I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.

⁸All who came before me are thieves and outlaws: but the sheep did not give ear to them.

⁹I am the door: if any man goes in through me he will have salvation, and will go in and go out, and will get food.

¹⁰The thief comes only to take the sheep and to put them to death: he comes for their destruction: I have come so that they may have life and have it in greater measure.

¹¹I am the good keeper of sheep: the good keeper gives his life for the sheep.

¹²He who is a servant, and not the keeper or the owner of the sheep, sees the wolf coming and goes in flight, away from the sheep; and the wolf comes down on them and sends them in all directions:

¹³Because he is a servant he has no interest in the sheep.

¹⁴I am the good keeper; I have knowledge of my sheep, and they have knowledge of me,

¹⁵Even as the Father has knowledge of me and I of the Father; and I am giving my life for the sheep.

¹⁶And I have other sheep which are not of this field: I will be their guide in the same way, and they will give ear to my voice, so there will be one flock and one keeper.

¹⁷For this reason am I loved by the Father, because I give up my life so that I may take it again.

¹⁸No one takes it away from me; I give it up of myself. I have power to give it up, and I have power to take it again. These orders I have from my Father.

¹⁹There was a division again among the Jews because of these words.

²⁰And a number of them said, He has an evil spirit and is out of his mind; why do you give ear to him?

²¹Others said, These are not the words of one who has an evil spirit. Is it possible for an evil spirit to make blind people see?

²²Then came the feast of the opening of the Temple in Jerusalem: it was winter;

²³And Jesus was walking in the Temple, in Solomon's covered way.

²⁴Then the Jews came round him, saying, how long are you going to keep us in doubt? If you are the Christ, say so clearly.

²⁵Jesus said in answer, I have said it and you have no belief: the works which I do in my Father's name, these give witness about me.

²⁶But you have no belief because you are not of my sheep.

²⁷My sheep give ear to my voice, and I have knowledge of them, and they come after me:

²⁸And I give them eternal life; they will never come to destruction, and no one will ever take them out of my hand.

²⁹That which my Father has given to me has more value than all; and no one is able to take anything out of the Father's hand.

³⁰I and my Father are one.

³¹Then the Jews took up stones again to send at him.

³²Jesus said to them in answer, I have let you see a number of good works from the Father; for which of those works are you stoning me?

³³This was their answer: We are not stoning you for a good work but for evil words; because being a man you make yourself God.

³⁴In answer, Jesus said, Is there not a saying in your law, I said, You are gods?

³⁵If he said they were gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Writings may not be broken),

³⁶Do you say of him whom the Father made holy and sent into the world, Your words are evil; because I said, I am God's Son?

³⁷If I am not doing the works of my Father, do not have belief in me;

³⁸But if I am doing them, then have belief in the works even if you have no belief in me; so that you may see clearly and be certain that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.

³⁹Then again they made an attempt to take him; but he got away from them.

⁴⁰And he went again to the other side of the Jordan, to the place where John first gave baptism; and he was there for a time.

⁴¹And a great number of people came to him, saying, John did no sign: but everything John said of this man was true.

⁴²And a number came to have faith in him there.

11Now a certain man named Lazarus was ill; he was of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha.

²(The Mary whose brother Lazarus was ill, was the Mary who put perfumed oil on the Lord and made his feet dry with her hair.)

³So the sisters sent to him, saying, Lord, your dear friend is ill.

⁴When this came to his ears, Jesus said, The end of this disease is not death, but the glory of God, so that the Son of God may have glory because of it.

⁵Now Jesus had love in his heart for Martha and her sister and Lazarus.

⁶So when the news came to him that Lazarus was ill, he did not go from the place where he was for two days.

⁷Then after that time he said to his disciples, Let us go into Judaea again.

⁸The disciples said to him, Master, the Jews were attempting only the other day to have you stoned, and are you going back there again?

⁹Then Jesus said in answer, Are there not twelve hours in the day? A man may go about in the day without falling, because he sees the light of this world.

¹⁰But if a man goes about in the night, he may have a fall because the light is not in him.

¹¹These things said he: and after that he said to them, Lazarus our friend is at rest; but I go so that I may make him come out of his sleep.

¹²Then his disciples said to him, Lord, if he is resting he will get well.

¹³Jesus, however, was talking of his death: but they had the idea that he was talking about taking rest in sleep.

¹⁴Then Jesus said to them clearly, Lazarus is dead.

¹⁵And because of you I am glad I was not there, so that you may have faith; but let us go to him.

¹⁶Then Thomas, who was named Didymus, said to the other disciples, Let us go so that we may be with him in death.

¹⁷Now when Jesus came, he made the discovery that Lazarus had been put into the earth four days before.

¹⁸Now Bethany was near to Jerusalem, about two miles away;

¹⁹And a number of Jews had come to Martha and Mary to give them comfort about their brother.

²⁰When Martha had the news that Jesus was on the way, she went out to him, but Mary did not go from the house.

²¹Then Martha said to Jesus, Lord, if you had been here my brother would not be dead.

²²But I am certain that, even now, whatever request you make to God, God will give it to you.

²³Jesus said to her, Your brother will come to life again.

²⁴Martha said to him, I am certain that he will come to life again when all come back from the dead at the last day.

²⁵Jesus said to her, I am myself that day and that life; he who has faith in me will have life even if he is dead;

²⁶And no one who is living and has faith in me will ever see death. Is this your faith?

²⁷She said to him, Yes, Lord: my faith is that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.

²⁸And having said this, she went away and said secretly to her sister Mary, The Master is here and has sent for you.

²⁹And Mary, hearing this, got up quickly and went to him.

³⁰Now Jesus had not at this time come into the town, but was still in the place where Martha had seen him.

³¹Then the Jews who were with her in the house, comforting her, when they saw Mary get up quickly and go out, went after her in the belief that she was going to the place of the dead and would be weeping there.

³²When Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she went down at his feet, saying, Lord, if you had been here my brother would not be dead.

³³And when Jesus saw her weeping, and saw the Jews weeping who came with her, his spirit was moved and he was troubled,

³⁴And said, Where have you put him? They said, Come and see, Lord.

³⁵And Jesus himself was weeping.

³⁶So the Jews said, See how dear he was to him!

³⁷But some of them said, This man, who made open the eyes of the blind man, was he not able to keep his friend from death?

³⁸So Jesus, deeply troubled in heart, came to the place of the dead. It was a hole in the rock, and a stone was over the opening.

³⁹Jesus said, Take away the stone. Martha, the sister of him who was dead, said, Lord, by this time the body will be smelling, for he has been dead four days.

⁴⁰Jesus said to her, Did I not say to you that if you had faith you would see the glory of God?

⁴¹So they took away the stone. And Jesus, looking up to heaven, said, Father, I give praise to you for hearing me.

⁴²I was certain that your ears are at all times open to me, but I said it because of these who are here, so that they may see that you sent me.

⁴³Then he said in a loud voice, Lazarus, come out!

⁴⁴And he who was dead came out, with linen bands folded tightly about his hands and feet, and a cloth about his face. Jesus said to them, Make him free and let him go.

⁴⁵Then a number of the Jews who had come to Mary and had seen the things which Jesus did had belief in him.

⁴⁶But some of them went to the Pharisees with the news of what Jesus had done.

⁴⁷Then the high priests and the Pharisees had a meeting and said, What are we doing? This man is doing a number of signs.

⁴⁸If we let him go on in this way, everybody will have belief in him and the Romans will come and take away our place and our nation.

⁴⁹But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, You have no knowledge of anything;

⁵⁰You do not see that it is in your interest for one man to be put to death for the people, so that all the nation may not come to destruction.

⁵¹He did not say this of himself, but being the high priest that year he said, as a prophet, that Jesus would be put to death for the nation;

⁵²And not for that nation only, but for the purpose of uniting in one body the children of God all over the world.

⁵³And from that day they took thought together how to put him to death.

⁵⁴So Jesus no longer went about publicly among the Jews, but went from there into the country near to the waste land, to a town named Ephraim, where he was for some time with the disciples.

⁵⁵Now the Passover of the Jews was near, and numbers of people went up from the country to Jerusalem to make themselves clean before the Passover.

⁵⁶They were looking for Jesus and saying to one another while they were in the Temple, What is your opinion? Will he not come to the feast?

⁵⁷Now the chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that if anyone had knowledge where he was, he was to give them word, so that they might take him.

12Then, six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had made to come back from the dead.

²So they made him a meal there, and he was waited on by Martha, and Lazarus was among those who were seated with him at table.

³Then Mary, taking a pound of perfumed oil of great value, put it on the feet of Jesus and made them dry with her hair: and the house became full of the smell of the perfume.

⁴But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot (who was to give him up), said,

⁵Why was not this perfume traded for three hundred pence, and the money given to the poor?

⁶(He said this, not because he had any love for the poor; but because he was a thief, and, having the money-bag, took for himself what was put into it.)

⁷Then Jesus said, Let her be. Let her keep what she has for the day of my death.

⁸The poor you have ever with you, but me you have not for ever.

⁹Then a great number of the Jews had news that he was there: and they came, not only because of Jesus, but so that they might see Lazarus who had been dead and to whom he had given life.

¹⁰Now there was talk among the chief priests of putting Lazarus to death;

¹¹For because of him a great number of the Jews went away and had belief in Jesus.

¹²The day after, a great number of people who were there for the feast, when they had the news that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem,

¹³Took branches of palm-trees and went out to him, crying, A blessing on him who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel!

¹⁴And Jesus saw a young ass and took his seat on it; as the Writings say,

¹⁵Have no fear, daughter of Zion: see your King is coming, seated on a young ass.

¹⁶(These things were not clear to his disciples at first: but when Jesus had been lifted up into his glory, then it came to their minds that these things in the Writings were about him and that they had been done to him.)

¹⁷Now the people who were with him when his voice came to Lazarus in the place of the dead, and gave him life again, had been talking about it.

¹⁸And that was the reason the people went out to him, because it had come to their ears that he had done this sign.

¹⁹Then the Pharisees said one to another, You see, you are unable to do anything: the world has gone after him.

²⁰Now there were some Greeks among the people who had come up to give worship at the feast:

²¹They came to Philip, who was of Beth-saida in Galilee, and made a request, saying, Sir, we have a desire to see Jesus.

²²Philip went and gave word of it to Andrew; and Andrew went with Philip to Jesus.

²³And Jesus said to them in answer, The hour of the glory of the Son of man has come.

²⁴Truly I say to you, If a seed of grain does not go into the earth and come to an end, it is still a seed and no more; but through its death it gives much fruit.

²⁵He who is in love with life will have it taken from him; and he who has no care for his life in this world will keep it for ever and ever.

²⁶If any man is my servant, let him come after me; and where I am, there will my servant be. If any man becomes my servant, my Father will give him honour.

²⁷Now is my soul troubled; and what am I to say? Father, keep me from this hour. No: for this purpose have I come to this hour.

²⁸Father, give glory to your name. Then there came a voice out of heaven, saying, I have given it glory, and I will give it glory again.

²⁹Hearing the sound, a number of people who were there said that it was thunder: others said, An angel was talking to him.

³⁰Jesus said in answer, This voice came not for me but for you.

³¹Now is this world to be judged: now will the ruler of this world be sent out.

³²And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will make all men come to me.

³³(This he said, pointing to the sort of death he would have.)

³⁴Then the people in answer said to him, The law says that the Christ will have life without end: how say you then that it is necessary for the Son of man to be lifted up? Who is this Son of man?

³⁵Jesus said to them, For a little time longer the light will be among you; while you have the light go on walking in it, so that the dark may not overtake you: one walking in the dark has no knowledge of where he is going.

³⁶In so far as you have the light, put your faith in the light so that you may become sons of light. With these words Jesus went away and for a time was not seen again by them.

³⁷But though he had done such a number of signs before them, they still had no belief in him:

³⁸So that the words of the prophet Isaiah might come true, when he said, Lord, who has any belief in our preaching? and the arm of the Lord, to whom has it been unveiled?

³⁹For this reason they were unable to have belief, because Isaiah said again,

⁴⁰He has made their eyes blind, and their hearts hard; for fear that they might see with their eyes and get knowledge with their hearts, and be changed, and I might make them well.

⁴¹(Isaiah said these words because he saw his glory. His words were about him.)

⁴²However, a number even of the rulers had belief in him, but because of the Pharisees they did not say so openly for fear that they might be shut out from the Synagogue:

⁴³For the praise of men was dearer to them than the approval of God.

⁴⁴Then Jesus said with a loud voice, He who has faith in me, has faith not in me, but in him who sent me.

⁴⁵And he who sees me, sees him who sent me.

⁴⁶I have come as a light into the world, so that no one who has faith in me will go on living in the dark.

⁴⁷And if any man gives ear to my words and does not keep them, I am not his judge: I did not come to be judge of the world but to give salvation to the world.

⁴⁸He who puts me on one side and does not take my words to heart, is not without a judge: the word which I have said will be his judge on the last day.

⁴⁹For I have not said it on my authority, but the Father who sent me gave me orders what to say and how to say it.

⁵⁰And I have knowledge that his order is eternal life: so that the things which I say, I say them even as the Father says them to me.

13Now before the feast of the Passover, it was clear to Jesus that the time had come for him to go away from this world to the Father. Having once had love for those in the world who were his, his love for them went on to the end.

²So while a meal was going on, the Evil One having now put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to be false to him,

³Jesus, being conscious that the Father had put everything into his hands, and that he came from God and was going to God,

⁴Got up from table, put off his robe and took a cloth and put it round him.

⁵Then he put water into a basin and was washing the feet of the disciples and drying them with the cloth which was round him.

⁶So he came to Simon Peter. Peter said, Lord, are my feet to be washed by you?

⁷And Jesus, answering, said to him, What I do is not clear to you now, but it will be clear to you in time to come.

⁸Peter said, I will never let my feet be washed by you, never. Jesus said in answer, If I do not make you clean you have no part with me.

⁹Simon Peter said to him, Lord, not my feet only, but my hands and my head.

¹⁰Jesus said to him, He who is bathed has need only to have his feet washed and then he is clean all over: and you, my disciples, are clean, but not all of you.

¹¹(He had knowledge who was false to him; that is why he said, You are not all clean.)

¹²Then, after washing their feet and putting on his robe again, he took his seat and said to them, Do you see what I have done to you?

¹³You give me the name of Master and Lord: and you are right; that is what I am.

¹⁴If then I, the Lord and the Master, have made your feet clean, it is right for you to make one another's feet clean.

¹⁵I have given you an example, so that you may do what I have done to you.

¹⁶Truly I say to you, A servant is not greater than his lord; and he who is sent is not greater than the one who sent him.

¹⁷If these things are clear to you, happy are you if you do them.

¹⁸I am not talking of you all: I have knowledge of my true disciples, but things are as they are, so that the Writings may come true, The foot of him who takes bread with me is lifted up against me.

¹⁹From this time forward, I give you knowledge of things before they come about, so that when they come about you may have belief that I am he.

²⁰Truly I say to you, He who takes to his heart anyone whom I send, takes me to his heart; and he who so takes me, takes him who sent me.

²¹When Jesus had said this he was troubled in spirit, and gave witness, saying, Truly I say to you, that one of you will be false to me.

²²Then the eyes of the disciples were turned on one another, in doubt as to whom he had in mind.

²³There was at table one of his disciples, the one dear to Jesus, resting his head on Jesus' breast.

²⁴Making a sign to him, Simon Peter said, Who is it he is talking about?

²⁵He, then, resting his head on Jesus' breast, said to him, Lord, who is it?

²⁶This was the answer Jesus gave: It is the one to whom I will give this bit of bread after I have put it in the vessel. Then he took the bit of bread, put it into the vessel, and gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot.

²⁷And when Judas took the bread Satan went into him. Then Jesus said to him, Do quickly what you have to do.

²⁸Now it was not clear to anyone at table why he said this to him.

²⁹Some were of the opinion that because Judas kept the money-bag Jesus said to him, Get the things we have need of for the feast; or, that he was to give something to the poor.

³⁰So Judas, having taken the bit of bread, straight away went out: and it was night.

³¹Then when he had gone out, Jesus said, Now is glory given to the Son of man, and God is given glory in him.

³²If God is given glory in him, God will give him glory in himself, and will give him glory even now.

³³My dear children, I am only to be with you a little longer. Then you will be looking for me: and as I said to the Jews, so now I say to you, Where I am going you may not come.

³⁴I give you a new law: Have love one for another; even as I have had love for you, so are you to have love one for another.

³⁵By this it will be clear to all men that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another.

³⁶Simon Peter said to him, Lord, where are you going? Jesus said in answer, Where I am going you may not come with me now, but you will come later.

³⁷Peter said to him, Why may I not come with you even now? I will give up my life for you.

³⁸Jesus said in answer, Will you give up your life for me? Truly I say to you, Before the cry of the cock you will have said three times that you are not my disciple.

14Let not your heart be troubled: have faith in God and have faith in me.

²In my Father's house are rooms enough; if it was not so, would I have said that I am going to make ready a place for you?

³And if I go and make ready a place for you, I will come back again and will take you to be with me, so that you may be where I am.

⁴And you all have knowledge of where I am going, and of the way to it.

⁵Thomas said, Lord, we have no knowledge of where you are going; how may we have knowledge of the way?

⁶Jesus said to him, I am the true and living way: no one comes to the Father but by me.

⁷If you had knowledge of me, you would have knowledge of my Father: you have knowledge of him now and have seen him.

⁸Philip said to him, Lord, let us see the Father, and we have need of nothing more.

⁹Jesus said to him, Philip, have I been with you all this time, and still you have no knowledge of me? He who has seen me has seen the Father. Why do you say, Let us see the Father?

¹⁰Have you not faith that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words which I say to you, I say not from myself: but the Father who is in me all the time does his works.

¹¹Have faith that I am in the Father and that the Father is in me: at least, have faith in me because of what I do.

¹²Truly I say to you, He who puts his faith in me will do the very works which I do, and he will do greater things than these, because I am going to my Father.

¹³And whatever request you make in my name, that I will do, so that the Father may have glory in the Son.

¹⁴If you make any request to me in my name, I will do it.

¹⁵If you have love for me, you will keep my laws.

¹⁶And I will make prayer to the Father and he will give you another Helper to be with you for ever,

¹⁷Even the Spirit of true knowledge. That Spirit the world is not able to take to its heart because it sees him not and has no knowledge of him: but you have knowledge of him, because he is ever with you and will be in you.

¹⁸I will not let you be without a friend: I am coming to you.

¹⁹A little time longer, and the world will see me no more; but you will see me; and you will be living because I am living.

²⁰At that time it will be clear to you that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I in you.

²¹He who has my laws and keeps them, he it is who has love for me: and he who has love for me will be loved by my Father, and I will have love for him and will let myself be seen clearly by him.

²²Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, How is it that you will let yourself be seen clearly by us and not by the world?

²³Jesus said to him in answer, If anyone has love for me, he will keep my words: and he will be dear to my Father; and we will come to him and make our living-place with him.

²⁴He who has no love for me does not keep my words; and the word which you are hearing is not my word but the Father's who sent me.

²⁵I have said all this to you while I am still with you.

²⁶But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will be your teacher in all things and will put you in mind of everything I have said to you.

²⁷May peace be with you; my peace I give to you: I give it not as the world gives. Let not your heart be troubled; let it be without fear.

²⁸Keep in mind how I said to you, I go away and come to you again. If you had love for me you would be glad, because I am going to the Father: for the Father is greater than I.

²⁹And now I have given you word of it before it comes, so that, when it comes, you may have faith.

³⁰After this I will not say much to you, because the ruler of this world comes: and he has no power over me;

³¹But he comes so that the world may see that I have love for the Father, and that I am doing as I am ordered by the Father. Get up, and let us go.

15I am the true vine and my Father is the gardener.

²He takes away every branch in me which has no fruit, and every branch which has fruit he makes clean, so that it may have more fruit.

³You are clean, even now, through the teaching which I have given you.

⁴Be in me at all times as I am in you. As the branch is not able to give fruit of itself, if it is not still on the vine, so you are not able to do so if you are not in me.

⁵I am the vine, you are the branches: he who is in me at all times as I am in him, gives much fruit, because without me you are able to do nothing.

⁶If a man does not keep himself in me, he becomes dead and is cut off like a dry branch; such branches are taken up and put in the fire and burned.

⁷If you are in me at all times, and my words are in you, then anything for which you make a request will be done for you.

⁸Here is my Father's glory, in that you give much fruit and so are my true disciples.

⁹Even as the Father has given me his love, so I have given my love to you: be ever in my love.

¹⁰If you keep my laws, you will be ever in my love, even as I have kept my Father's laws, and am ever in his love.

¹¹I have said these things to you so that I may have joy in you and so that your joy may be complete.

¹²This is the law I give you: Have love one for another, even as I have love for you.

¹³Greater love has no man than this, that a man gives up his life for his friends.

¹⁴You are my friends, if you do what I give you orders to do.

¹⁵No longer do I give you the name of servants; because a servant is without knowledge of what his master is doing: I give you the name of friends, because I have given you knowledge of all the things which my Father has said to me.

¹⁶You did not take me for yourselves, but I took you for myself; and I gave you the work of going about and producing fruit which will be for ever; so that whatever request you make to the Father in my name he may give it to you.

¹⁷So this is my law for you: Have love one for another.

¹⁸If you are hated by the world, keep in mind that I was hated by the world before you.

¹⁹If you were of the world, you would be loved by the world: but because you are not of the world, but I have taken you out of the world, you are hated by the world.

²⁰Keep in mind the words I said to you, A servant is not greater than his lord. If they were cruel to me, they will be cruel to you; if they kept my words, they will keep yours.

²¹They will do all this to you because of my name--because they have no knowledge of him who sent me.

²²If I had not come and been their teacher they would have had no sin: but now they have no reason to give for their sin.

²³He who has hate for me has hate for my Father.

²⁴If I had not done among them the works which no other man ever did, they would have had no sin: but now they have seen, and they have had hate in their hearts for me and my Father.

²⁵This comes about so that the writing in their law may be made true, Their hate for me was without cause.

²⁶When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father even the Spirit of true knowledge who comes from the Father--he will give witness about me;

²⁷And you, in addition, will give witness because you have been with me from the first.

16I have said these things to you so that you may not be in doubt.

²They will put you out of the Synagogues: yes, the time is coming when whoever puts you to death will have the belief that he is doing God's pleasure.

³They will do these things to you because they have not had knowledge of the Father or of me.

⁴I have said these things to you so that when the time comes, what I have said may come to your mind. I did not say them to you at the first, because then I was still with you.

⁵But now I am going to him who sent me; and not one of you says to me, Where are you going?

⁶But your hearts are full of sorrow because I have said these things.

⁷But what I am saying is true: my going is for your good: for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.

⁸And he, when he comes, will make the world conscious of sin, and of righteousness, and of being judged:

⁹Of sin, because they have not faith in me;

¹⁰Of righteousness, because I go to the Father and you will see me no more;

¹¹Of being judged, because the ruler of this world has been judged.

¹²I have still much to say to you, but you are not strong enough for it now.

¹³However, when he, the Spirit of true knowledge, has come, he will be your guide into all true knowledge: for his words will not come from himself, but whatever has come to his hearing, that he will say: and he will make clear to you the things to come.

¹⁴He will give me glory, because he will take of what is mine, and make it clear to you.

¹⁵Everything which the Father has is mine: that is why I say, He will take of what is mine and will make it clear to you.

¹⁶After a little time you will see me no longer; and then again, after a little time, you will see me.

¹⁷So some of the disciples said one to another, What is this he is saying, After a little time, you will see me no longer; and then again, after a little time, you will see me? and, I am going to the Father?

¹⁸So they said again and again, What is this he is saying, A little time? His words are not clear to us.

¹⁹Jesus saw that they had a desire to put the question to him, so he said to them, Is this what you are questioning one with another, why I said, After a little time, you will see me no longer; and then again, after a little time, you will see me?

²⁰Truly I say to you, You will be weeping and sorrowing, but the world will be glad: you will be sad, but your sorrow will be turned into joy.

²¹When a woman is about to give birth she has sorrow, because her hour is come; but when she has given birth to the child, the pain is put out of her mind by the joy that a man has come into the world.

²²So you have sorrow now: but I will see you again, and your hearts will be glad, and no one will take away your joy.

²³And on that day you will put no questions to me. Truly I say to you, Whatever request you make to the Father, he will give it to you in my name.

²⁴Up to now you have made no request in my name: do so, and it will be answered, so that your hearts may be full of joy.

²⁵All this I have said to you in veiled language: but the time is coming when I will no longer say things in veiled language but will give you knowledge of the Father clearly.

²⁶In that day you will make requests in my name: and I do not say that I will make prayer to the Father for you,

²⁷For the Father himself gives his love to you, because you have given your love to me and have had faith that I came from God.

²⁸I came out from the Father and have come into the world: again, I go away from the world and go to the Father.

²⁹His disciples said, Now you are talking clearly and not in veiled language.

³⁰Now we are certain that you have knowledge of all things and have no need for anyone to put questions to you: through this we have faith that you came from God.

³¹Jesus made answer, Have you faith now?

³²See, a time is coming, yes, it is now here, when you will go away in all directions, every man to his house, and I will be by myself: but I am not by myself, because the Father is with me.

³³I have said all these things to you so that in me you may have peace. In the world you have trouble: but take heart! I have overcome the world.

17Jesus said these things; then, lifting his eyes to heaven, he said, Father, the time has now come; give glory to your Son, so that the Son may give glory to you:

²Even as you gave him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all those whom you have given to him.

³And this is eternal life: to have knowledge of you, the only true God, and of him whom you have sent, even Jesus Christ.

⁴I have given you glory on the earth, having done all the work which you gave me to do.

⁵And now, Father, let me have glory with you, even that glory which I had with you before the world was.

⁶I have given knowledge of your name to the men whom you gave me out of the world: yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your words.

⁷Now it is clear to them that whatever you have given to me comes from you:

⁸Because I have given them the words which you gave to me; and they have taken them to heart, and have certain knowledge that I came from you, and they have faith that you sent me.

⁹My prayer is for them: my prayer is not for the world, but for those whom you have given to me, because they are yours

¹⁰(All mine are yours, and yours are mine) and I have glory in them.

¹¹And now I will be no longer in the world, but they are in the world and I come to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name which you have given to me, so that they may be one even as we are one.

¹²While I was with them I kept them safe in your name which you have given to me: I took care of them and not one of them has come to destruction, but only the son of destruction, so that the Writings might come true.

¹³And now I come to you; and these things I say in the world so that they may have my joy complete in them.

¹⁴I have given your word to them; and they are hated by the world, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

¹⁵My prayer is not that you will take them out of the world, but that you will keep them from the Evil One.

¹⁶They are not of the world any more than I am of the world.

¹⁷Make them holy by the true word: your word is the true word.

¹⁸Even as you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.

¹⁹And for them I make myself holy, so that they may be made truly holy.

²⁰My prayer is not for them only, but for all who will have faith in me through their word;

²¹May they all be one! Even as you, Father, are in me and I am in you, so let them be in us, so that all men may come to have faith that you sent me.

²²And the glory which you have given to me I have given to them, so that they may be one even as we are one;

²³I in them, and you in me, so that they may be made completely one, and so that it may become clear to all men that you have sent me and that they are loved by you as I am loved by you.

²⁴Father, it is my desire that these whom you have given to me may be by my side where I am, so that they may see my glory which you have given to me, because you had love for me before the world came into being.

²⁵Father of righteousness, I have knowledge of you, though the world has not; and to these it is clear that you sent me;

²⁶And I have given to them knowledge of your name, and will give it, so that the love which you have for me may be in them and I in them.

18When Jesus had said these words he went out with his disciples over the stream Kedron to a garden, into which he went with his disciples.

²And Judas, who was false to him, had knowledge of the place because Jesus went there frequently with his disciples.

³So Judas, getting a band of armed men and police from the chief priests and Pharisees, went there with lights and with arms.

⁴Then Jesus, having knowledge of everything which was coming on him, went forward and said to them, Who are you looking for?

⁵Their answer was, Jesus the Nazarene. Jesus said, I am he. And Judas, who was false to him, was there at their side.

⁶And when he said to them, I am he, they went back, falling to the earth.

⁷So again he put the question to them, Who are you looking for? And they said, Jesus the Nazarene.

⁸Jesus made answer, I have said that I am he; if you are looking for me, let these men go away.

⁹(He said this so that his words might come true, I have kept safe all those whom you gave to me.)

¹⁰Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, took it out and gave the high priest's servant a blow, cutting off his right ear. The servant's name was Malchus.

¹¹Then Jesus said to Peter, Put back your sword: am I not to take the cup which my Father has given to me?

¹²Then the band and the chief captain and the police took Jesus and put cords round him.

¹³They took him first to Annas, because Annas was the father-in-law of Caiaphas who was the high priest that year.

¹⁴It was Caiaphas who had said to the Jews that it was in their interest for one man to be put to death for the people.

¹⁵And Simon Peter went after Jesus with another disciple. Now that disciple was a friend of the high priest and he went in with Jesus into the house of the high priest;

¹⁶But Peter was kept outside at the door. Then this other disciple, who was a friend of the high priest, came out and had a word with the girl who kept the door, and took Peter in.

¹⁷Then the girl who was the door-keeper said to Peter, Are you not one of this man's disciples? In answer he said, I am not.

¹⁸Now the servants and the police had made a fire of coals because it was cold; they were warming themselves in front of it and Peter was there with them, warming himself.

¹⁹Then the high priest put questions to Jesus about his disciples and his teaching.

²⁰Jesus made answer, I said things openly to the world at all times; I have given my teaching in the Synagogues and in the Temple to which all the Jews come; and I have said nothing secretly.

²¹Why are you questioning me? put questions to my hearers about what I have said to them: they have knowledge of what I said.

²²When he said this, one of the police by his side gave him a blow with his open hand, saying, Do you give such an answer to the high priest?

²³Jesus said in answer, If I have said anything evil, give witness to the evil: but if I said what is true, why do you give me blows?

²⁴Then Annas sent him chained to Caiaphas, the high priest.

²⁵But Simon Peter was still there warming himself by the fire. They said to him, Are you not one of his disciples? He said, No, I am not.

²⁶One of the servants of the high priest, a relation of him whose ear had been cut off by Peter, said, Did I not see you with him in the garden?

²⁷Then again Peter said, No. And straight away a cock gave its cry.

²⁸So they took Jesus from the house of Caiaphas to the Praetorium. It was early. They themselves did not go into the Praetorium, so that they might not become unclean, but might take the Passover.

²⁹So Pilate came out to them and put the question: What have you to say against this man?

³⁰They said to him in answer, If the man was not a wrongdoer we would not have given him up to you.

³¹Then Pilate said to them, Take him yourselves and let him be judged by your law. But the Jews said to him, We have no right to put any man to death.

³²(That the word of Jesus might come true, pointing to the sort of death he would have.)

³³Then Pilate went back into the Praetorium and sent for Jesus and said to him, Are you the King of the Jews?

³⁴Jesus made answer, Do you say this of yourself, or did others say it about me?

³⁵Pilate said, Am I a Jew? Your nation and the chief priests have given you into my hands: what have you done?

³⁶Jesus said in answer, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom was of this world, my disciples would have made a good fight to keep me out of the hands of the Jews: but my kingdom is not here.

³⁷Then Pilate said to him, Are you then a king? Jesus made answer, You say that I am a king. For this purpose was I given birth, and for this purpose I came into the world, that I might give witness to what is true. Every lover of what is true gives ear to my voice.

³⁸Pilate said to him, True? what is true? Having said this he went out again to the Jews and said to them, I see no wrong in him.

³⁹But every year you make a request to me to let a prisoner go free at the Passover. Is it your desire that I let the King of the Jews go free?

⁴⁰Then again they gave a loud cry, Not this man, but Barabbas. Now Barabbas was an outlaw.

19Then Pilate took Jesus and had him whipped with cords.

²And the men of the army made a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and they put a purple robe on him.

³And they kept coming and saying, Long life to the King of the Jews! And they gave him blows with their hands.

⁴And Pilate went out again and said to them, See, I let him come out to you to make it clear to you that I see no wrong in him.

⁵Then Jesus came out with the crown of thorns and the purple robe. And Pilate said to them, Here is the man!

⁶So when the chief priests and the police saw him they gave a loud cry, To the cross! to the cross! Pilate said to them, Take him yourselves and put him on the cross: I see no crime in him.

⁷And the Jews made answer, We have a law, and by that law it is right for him to be put to death because he said he was the Son of God.

⁸When this saying came to Pilate's ears his fear became greater;

⁹And he went again into the Praetorium and said to Jesus, Where do you come from? But Jesus gave him no answer.

¹⁰Then Pilate said to him, You say nothing to me? is it not clear to you that I have power to let you go free and power to put you to death on the cross?

¹¹Jesus gave this answer: You would have no power at all over me if it was not given to you by God; so that he who gave me up to you has the greater sin.

¹²Hearing this, Pilate had a desire to let him go free, but the Jews said in a loud voice, If you let this man go, you are not Caesar's friend: everyone who makes himself a king goes against Caesar.

¹³So when these words came to Pilate's ear, he took Jesus out, seating himself in the judge's seat in a place named in Hebrew, Gabbatha, or the Stone Floor.

¹⁴(It was the day when they made ready for the Passover; and it was about the sixth hour.) And he said to the Jews, There is your King!

¹⁵Then they gave a loud cry, Away with him! away with him! to the cross! Pilate said to them, Am I to put your King to death on the cross? The chief priests said in answer, We have no king but Caesar.

¹⁶So then he gave him up to them to be put to death on the cross. And they took Jesus away;

¹⁷And he went out with his cross on him to the place which is named Dead Man's Head (in Hebrew, Golgotha):

¹⁸Where they put him on the cross with two others, one on this side and one on that, and Jesus in the middle.

¹⁹And Pilate put on the cross a statement in writing. The writing was: JESUS THE NAZARENE, THE KING OF THE JEWS.

²⁰The writing was seen by a number of the Jews, for the place where Jesus was put to death on the cross was near the town; and the writing was in Hebrew and Latin and Greek.

²¹Then the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, Do not put, The King of the Jews, but, He said, I am the King of the Jews.

²²But Pilate made answer, What I have put in writing will not be changed.

²³And when Jesus was nailed to the cross, the men of the army took his clothing, and made a division of it into four parts, to every man a part, and they took his coat: now the coat was without a join, made out of one bit of cloth.

²⁴So they said among themselves, Let this not be cut up, but let us put it to the decision of chance and see who gets it. (They did this so that the Writings might come true, which say, They made a distribution of my clothing among them, and my coat they put to the decision of chance.) This was what the men of the army did.

²⁵Now by the side of the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother's sister Mary, the wife of Cleopas, and Mary Magdalene.

²⁶So when Jesus saw his mother and the disciple who was dear to him, he said to his mother, Mother, there is your son!

²⁷Then he said to the disciple, There is your mother! And from that hour the disciple took her to his house.

²⁸After this, being conscious that all things had now been done so that the Writings might come true, Jesus said, Give me water.

²⁹Now there was a vessel ready, full of bitter wine, and they put a sponge full of it on a stick and put it to his mouth.

³⁰So when Jesus had taken the wine he said, All is done. And with his head bent he gave up his spirit.

³¹Now it was the day of getting ready for the Passover, and so that the bodies might not be on the cross on the Sabbath (because the day of that Sabbath was a great day), the Jews made a request to Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away.

³²So the men of the army came, and the legs of the first were broken and then of the other who was put to death on the cross with Jesus:

³³But when they came to Jesus, they saw that he was dead by this time, and so his legs were not broken;

³⁴But one of the men made a wound in his side with a spear, and straight away there came out blood and water.

³⁵And he who saw it has given witness (and his witness is true; he is certain that what he says is true) so that you may have belief.

³⁶These things came about so that the Writings might be true, No bone of his body will be broken.

³⁷And again another verse says, They will see him who was wounded by their spears.

³⁸After these things, Joseph of Arimathaea, who was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, made a request to Pilate to let him take away the body of Jesus: and Pilate said he might do so. So he went and took away his body.

³⁹And Nicodemus came (he who had first come to Jesus by night) with a roll of myrrh and aloes mixed, about a hundred pounds.

⁴⁰Then they took the body of Jesus, folding linen about it with the spices, as is the way of the Jews when they put the dead to rest.

⁴¹Now there was a garden near the cross, and in the garden a new place for the dead in which no man had ever been put.

⁴²So they put Jesus there, because it was the Jews' day of getting ready for the Passover, and the place was near.

20Now on the first day of the week, very early, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the place and saw that the stone had been taken away from it.

²Then she went running to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple who was loved by Jesus, and said to them, They have taken away the Lord out of the place of the dead and we have no knowledge where they have put him.

³So Peter and the other disciple went out to the place of the dead.

⁴They went running together, and the other disciple got in front of Peter and came first to the hole in the rock;

⁵And looking in, he saw the linen bands on the earth; but he did not go in,

⁶Then Simon Peter came after him and went into the hole in the rock; and he saw the linen bands on the earth,

⁷And the cloth, which had been round his head, not with the linen bands but rolled up in a place by itself.

⁸Then the other disciple who came there first went in; and he saw and belief came to him.

⁹For at that time they had no knowledge that the Writings said that he would have to come again from the dead.

¹⁰So then the disciples went away again to their houses.

¹¹But Mary was still there outside the hole in the rock, weeping; and while she was weeping and looking into the hole,

¹²She saw two angels in white seated where the body of Jesus had been, one at the head and the other at the feet.

¹³They said to her, Woman, why are you weeping? She said to them, Because they have taken away my Lord, and I have no knowledge where they have put him.

¹⁴And then looking round, she saw Jesus there, but had no idea that it was Jesus.

¹⁵Jesus said to her, Woman, why are you weeping? who are you looking for? She, taking him for the gardener, said to him, Sir, if you have taken him away from here, say where you have put him and I will take him away.

¹⁶Jesus said to her, Mary! Turning, she said to him in Hebrew, Rabboni! (which is to say, Master).

¹⁷Jesus said to her, Do not put your hand on me, for I have not gone up to the Father: but go to my brothers and say to them, I go up to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.

¹⁸Mary Magdalene went with the news to the disciples, and said she had seen the Lord and that he had said these things to her.

¹⁹At evening on that day, the first day of the week, when, for fear of the Jews, the doors were shut where the disciples were, Jesus came among them and said to them, May peace be with you!

²⁰And when he had said this, he let them see his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord.

²¹And Jesus said to them again, May peace be with you! As the Father sent me, even so I now send you.

²²And when he had said this, breathing on them, he said to them, Let the Holy Spirit come on you:

²³Any to whom you give forgiveness, will be made free from their sins; and any from whom you keep back forgiveness, will still be in their sins.

²⁴Now Thomas, one of the twelve, named Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came.

²⁵So the other disciples said to him, We have seen the Lord. But he said to them, If I do not see in his hands the print of the nails and put my finger into the print of the nails, and if I do not put my hand into his side, I will never have belief.

²⁶And after eight days, his disciples were again in the house and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were shut, Jesus came, and taking his place in the middle of them, he said, May peace be with you!

²⁷Then he said to Thomas, Put out your finger, and see my hands; and put your hand here into my side: and be no longer in doubt but have belief.

²⁸And Thomas said in answer, My Lord and my God!

²⁹Jesus said to him, Because you have seen me you have belief: a blessing will be on those who have belief though they have not seen me!

³⁰A number of other signs Jesus did before his disciples which are not recorded in this book:

³¹But these are recorded, so that you may have faith that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and so that, having this faith you may have life in his name.

21After these things Jesus let himself be seen again by the disciples at the sea of Tiberias; and it came about in this way.

²Simon Peter, Thomas named Didymus, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples were all together.

³Simon Peter said to them, I am going fishing. They said to him, And we will come with you. They went out and got into the boat; but that night they took no fish.

⁴Now very early in the morning Jesus was there by the edge of the sea (though the disciples were not conscious that it was Jesus).

⁵So Jesus said to them, Children, have you taken any fish? They made answer, No.

⁶And he said to them, Let down the net on the right side of the boat and you will get some. So they put it in the water and now they were not able to get it up again because of the great number of fish.

⁷So the disciple who was dear to Jesus said to Peter, It is the Lord! Hearing that it was the Lord, Peter put his coat round him (because he was not clothed) and went into the sea.

⁸And the other disciples came in the little boat (they were not far from land, only about two hundred cubits off) pulling the net full of fish.

⁹When they got to land, they saw a fire of coals there, with fish cooking on it, and bread.

¹⁰Jesus said to them, Get some of the fish which you have now taken.

¹¹So Peter went to the boat and came back pulling the net to land, full of great fish, a hundred and fifty-three; and though there was such a number the net was not broken.

¹²Jesus said to them, Come and take some food. And all the disciples were in fear of putting the question, Who are you? being conscious that it was the Lord.

¹³Then Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and the fish in the same way.

¹⁴Now this was the third time that Jesus let himself be seen by the disciples after he had come back from the dead.

¹⁵Then when they had taken food, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of John, is your love for me greater than the love of these others? He said to him, Yes, Lord; you are certain of my love for you. He said to him, Then give my lambs food.

¹⁶Again, a second time, he said to him, Simon, son of John, have you any love for me? Yes, Lord, he said, you are certain of my love for you. Then take care of my sheep, said Jesus.

¹⁷He said to him a third time, Simon, son of John, am I dear to you? Now Peter was troubled in his heart because he put the question a third time, Am I dear to you? And he said to him, Lord, you have knowledge of all things; you see that you are dear to me. Jesus said to him, Then give my sheep food.

¹⁸Truly I say to you, When you were young, you made yourself ready and went wherever you had a desire to go: but when you are old, you will put out your hands and another will make you ready, and you will be taken where you have no desire to go.

¹⁹Now this he said, pointing out the sort of death by which he would give God glory. And after saying this, he said to him, Come after me.

²⁰Then Peter, turning round, saw the disciple who was dear to Jesus coming after them--the disciple who was resting on his breast at the last meal, and said, Lord, who is it who will be false to you?

²¹Seeing him, Peter said to Jesus, What about this man?

²²Jesus said to him, If it is my desire for him to be here till I come back, what is that to you? come yourself after me.

²³So this saying went about among the brothers that this disciple would not undergo death: Jesus, however, did not say that he would not undergo death, but, If it is my desire for him to be here till I come back, what is that to you?

²⁴This is the disciple who gives witness about these things and who put them in writing: and we have knowledge that his witness is true.

²⁵And Jesus did such a number of other things that, if every one was recorded, it is my opinion that even the world itself is not great enough for the books there would be.

1I have given an earlier account, O Theophilus, of all the things which Jesus did, and of his teaching from the first,

²Till the day when he was taken up to heaven after he had given his orders, through the Holy Spirit, to the Apostles of whom he had made selection:

³And to whom he gave clear and certain signs that he was living, after his death; for he was seen by them for forty days, and gave them teaching about the kingdom of God:

⁴And when they were all together, with him, he gave them orders not to go away from Jerusalem, but to keep there, waiting till the word of the Father was put into effect, of which, he said, I have given you knowledge:

⁵For the baptism of John was with water, but you will have baptism with the Holy Spirit, after a little time.

⁶So, when they were together, they said to him, Lord, will you at this time give back the kingdom to Israel?

⁷And he said to them, It is not for you to have knowledge of the time and the order of events which the Father has kept in his control.

⁸But you will have power, when the Holy Spirit has come on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and all Judaea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

⁹And when he had said these things, while they were looking, he was taken up, and went from their view into a cloud.

¹⁰And while they were looking up to heaven with great attention, two men came to them, in white clothing,

¹¹And said, O men of Galilee, why are you looking up into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken from you into heaven, will come again, in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.

¹²Then they went back to Jerusalem from the mountain named Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day's journey away.

¹³And when they came in, they went up into the room where they were living; Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James, the son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas, the son of James.

¹⁴And they all with one mind gave themselves up to prayer, with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.

¹⁵And in those days Peter got up among the brothers (there were about one hundred and twenty of them), and said,

¹⁶My brothers, the word of God had to be put into effect, which the Holy Spirit had said before, by the mouth of David, about Judas, who was guide to those who took Jesus,

¹⁷For he was numbered among us, and had his part in our work.

¹⁸(Now this man, with the reward of his evil-doing, got for himself a field, and falling head first, came to a sudden and violent end there.

¹⁹And this came to the knowledge of all those who were living in Jerusalem, so that the field was named in their language, Akel-dama, or, The field of blood.)

²⁰For in the book of Psalms it says, Let his house be waste, and let no man be living in it: and, Let his position be taken by another.

²¹For this reason, of the men who have been with us all the time, while the Lord Jesus went in and out among us,

²²Starting from the baptism of John till he went up from us, one will have to be a witness with us of his coming back from death.

²³And they made selection of two, Joseph, named Barsabbas, whose other name was Justus, and Matthias.

²⁴And they made prayers and said, Lord, having knowledge of the hearts of all men, make clear which of these two has been marked out by you,

²⁵To take that position as a servant and Apostle, from which Judas by his sin was shut out, so that he might go to his place.

²⁶And they put it to the decision of chance, and the decision was given for Matthias, and he was numbered with the eleven Apostles.

2And when the day of Pentecost was come, they were all together in one place.

²And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like the rushing of a violent wind, and all the house where they were was full of it.

³And they saw tongues, like flames of fire, coming to rest on every one of them.

⁴And they were all full of the Holy Spirit, and were talking in different languages, as the Spirit gave them power.

⁵Now there were living at Jerusalem, Jews, God-fearing men, from every nation under heaven.

⁶And when this sound came to their ears, they all came together, and were greatly surprised because every man was hearing the words of the disciples in his special language.

⁷And they were full of wonder and said, Are not all these men Galilaeans?

⁸And how is it that every one of us is hearing their words in the language which was ours from our birth?

⁹Men of Parthia, Media, and Elam, and those living in Mesopotamia, in Judaea and Cappadocia, in Pontus and Asia,

¹⁰In Phrygia and Pamphylia, in Egypt and the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and those who have come from Rome, Jews by birth and others who have become Jews,

¹¹Men of Crete and Arabia, to all of us they are talking in our different languages, of the great works of God.

¹²And they were all surprised and in doubt saying to one another, What is the reason of this?

¹³But others, making sport of them, said, They are full of new wine.

¹⁴But Peter, getting up, with the eleven, said in a loud voice, O men of Judaea, and all you who are living in Jerusalem, take note of this and give ear to my words.

¹⁵For these men are not overcome with wine, as it seems to you, for it is only the third hour of the day;

¹⁶But this is the thing which was said by the prophet Joel;

¹⁷And it will come about, in the last days, says God, that I will send out my Spirit on all flesh; and your sons and your daughters will be prophets, and your young men will see visions, and your old men will have dreams:

¹⁸And on my men-servants and my women-servants I will send my Spirit, and they will be prophets.

¹⁹And wonders will be seen in heaven, and signs on the earth, blood and fire and smoke:

²⁰The sun will become dark and the moon will be turned to blood, before that great day of the Lord comes in glory:

²¹And whoever makes his prayer to the Lord will have salvation.

²²Men of Israel, give ear to these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man who had the approval of God, as was made clear to you by the great works and signs and wonders which God did by him among you, as you yourselves have knowledge,

²³Him, when he was given up, by the decision and knowledge of God, you put to death on the cross, by the hands of evil men:

²⁴But God gave him back to life, having made him free from the pains of death because it was not possible for him to be overcome by it.

²⁵For David said of him, I saw the Lord before my face at all times, for he is at my right hand, so that I may not be moved:

²⁶And for this cause my heart was glad and my tongue full of joy, and my flesh will be resting in hope:

²⁷For you will not let my soul be in hell and you will not give up your Holy One to destruction.

²⁸You have made me see the ways of life; I will be full of joy when I see your face.

²⁹My brothers, I may say to you openly that David came to his death, and was put in the earth, and his resting-place is with us today.

³⁰But being a prophet, and having in mind the oath which God had given to him, that of the fruit of his body one would take his place as a king,

³¹He, having knowledge of the future, was talking of the coming again of Christ from the dead, that he was not kept in hell and his body did not see destruction.

³²This Jesus God has given back to life, of which we all are witnesses.

³³And so, being lifted up to the right hand of God, and having the Father's word that the Holy Spirit would come, he has sent this thing, which now you see and have knowledge of.

³⁴For David has not gone up into heaven, but says, himself, The Lord said to my Lord, Be seated at my right hand,

³⁵Till I put all those who are against you under your feet.

³⁶For this reason, let all Israel be certain that this Jesus, whom you put to death on the cross, God has made Lord and Christ.

³⁷Now when these words came to their ears their hearts were troubled, and they said to Peter and the other Apostles, Brothers, what are we to do?

³⁸And Peter said, Let your hearts be changed, every one of you, and have baptism in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will have the Holy Spirit given to you.

³⁹For the word of God is for you and for your children and for all those who are far off, even all those who may be marked out by the Lord our God.

⁴⁰And with more such words he gave his witness, offering them salvation and saying, Come out from this evil generation.

⁴¹Then those who gave hearing to his words had baptism: and about three thousand souls were joined to them that day.

⁴²And they kept their attention fixed on the Apostles' teaching and were united together in the taking of broken bread and in prayer.

⁴³But fear came on every soul: and all sorts of wonders and signs were done by the Apostles.

⁴⁴And all those who were of the faith kept together, and had all things in common;

⁴⁵And exchanging their goods and property for money, they made division of it among them all, as they had need.

⁴⁶And day by day, going in agreement together regularly to the Temple and, taking broken bread together in their houses, they took their food with joy and with true hearts,

⁴⁷Giving praise to God, and having the approval of all the people; and every day the number of those who had salvation was increased by the Lord.

3Now Peter and John were going up to the Temple at the ninth hour, the hour of prayer;

²And a certain man who from birth had had no power in his legs, was taken there every day, and put down at the door of the Temple which is named Beautiful, requesting money from those who went into the Temple;

³He then, seeing Peter and John going into the Temple, made a request to them.

⁴And Peter, looking at him, with John, said, Keep your eyes on us.

⁵And he gave attention to them, hoping to get something from them.

⁶But Peter said, I have no silver or gold, but what I have, that I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, get up on your feet.

⁷And he took him by his right hand, lifting him up; and straight away his feet and the bones of his legs became strong,

⁸And, jumping up, he got on to his feet and went into the Temple with them, walking and jumping and giving praise to God.

⁹And all the people saw him walking and praising God:

¹⁰And they saw that it was the man who made requests for money at the door of the Temple, and they were full of wonder and surprise at what had taken place.

¹¹And while he kept his hands on Peter and John, all the people came running together to the covered way which is named Solomon's, full of wonder.

¹²And when Peter saw it he said to the people, You men of Israel, why are you so greatly surprised at this man? or why are you looking at us as if by our power or virtue we had given him the use of his legs?

¹³The God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, has given glory to his servant Jesus; whom you gave up, turning your backs on him, when Pilate had made the decision to let him go free.

¹⁴But you would have nothing to do with the Holy and Upright One, and made request for a man of blood to be given to you,

¹⁵And put to death the Lord of life; whom God gave back from the dead; of which fact we are witnesses.

¹⁶And his name, through faith in his name, has made this man strong, whom you see and have knowledge of: yes, the faith which is through him has made him well, before you all.

¹⁷And now, my brothers, I am conscious that you did this, as did your rulers, without knowledge.

¹⁸But the things which God had made clear before, by the mouth of all the prophets, that the Christ would have to undergo, he has put into effect in this way.

¹⁹So then, let your hearts be changed and be turned to God, so that your sins may be completely taken away, and times of blessing may come from the Lord;

²⁰And that he may send the Christ who was marked out for you from the first, even Jesus:

²¹Who is to be kept in heaven till the time when all things are put right, of which God has given word by the mouth of his holy prophets, who have been from the earliest times.

²²For Moses said, The Lord will give you a prophet from among your people, like me; you will give ear to everything which he will say to you.

²³And every soul who does not give attention to that prophet, will be cut off from among the people.

²⁴And all the prophets from Samuel and those who came after, every one of them, gave word of these days.

²⁵You are the sons of the prophets, and of the agreement which God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, Through your seed a blessing will come on all the families of the earth.

²⁶To you, first, God sent his servant, blessing you by turning every one of you from his sins.

4And while they were talking to the people, the priests and the captain of the Temple and the Sadducees came up to them,

²Being greatly troubled because they were teaching the people and preaching Jesus as an example of the coming back from the dead.

³And they took them and put them in prison till the morning, for it was now evening.

⁴But a number of those who gave hearing to the word had faith; and they were now about five thousand.

⁵And on the day after, the rulers and those in authority and the scribes came together in Jerusalem;

⁶And Annas, the high priest, was there, and Caiaphas and John and Alexander, and all the relations of the high priest.

⁷Then sending for Peter and John, they said, By what power and in whose name have you done this?

⁸Then Peter, being full of the Holy Spirit, said to them, O you rulers of the people and men of authority,

⁹If we are questioned today about a good work done to a man who was ill, as to how he has been made well,

¹⁰Take note, all of you, and all the people of Israel, that in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you put to death on the cross, whom God gave back from the dead, even through him is this man now before you completely well.

¹¹He is the stone which you builders had no use for, but which has been made the chief stone of the building.

¹²And in no other is there salvation: for there is no other name under heaven, given among men, through which we may have salvation.

¹³Now when they saw that Peter and John were without fear, though they were men of no education or learning, they were greatly surprised; and they took note of them that they had been with Jesus.

¹⁴And, seeing that the man who had been made well was there with them, they were not able to say anything against it.

¹⁵But when they had given them orders to go out of the Sanhedrin, they had a discussion among themselves,

¹⁶Saying, What are we to do with these men? for certainly it is clear to all who are living in Jerusalem that a most important sign has been done by them, and it is not possible to say that it is not so.

¹⁷But so that it may not go farther among the people, let us put them in fear of punishment if they say anything in future in this name.

¹⁸And they sent for them, and gave them orders not to make statements or give teaching in the name of Jesus.

¹⁹But Peter and John in answer said to them, It is for you to say if it is right in the eyes of God to give attention to you more than to God:

²⁰For it is not possible for us to keep from saying what we have seen and have knowledge of.

²¹And when they had said more sharp words to them, they let them go, not seeing what punishment they might give them, because of the people; for all men were giving praise to God for what had taken place.

²²For the man on whom this act of power was done was more than forty years old.

²³And when they had been made free, they came back to their friends, and gave an account of all the things which the chief priests and the authorities had said to them.

²⁴And hearing it, they all, with one mind, made prayer to God and said, O Lord, maker of heaven and earth and the sea and all things in them:

²⁵Who has said, by the Holy Spirit, through the mouth of our father David your servant, Why are the nations so violently moved, and why are the thoughts of the people so foolish?

²⁶The kings of the earth were lifted up, the rulers came together, against the Lord, and against his Christ:

²⁷For, truly, in this town, against your holy servant, Jesus, who was marked out by you as Christ, Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, came together,

²⁸To do that which had been fixed before by your hand and your purpose.

²⁹And now, Lord, take note of their cruel words, and give your servants power to be preachers of your word without fear,

³⁰While your hand is stretched out to do works of mercy; so that signs and wonders may be done through the name of your holy servant Jesus.

³¹And when their prayer was ended, the place where they were was violently moved, and they all became full of the Holy Spirit, preaching the word of God without fear.

³²And all those who were of the faith were one in heart and soul: and not one of them said that any of the things which he had was his property only; but they had all things in common.

³³And with great power the Apostles gave witness of the coming back of the Lord Jesus from the dead; and grace was on them all.

³⁴And no one among them was in need; for everyone who had land or houses, exchanging them for money, took the price of them,

³⁵And put it at the feet of the Apostles for distribution to everyone as he had need.

³⁶And Joseph, who was given by the Apostles the name of Barnabas (the sense of which is, Son of comfort), a Levite and a man of Cyprus by birth,

³⁷Having a field, got money for it and put the money at the feet of the Apostles.

5But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, got money for his property,

²And kept back part of the price, his wife having knowledge of it, and took the rest and put it at the feet of the Apostles.

³But Peter said, Ananias, why has the Evil One put it into your heart to be false to the Holy Spirit, and to keep back part of the price of the land?

⁴While you had it, was it not your property? and after you had given it in exchange, was it not still in your power? how has this purpose come into your mind? you have been false, not to men, but to God.

⁵And at these words, Ananias went down on the earth, and his life went from him: and great fear came on all who were present.

⁶And the young men went and made ready his body, and took it out, and put it in the earth.

⁷And about three hours after, his wife, having no knowledge of what had taken place, came in.

⁸And Peter said to her, Give me an answer: was this amount of money the price of the land? And she said, Yes, it was.

⁹But Peter said to her, Why have you made an agreement together to be false to the Spirit of the Lord? See, the feet of the young men who have put the body of your husband in the earth, are at the door, and they will take you out.

¹⁰And straight away she went down at his feet, and her life went from her: and the young men came in and saw her dead, and they took her out and put her in the earth with her husband.

¹¹Then great fear came on all the church and on all who had knowledge of these things.

¹²Now a number of signs and wonders were done among the people by the hands of the Apostles; and they were all together in Solomon's covered way.

¹³The others, in fear, kept back from joining them: but the people made much of them;

¹⁴And a great number of men and women had faith, and were joined to the Lord;

¹⁵And they even took into the streets people who were ill, and put them on beds, so that when Peter went by, some of them might be in his shade.

¹⁶And numbers of people came together from the towns round about Jerusalem, with those who were ill and those who were troubled with unclean spirits: and they were all made well.

¹⁷But the high priest and those who were with him (the Sadducees) were full of envy,

¹⁸And they took the Apostles and put them in the common prison.

¹⁹But in the night an angel of the Lord, opening the doors of the prison, took them out and said,

²⁰Go, take your place in the Temple and give the people all the teaching about this Life.

²¹And hearing this, they went into the Temple at dawn, and were teaching. But the high priest and those who were with him got together the Sanhedrin and the representatives of the children of Israel, and sent to the prison to get them.

²²But the men who were sent saw that they were not in the prison, and came back with the news,

²³Saying, The doors of the prison were safely shut, and the keepers were at the doors, but when they were open, there was nobody inside.

²⁴Now, at these words, the captain of the Temple and the chief priests were greatly troubled about what might be the end of this business.

²⁵And someone came and said to them, The men, whom you put in prison, are in the Temple teaching the people.

²⁶Then the captain and some of the police went and took them, but not violently, for fear that they might be stoned by the people.

²⁷And they took them into the Sanhedrin, and the high priest said to them,

²⁸We gave you very clear orders not to give teaching in this name: and now Jerusalem is full of your teaching, and you are attempting to make us responsible for this man's death.

²⁹But Peter and the Apostles, answering, said, We have to do the orders of God, not of man.

³⁰The God of our fathers gave Jesus back to life, whom you had put to death, hanging him on a tree.

³¹Him God has put on high at his right hand, as a Ruler and a Saviour, to give to Israel a change of heart and forgiveness of sins.

³²And we are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who keep his laws.

³³But when these words came to their ears, they were cut to the heart, and had a mind to put them to death.

³⁴But one of the Sanhedrin, a Pharisee named Gamaliel, a man of learning in the law, of whom all the people had a high opinion, got up and made a suggestion for the men to be put outside for a little time.

³⁵And he said to them, Men of Israel, take care what you do about these men.

³⁶For before this there was Theudas, who said he was someone important, to whom about four hundred men gave their support: he was put to death, and his band was broken up and came to nothing.

³⁷After this man, there was Judas of Galilee, at the time of the numbering, and some of the people went after him: he was put to death, and all his supporters were put to flight.

³⁸And now I say to you, Do nothing to these men, but let them be: for if this teaching or this work is of men, it will come to nothing:

³⁹But if it is of God, you will not be able to overcome them, and you are in danger of fighting against God.

⁴⁰And he seemed to them to be right: and they sent for the Apostles, and, after having them whipped and giving them orders to give no teaching in the name of Jesus, they let them go.

⁴¹So they went away from the Sanhedrin, happy to undergo shame for the Name.

⁴²And every day, in the Temple and privately, they went on teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ.

6Now in those days, when the number of the disciples was increasing, protests were made by the Greek Jews against the Hebrews, because their widows were not taken care of in the distribution of food every day.

²And the Apostles sent for all the disciples and said, It is not right for us to give up preaching the word of God in order to make distribution of food.

³Take then from among you seven men of good name, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, to whom we may give control of this business.

⁴Then we will give all our time to prayer and the teaching of the word.

⁵And this saying was pleasing to all of them: and they made selection of Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip and Prochorus and Nicanor and Timon and Parmenas and Nicolas of Antioch, who had become a Jew:

⁶These they took to the Apostles, who, after prayer, put their hands on them.

⁷And the word of God was increasing in power; and the number of the disciples in Jerusalem became very great, and a great number of priests were in agreement with the faith.

⁸And Stephen, full of grace and power, did great wonders and signs among the people.

⁹But some of those who were of the Synagogue named that of the Libertines, and some of the men of Cyrene and of Alexandria and those from Cilicia and Asia, had arguments with Stephen.

¹⁰But they were not able to get the better of him, for his words were full of wisdom and of the Spirit.

¹¹Then they got men to say, He has said evil against Moses and against God, in our hearing.

¹²And the people, with the rulers and the scribes, were moved against him, and they came and took him before the Sanhedrin,

¹³And they got false witnesses who said, This man is for ever saying things against this holy place and against the law:

¹⁴For he has said in our hearing that this Jesus of Nazareth will put this place to destruction and make changes in the rules which were handed down to us by Moses.

¹⁵And all those who were in the Sanhedrin, looking at him, saw that his face was like the face of an angel.

7Then the high priest said, Are these things true?

²And he said, My brothers and fathers, give hearing. The God of glory came to our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he was living in Haran,

³And said to him, Go out of your land, and away from your family, and come into the land to which I will be your guide.

⁴Then he came out of the land of the Chaldaeans, and went into Haran; and from there, when his father was dead, he was guided by God into this land, where you are living now:

⁵And God gave him no heritage in it, not even enough to put his foot on: but he gave him an undertaking that he would give it to him and to his children after him, though he had no child at that time.

⁶And God said that his seed would be living in a strange land, and that they would make them servants, and be cruel to them for four hundred years.

⁷And I will be the judge, said God, of that nation which made them servants: and after that, they will come out and give me worship in this place.

⁸And he made with him the agreement of which circumcision was the sign. And so Abraham had a son, Isaac, and gave him circumcision on the eighth day; and Isaac had a son, Jacob, and Jacob was the father of the twelve heads of the families of Israel.

⁹And the brothers, moved with envy against Joseph, gave him to the Egyptians for money: but God was with him,

¹⁰And made him free from all his troubles, and gave him wisdom and the approval of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who made him ruler over Egypt and all his house.

¹¹Now there was no food to be had in all Egypt and Canaan, and there was great trouble: and our fathers were not able to get food.

¹²But Jacob, hearing that there was grain in Egypt, sent out our fathers the first time.

¹³And the second time his brothers had a meeting with Joseph, and Pharaoh had knowledge of Joseph's family.

¹⁴Then Joseph sent for Jacob his father and all his family, seventy-five persons.

¹⁵And Jacob went down to Egypt, and came to his end there, and so did our fathers;

¹⁶And they were taken over to Shechem, and put to rest in the place which Abraham got for a price in silver from the sons of Hamor in Shechem.

¹⁷But when the time was near for putting into effect the undertaking which God had given to Abraham, the people were increasing in Egypt,

¹⁸Till another king came to power, who had no knowledge of Joseph.

¹⁹He, having evil designs against our nation, was cruel to our fathers, and they were forced to put out their young children, so that they might not go on living.

²⁰At which time Moses came to birth, and he was very beautiful; and he was kept for three months in his father's house:

²¹And when he was put out, Pharaoh's daughter took him and kept him as her son.

²²And Moses was trained in all the wisdom of Egypt, and was great in his words and works.

²³But when he was almost forty years old, it came into his heart to go and see his brothers, the children of Israel.

²⁴And seeing one of them being attacked, he went to his help and gave the Egyptian a death-blow:

²⁵And he was hoping that his brothers would see that God had sent him to be their saviour; but they did not see.

²⁶And the day after, he came to them, while they were having a fight, and would have made peace between them, saying, Sirs, you are brothers; why do you do wrong to one another?

²⁷But the man who was doing wrong to his neighbour, pushing him away, said, Who made you a ruler and a judge over us?

²⁸Will you put me to death as you did the Egyptian yesterday?

²⁹And at these words, Moses went in flight to the land of Midian, and was living there for a time, and had two sons.

³⁰At the end of forty years, an angel came to him in the waste land of Sinai, in the flame of a burning thorn-tree.

³¹And Moses, seeing it, was full of wonder, and when he came up to have a nearer view of it, the voice of the Lord came to him, saying,

³²I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob. And Moses, shaking with fear, kept his eyes from looking at it.

³³And the Lord said, Take off the shoes from your feet, for the place where you are is holy.

³⁴Truly, I have seen the sorrows of my people in Egypt, and their cries have come to my ears, and I have come down to make them free: and now, come, I will send you to Egypt.

³⁵This Moses, whom they would not have, saying, Who made you a ruler and a judge? him God sent to be a ruler and a saviour, by the hand of the angel whom he saw in the thorn-tree.

³⁶This man took them out, having done wonders and signs in Egypt and in the Red Sea and in the waste land, for forty years.

³⁷This is the same Moses, who said to the children of Israel, God will give you a prophet from among your brothers, like me.

³⁸This is the man who was in the church in the waste land with the angel who was talking to him in Sinai, and with our fathers; and to him were given the living words of God, so that he might give them to you.

³⁹By whom our fathers would not be controlled; but they put him on one side, turning back in their hearts to Egypt,

⁴⁰And saying to Aaron, Make us gods to go before us: as for this Moses, who took us out of the land of Egypt, we have no idea what has become of him.

⁴¹And they made the image of a young ox in those days, and made an offering to it, and had joy in the work of their hands.

⁴²But God was turned from them and let them give worship to the stars of heaven, as it says in the book of the prophets, Did you make offerings to me of sheep and oxen for forty years in the waste land, O house of Israel?

⁴³And you took up the tent of Moloch and the star of the god Rephan, images which you made to give worship to them: and I will take you away, farther than Babylon.

⁴⁴Our fathers had the Tent of witness in the waste land, as God gave orders to Moses to make it after the design which he had seen.

⁴⁵Which our fathers, in their turn, took with them when, with Joshua, they came into the heritage of the nations whom God was driving out before the face of our fathers, till the time of David,

⁴⁶Who was pleasing to God; and he had a desire to make a holy tent for the God of Jacob.

⁴⁷But Solomon was the builder of his house.

⁴⁸But still, the Most High has not his resting-place in houses made with hands, as the prophet says,

⁴⁹Heaven is the seat of my power, and earth is a resting-place for my feet: what sort of house will you make for me, says the Lord, or what is my place of rest?

⁵⁰Did not my hand make all these things?

⁵¹You whose hearts are hard and whose ears are shut to me; you are ever working against the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you.

⁵²Which of the prophets was not cruelly attacked by your fathers? and they put to death those who gave them the news of the coming of the Upright One; whom you have now given up and put to death;

⁵³You, to whom the law was given as it was ordered by angels, and who have not kept it.

⁵⁴Hearing these things, they were cut to the heart and moved with wrath against him.

⁵⁵But he was full of the Holy Spirit, and looking up to heaven, he saw the glory of God and Jesus at the right hand of God.

⁵⁶And he said, Now I see heaven open, and the Son of man at the right hand of God.

⁵⁷But with loud cries, and stopping their ears, they made an attack on him all together,

⁵⁸Driving him out of the town and stoning him: and the witnesses put their clothing at the feet of a young man named Saul.

⁵⁹And Stephen, while he was being stoned, made prayer to God, saying, Lord Jesus, take my spirit.

⁶⁰And going down on his knees, he said in a loud voice, Lord, do not make them responsible for this sin. And when he had said this, he went to his rest.

8And Saul gave approval to his death. Now at that time a violent attack was started against the church in Jerusalem; and all but the Apostles went away into all parts of Judaea and Samaria.

²And God-fearing men put Stephen's body in its last resting-place, making great weeping over him.

³But Saul was burning with hate against the church, going into every house and taking men and women and putting them in prison.

⁴But those who had gone in flight went everywhere preaching the word.

⁵And Philip went down to Samaria and was teaching them about Christ.

⁶And all the people gave attention to the words which Philip said, when they saw the signs which he did.

⁷For unclean spirits came out from those who had them, crying with a loud voice; and a number of those who were ill and broken in body were made well.

⁸And there was much joy in that town.

⁹But there was a certain man named Simon, who in the past had been a wonder-worker and a cause of surprise to the people of Samaria, saying that he himself was a great man:

¹⁰To whom they all gave attention, from the smallest to the greatest, saying, This man is that power of God which is named Great.

¹¹And they gave attention to him, because for a long time his wonder-working powers had kept them under his control.

¹²But when they had faith in the good news given by Philip about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, a number of men and women had baptism.

¹³And Simon himself had faith and, having had baptism, he went with Philip and, seeing the signs and the great wonders which he did, he was full of surprise.

¹⁴Now when the Apostles at Jerusalem had news that the people of Samaria had taken the word of God into their hearts, they sent to them Peter and John;

¹⁵Who, when they came there, made prayer for them, that the Holy Spirit might be given to them:

¹⁶For up to that time he had not come on any of them; only baptism had been given to them in the name of the Lord Jesus.

¹⁷Then they put their hands on them, and the Holy Spirit came on them.

¹⁸Now when Simon saw that the Holy Spirit was given through the touch of the Apostles' hands, he made them an offering of money, saying,

¹⁹Give me this power, so that when I put my hands on anyone he may get the Holy Spirit.

²⁰But Peter said, May your money come to destruction with you, because you had the idea that what is freely given by God may be got for a price.

²¹You have no part in this business, because your heart is not right before God.

²²Let your heart be changed, and make prayer to God that you may have forgiveness for your evil thoughts.

²³For I see that you are prisoned in bitter envy and the chains of sin.

²⁴And Simon, answering, said, Make prayer for me to the Lord, so that these things which you have said may not come on me.

²⁵So they, having given their witness and made clear the word of the Lord, went back to Jerusalem, giving the good news on their way in a number of the small towns of Samaria.

²⁶But an angel of the Lord said to Philip, Get up, and go to the south, to the road which goes from Jerusalem to Gaza, through the waste land.

²⁷And he went and there was a man of Ethiopia, a servant of great authority under Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, and controller of all her property, who had come up to Jerusalem for worship;

²⁸He was going back, seated in his carriage, and was reading the book of the prophet Isaiah.

²⁹And the Spirit said to Philip, Go near, and get on his carriage.

³⁰And Philip, running up to him, saw that he was reading Isaiah the prophet, and said to him, Is the sense of what you are reading clear to you?

³¹And he said, How is that possible when I have no guide? And he made Philip get up by his side.

³²Now the place in the book where he was reading was this: He was taken, like a sheep, to be put to death; and as a lamb is quiet when its wool is being cut, so he made no sound:

³³Being of low degree, his cause was not given a hearing: who has knowledge of his family? for his life is cut off from the earth.

³⁴And the Ethiopian said to Philip, About whom are these words said by the prophet? about himself, or some other?

³⁵So Philip, starting from this writing, gave him the good news about Jesus.

³⁶And while they were going on their way, they came to some water, and the Ethiopian said, See, here is water; why may I not have baptism?

³⁷[]

³⁸And he gave orders for the carriage to be stopped, and the two of them went down into the water, and Philip gave him baptism.

³⁹And when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord took Philip away; and the Ethiopian saw him no more, for he went on his way full of joy.

⁴⁰But Philip came to Azotus, and went through all the towns, preaching the good news, till he came to Caesarea.

9But Saul, still burning with desire to put to death the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest,

²And made a request for letters from him to the Synagogues of Damascus, so that if there were any of the Way there, men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem.

³And while he was journeying, he came near Damascus; and suddenly he saw a light from heaven shining round him;

⁴And he went down on the earth, and a voice said to him, Saul, Saul, why are you attacking me so cruelly?

⁵And he said, Who are you, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus, whom you are attacking:

⁶But get up, and go into the town, and it will be made clear to you what you have to do.

⁷And the men who were with him were not able to say anything; hearing the voice, but seeing no one.

⁸And Saul got up from the earth, and when his eyes were open, he saw nothing; and he was guided by the hand into Damascus.

⁹And for three days he was not able to see, and he took no food or drink.

¹⁰Now there was a certain disciple at Damascus, named Ananias; and the Lord said to him in a vision, Ananias! and he said, Here I am, Lord.

¹¹And the Lord said to him, Get up, and go to the street which is named Straight, and make search at the house of Judas for one named Saul of Tarsus: for he is at prayer;

¹²And he has seen a man named Ananias coming in and putting his hands on him, so that he may be able to see.

¹³But Ananias said, Lord, I have had accounts of this man from a number of people, how much evil he has done to your saints at Jerusalem:

¹⁴And here he has authority from the chief priests to make prisoners all who give worship to your name.

¹⁵But the Lord said, Go without fear: for he is a special vessel for me, to give to the Gentiles and kings and to the children of Israel the knowledge of my name:

¹⁶For I will make clear to him what troubles he will have to undergo for me.

¹⁷And Ananias went out and came to the house, and putting his hands on him, said, Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, whom you saw when you were on your journey, has sent me, so that you may be able to see, and be full of the Holy Spirit.

¹⁸And straight away it seemed as if a veil was taken from his eyes, and he was able to see; and he got up, and had baptism;

¹⁹And when he had taken food his strength came back. And for some days he kept with the disciples who were in Damascus.

²⁰And straight away, in the Synagogues, he was preaching Jesus as the Son of God.

²¹And all those hearing him were full of wonder and said, Is not this the man who in Jerusalem was attacking all the worshippers of this name? and he had come here so that he might take them as prisoners before the chief priests.

²²But Saul went on increasing in power, and the Jews in Damascus were not able to give answers to the arguments by which he made it clear that Jesus was the Christ.

²³Then, after some days, the Jews made an agreement together to put him to death:

²⁴But Saul got knowledge of their design. And they kept watch day and night on the roads out of the town, so that they might put him to death:

²⁵But his disciples took him by night and let him down from the wall in a basket.

²⁶And when he came to Jerusalem, he made an attempt to be joined to the disciples, but they were all in fear of him, not taking him for a disciple.

²⁷But Barnabas took him to the Apostles and gave them an account of how he had seen the Lord on the road, and had given hearing to his words, and how at Damascus he had been preaching in the name of Jesus without fear.

²⁸And he was with them, going in and out at Jerusalem,

²⁹Preaching in the name of the Lord without fear; and he had discussions with the Greek Jews; but they were working for his death.

³⁰And when the brothers had knowledge of it, they took him to Caesarea and sent him to Tarsus.

³¹And so the church through all Judaea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was made strong; and, living in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, was increased greatly.

³²And it came about that while Peter was going through all parts of the country he came to the saints who were living at Lydda.

³³And there was a certain man there, named Aeneas, who for eight years had been in bed, without power of moving.

³⁴And Peter said to him, Aeneas, Jesus Christ makes you well: get up and make your bed. And straight away he got up.

³⁵And all those living in Lydda and Sharon saw him, and were turned to the Lord.

³⁶Now there was at Joppa a certain disciple named Tabitha, that is, Dorcas: this woman was given to good works and acts of mercy at all times.

³⁷And it came about, in those days, that she got ill and came to her death: and when she had been washed, they put her in a room which was high up.

³⁸And because Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples, having knowledge that Peter was there, sent two men to him, requesting him to come to them straight away.

³⁹And Peter went with them. And when he had come, they took him into the room: and all the widows were there, weeping and putting before him the coats and clothing which Dorcas had made while she was with them.

⁴⁰But Peter made them all go outside, and went down on his knees in prayer; and turning to the body, he said, Tabitha, get up. And, opening her eyes, she saw Peter and got up.

⁴¹And he took her hand, lifting her up; and, sending for the saints and widows, he gave her to them, living.

⁴²And news of it went all through Joppa, and a number of people had faith in the Lord.

⁴³And he was living in Joppa for some time with Simon, a leather-worker.

10Now there was a certain man in Caesarea, named Cornelius, the captain of the Italian band of the army;

²A serious-minded man, fearing God with all his family; he gave much money to the poor, and made prayer to God at all times.

³He saw in a vision, clearly, at about the ninth hour of the day, an angel of the Lord coming to him and saying to him, Cornelius!

⁴And he, looking on him in fear, said, What is it, Lord? And he said to him, Your prayers and your offerings have come up to God, and he has kept them in mind.

⁵Now send men to Joppa, and get one Simon, named Peter,

⁶Who is living with Simon, a leather-worker, whose house is by the sea.

⁷And when the angel who said these words to him had gone away, he sent for two of his house-servants, and a God-fearing man of the army, one of those who were waiting on him at all times;

⁸And having given them an account of everything, he sent them to Joppa.

⁹Now the day after, when they were on their journey and were near the town, Peter went up to the top of the house for prayer, about the sixth hour:

¹⁰And he was in need of food: but while they were getting it ready, a deep sleep came on him;

¹¹And he saw the heavens opening, and a vessel coming down, like a great cloth let down on the earth,

¹²In which were all sorts of beasts and birds.

¹³And a voice came to him, saying, Come, Peter; take them for food.

¹⁴But Peter said, No, Lord; for I have never taken food which is common or unclean.

¹⁵And the voice came to him a second time, What God has made clean, do not you make common.

¹⁶And this was done three times: and then the vessel was taken back into heaven.

¹⁷Now while Peter was in doubt as to the purpose of this vision, the men who were sent by Cornelius, having made search for Simon's house, came to the door,

¹⁸To see if Simon, named Peter, was living there.

¹⁹And, while Peter was turning the vision over in his mind, the Spirit said to him, See, three men are looking for you.

²⁰Go down, then, and go with them, doubting nothing, for I have sent them.

²¹And Peter went down to the men, and said, I am the man you are looking for: why have you come?

²²And they said, Cornelius, a captain, an upright and God-fearing man, respected by all the nation of the Jews, had word from God by an angel to send for you to his house, and to give hearing to your words.

²³So he took them in for the night. And the day after, he went with them, taking some of the brothers from Joppa with him.

²⁴And the day after that, they came to Caesarea. And Cornelius was waiting for them, having got together his relations and his near friends.

²⁵And when Peter came in, Cornelius came to him and, falling down at his feet, gave him worship.

²⁶But Peter, lifting him up, said, Get up, for I am a man as you are.

²⁷And saying these words, he went in, and saw that a great number of people had come together;

²⁸And he said to them, You yourselves have knowledge that it is against the law for a man who is a Jew to be in the company of one who is of another nation; but God has made it clear to me that no man may be named common or unclean:

²⁹And so I came without question, when I was sent for. What then is your purpose in sending for me?

³⁰And Cornelius said, Four days from now I was in my house in prayer at the ninth hour; and I saw before me a man in shining clothing,

³¹Who said, Cornelius, your prayer has come to the ears of God, and your offerings are kept in his memory.

³²Send, then, to Joppa, and get Simon, named Peter, to come to you; he is living in the house of Simon, a leather-worker, by the sea.

³³So, straight away, I sent for you; and you have done well to come. And now, we are all present before God, ready to give attention to all the things which the Lord has given you to say.

³⁴Then Peter said, Truly, I see clearly that God is no respecter of persons:

³⁵But in every nation, the man who has fear of him and does righteousness is pleasing to him.

³⁶The word which he sent to the children of Israel, giving the good news of peace through Jesus Christ (who is Lord of all)--

³⁷That word you yourselves have knowledge of, which was made public through all Judaea, starting from Galilee, after the baptism of which John was the preacher,

³⁸About Jesus of Nazareth, how God gave the Holy Spirit to him, with power: and how he went about doing good and making well all who were troubled by evil spirits, for God was with him.

³⁹And we are witnesses of all the things which he did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem; whom they put to death, hanging him on a tree.

⁴⁰On the third day God gave him back to life, and let him be seen,

⁴¹Not by all the people, but by witnesses marked out before by God, even by us, who took food and drink with him after he came back from the dead.

⁴²And he gave us orders to give news of this to the people, and to give public witness that this is he whom God has made judge of the living and the dead.

⁴³To him all the prophets give witness, that through his name everyone who has faith in him will have forgiveness of sins.

⁴⁴While Peter was saying these words, the Holy Spirit came on all those who were hearing the word.

⁴⁵And the Jews of the faith, who had come with Peter, were full of wonder, because the Holy Spirit was given to the Gentiles,

⁴⁶And they were talking in tongues, and giving glory to God. Then Peter said,

⁴⁷Will any man say that these may not have baptism who have been given the Holy Spirit as we have?

⁴⁸And he gave orders for them to have baptism in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they kept him with them for some days.

11Now the Apostles and the brothers who were in Judaea had news that the word of God had been given to the Gentiles.

²And when Peter came to Jerusalem, those who kept the rule of circumcision had an argument with him,

³Saying, You went to men without circumcision, and took food with them.

⁴But Peter gave them an account of it all in order, saying to them,

⁵I was in the town of Joppa, at prayer: and falling into a deep sleep, I saw in a vision a vessel like a great cloth let down from heaven, and it came down to me:

⁶And looking on it with attention I saw in it all sorts of beasts and birds.

⁷And a voice came to my ears saying, Come, Peter; take them for food.

⁸But I said, No, Lord; for nothing common or unclean has ever come into my mouth.

⁹But the voice, coming a second time from heaven, said, What God has made clean, do not you make common.

¹⁰And this was done three times, and they were all taken up again into heaven.

¹¹And at that minute, three men, sent from Caesarea, came to the house where we were.

¹²And the Spirit gave me orders to go with them, doubting nothing. And these six brothers came with me; and we went into that man's house:

¹³And he gave us an account of how he had seen the angel in his house, saying, Send to Joppa, and get Simon, named Peter, to come to you;

¹⁴Who will say words to you through which you and all your family may get salvation.

¹⁵And, while I was talking to them, the Holy Spirit came on them, as on us at first.

¹⁶And the words of the Lord came into my mind, how he said, The baptism of John was with water, but you will have baptism with the Holy Spirit.

¹⁷If then God gave them, when they had faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, the same as he gave to us, who was I to go against God?

¹⁸And hearing these things they said nothing more, but gave glory to God, saying, Then to the Gentiles as to us has God given a change of heart, so that they may have life.

¹⁹Then those who had gone away at the time of the trouble about Stephen, went as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus, preaching to the Jews only.

²⁰But some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, when they came to Antioch, gave the good news about the Lord Jesus to the Greeks.

²¹And the power of the Lord was with them, and a great number had faith and were turned to the Lord.

²²And news of them came to the ears of the church at Jerusalem: and they sent Barnabas as far as Antioch:

²³Who, when he came and saw the grace of God, was glad; and he made clear to them the need of keeping near the Lord with all the strength of their hearts:

²⁴For he was a good man and full of the Holy Spirit and of faith: and a great number were joined to the Lord.

²⁵Then he went on to Tarsus, looking for Saul;

²⁶And when he had come across him, he took him to Antioch. And they were with the church there for a year, teaching the people; and the disciples were first given the name of Christians in Antioch.

²⁷Now in those days prophets came from Jerusalem to Antioch.

²⁸And one of them, named Agabus, said publicly through the Spirit that there would be serious need of food all over the earth: which came about in the time of Claudius.

²⁹And the disciples, everyone as he was able, made a decision to send help to the brothers living in Judaea:

³⁰Which they did, sending it to the rulers of the church by the hand of Barnabas and Saul.

12Now, about that time, Herod the king made cruel attacks on the Christians.

²And he put James, the brother of John, to death with the sword.

³And when he saw that this was pleasing to the Jews he went on to take Peter in addition. This was at the time of the feast of unleavened bread.

⁴And having taken him, he put him in prison, with four bands of armed men to keep watch over him; his purpose being to take him out to the people after the Passover.

⁵So Peter was kept in prison: but the church made strong prayer to God for him.

⁶And when Herod was about to take him out, the same night Peter was sleeping in chains between two armed men, and the watchmen were keeping watch before the door of the prison.

⁷And a great light was seen shining in the room, and an angel of the Lord came to Peter and, touching him on his side so that he came out of his sleep, said, Get up quickly. And his chains came off his hands.

⁸Then the angel said, Put on your shoes and get ready to go. And he did so. And he said, Put your coat round you and come with me.

⁹And he went out after him; and he was not certain if what was done by the angel was a fact, for it seemed to him that he was seeing a vision.

¹⁰And when they had gone past the first and second watchmen they came to the iron door into the town, which came open by itself: and they went out and down one street; and then the angel went away.

¹¹And when Peter came to his senses he said, Now, truly, I am certain that the Lord has sent his angel and taken me out of the hands of Herod, against all the hopes of the Jews.

¹²And when he became clear about this, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John named Mark, where a number of them had come together for prayer.

¹³And he gave a blow on the door, and a young girl came to it, named Rhoda.

¹⁴And hearing the voice of Peter, in her joy she went running, without opening the door, to say that Peter was outside.

¹⁵And they said to her, You are off your head. But still she said, with decision, that it was so. And they said, It is his angel.

¹⁶But Peter went on giving blows on the door: and when it was open and they saw him, they were full of wonder.

¹⁷But he made a sign to them with his hand to be quiet, and gave them an account of how the Lord had taken him out of prison. And he said, Give the news to James and the brothers. And then he went away.

¹⁸Now when it was day, the armed men were greatly troubled about what had become of Peter.

¹⁹And Herod, when he sent for him, and he was not there, after questioning the watchmen, gave orders that they were to be put to death. Then he went down from Judaea to Caesarea for a time.

²⁰Now he was very angry with the people of Tyre and Sidon: and they came to him, all together, and having made friends with Blastus, the controller of the king's house, they made a request for peace, because their country was dependent on the king's country for its food.

²¹And on the day which had been fixed, Herod, dressed in his robes and seated in his place, made a public statement to them.

²²And the people, with loud cries, said, It is the voice of a god, not of a man.

²³And straight away the angel of the Lord sent a disease on him, because he did not give the glory to God: and his flesh was wasted away by worms, and so he came to his end.

²⁴But the word of the Lord went on increasing.

²⁵And Barnabas and Saul came back from Jerusalem, when their work was ended, taking with them John named Mark.

13Now there were at Antioch, in the church there, prophets and teachers, Barnabas, and Symeon who was named Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen, a relation of Herod the king, and Saul.

²And while they were doing the Lord's work, and going without food, the Holy Spirit said, Let Barnabas and Saul be given to me for the special work for which they have been marked out by me.

³Then, after prayer and going without food they put their hands on them, and sent them away.

⁴So, being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia; and from there they went by ship to Cyprus.

⁵And at Salamis they were preaching the word of God in the Synagogues of the Jews: and John was with them, helping them.

⁶And when they had gone through all the island to Paphos, they came across a certain wonder-worker and false prophet, a Jew whose name was Bar-Jesus;

⁷Who was with the ruler, Sergius Paulus, an able man. This man sent for Barnabas and Saul, desiring to have knowledge of the word of God.

⁸But Elymas, the wonder-worker (for that is the sense of his name), put himself against them, with the purpose of turning the ruler from the faith.

⁹But Saul, whose other name is Paul, being full of the Holy Spirit, looking hard at him, said,

¹⁰O you, who are full of false tricks and evil ways, a son of the Evil One, hating all righteousness, will you for ever be turning people from the right ways of the Lord?

¹¹And now, see, the hand of the Lord is on you, and you will be blind and not able to see the sun for a time. And straight away a dark mist came down on him; and he went about looking for a guide.

¹²Then the ruler, when he saw what was done, had faith, being full of wonder at the teaching of the Lord.

¹³Then Paul and those who were with him went by ship from Paphos and came to Perga in Pamphylia: and there John went away from them and came back to Jerusalem.

¹⁴But they, going through from Perga, came to Antioch in Pisidia; and they went into the Synagogue on the Sabbath and were seated.

¹⁵And after the reading of the law and the prophets, the rulers of the Synagogue sent to them, saying, Brothers, if you have a word of comfort for the people, say on.

¹⁶And Paul, getting up and making a sign with his hand, said, Men of Israel, and you who have the fear of God, give ear.

¹⁷The God of this people Israel made selection of our fathers, lifting the people up from their low condition when they were living in the land of Egypt, and with a strong arm took them out of it.

¹⁸And for about forty years he put up with their ways in the waste land.

¹⁹And having put to destruction seven nations in the land of Canaan, he gave them the land for their heritage for about four hundred and fifty years.

²⁰And after these things he gave them judges, till the time of Samuel the prophet.

²¹Then at their request for a king, God gave them Saul, the son of Kish, a man of the family of Benjamin, who was their king for forty years.

²²And having put him on one side, he made David their king, to whom he gave witness, saying, I have taken David, the son of Jesse, a man dear to my heart, who will do all my pleasure.

²³From this man's seed has God given to Israel a Saviour, even Jesus, as he gave his word;

²⁴For whose coming John made ready the way by preaching to all the people of Israel the baptism which goes with a change of heart.

²⁵And when John was completing his work, he said, What do I seem to you to be? I am not he; but one is coming after me, whose shoes I am not good enough to undo.

²⁶My brothers, children of the family of Abraham, and those among you who have the fear of God, to us the word of this salvation is sent.

²⁷For the men of Jerusalem and their rulers, having no knowledge of him, or of the sayings of the prophets which come to their ears every Sabbath day, gave effect to them by judging him.

²⁸And though no cause of death was seen in him, they made a request to Pilate that he might be put to death.

²⁹And when they had done all the things said in the Writings about him, they took him down from the tree, and put him in the place of the dead.

³⁰But God gave him back from the dead:

³¹And for a number of days he was seen by those who came with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are now his witnesses before the people.

³²And we are giving you the good news of the undertaking made to the fathers,

³³Which God has now put into effect for our children, by sending Jesus; as it says in the second Psalm, You are my Son; this day I have given you being.

³⁴And about his coming back from the dead, never again to go to destruction, he has said these words, I will give you the holy and certain mercies of David.

³⁵Because he says in another Psalm, You will not let your Holy One see destruction.

³⁶Now David, having done God's work for his generation, went to sleep, and was put with his fathers, and his body came to destruction:

³⁷But he, who was lifted up by God, did not see destruction.

³⁸And so, let it be clear to you, my brothers, that through this man forgiveness of sins is offered to you:

³⁹And through him everyone who has faith is made free from all those things, from which the law of Moses was not able to make you free.

⁴⁰So take care that these words of the prophets do not come true for you;

⁴¹See, you doubters, have wonder and come to your end; for I will do a thing in your days to which you will not give belief, even if it is made clear to you.

⁴²And when they went out, they made a request that these words might be said to them again on the Sabbath after.

⁴³Now when the meeting was ended, a number of the Jews and of the God-fearing Gentiles who had become Jews, went after Paul and Barnabas: who put before them how important it was to keep on in the grace of God.

⁴⁴And on the Sabbath after, almost all the town came together to give hearing to the word of God.

⁴⁵But when the Jews saw such a great number of people, they were full of envy and said evil words against Paul's preaching.

⁴⁶Then Paul and Barnabas without fear said, It was necessary for the word of God to be given to you first; but because you will have nothing to do with it, and have no desire for eternal life, it will now be offered to the Gentiles.

⁴⁷For so the Lord has given us orders, saying, I have given you for a light to the Gentiles so that you may be for salvation to the ends of the earth.

⁴⁸And the Gentiles, hearing this, were glad and gave glory to the word of God: and those marked out by God for eternal life had faith.

⁴⁹And the word of the Lord went through all the country.

⁵⁰But the Jews, working up the feelings of the God-fearing women of high position and of the chief men of the town, got an attack started against Paul and Barnabas, driving them out of those parts.

⁵¹But they, shaking off the dust of that place from their feet, came to Iconium.

⁵²And the disciples were full of joy and of the Holy Spirit.

14Now in Iconium they went together to the Synagogue of the Jews and gave such teaching that a great number of Jews and Greeks had faith.

²But those Jews who had not the faith, made the minds of the Gentiles bitter against the brothers.

³So they kept there for a long time, taking heart in the Lord, who gave witness to the word of his grace by causing signs and wonders to be done by their hands.

⁴But there was a division among the people of the town; some were on the side of the Jews and some on the side of the Apostles.

⁵And when a violent attempt was made by the Gentiles and the Jews, with their rulers, to make an attack on them and have them stoned,

⁶Having got news of it, they went in flight to the towns of Lycaonia, Lystra, and Derbe, and the country round about:

⁷And went on preaching the good news there.

⁸And at Lystra there was a certain man, who from birth had been without the use of his feet, never having had the power of walking.

⁹This man was giving ear to the preaching of Paul, who, looking at him, and seeing that he had faith to be made well,

¹⁰Said in a loud voice, Get up on your feet. And, jumping up, he went walking about.

¹¹And when the people saw what Paul had done, they said in a loud voice, in the language of Lycaonia, The gods have come down to us in the form of men.

¹²And they gave the name of Jupiter to Barnabas, and to Paul that of Mercury, because he was the chief talker.

¹³And the priest of the image of Jupiter, which was before the town, took oxen and flowers to the doors of the town, and was about to make an offering with the people.

¹⁴But when this came to the ears of the Apostles, Paul and Barnabas, they went running out among the people, parting their clothing, and crying out,

¹⁵Good people, why are you doing these things? We are men with the same feelings as you, and we give you the good news so that you may be turned away from these foolish things to the living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all things in them:

¹⁶Who in the past let all nations go in the ways which seemed good to them.

¹⁷But he was not without witness, because he did good, and gave you rain from heaven and times of fruit, making your hearts full of food and joy.

¹⁸And even with these words, it was hard for them to keep the people from making an offering to them.

¹⁹But some Jews came to that place from Antioch and Iconium, and got control over the people; and after stoning Paul, they had him pulled out of the town, taking him for dead.

²⁰But when the disciples came round him, he got up and went into the town: and the day after he went away with Barnabas to Derbe.

²¹And having made a number of disciples through the preaching of the good news in that town, they went back to Lystra and Iconium and Antioch,

²²Making strong the souls of the disciples, saying to them that they were to keep the faith, and that we have to go through troubles of all sorts to come into the kingdom of God.

²³And when they had made selection of some to be rulers in every church, and had given themselves to prayer and kept themselves from food, they put them into the care of the Lord in whom they had faith.

²⁴And they went through Pisidia and came to Pamphylia.

²⁵And, after preaching the word in Perga, they went down to Attalia;

²⁶And from there they went by ship to Antioch, where they had been handed over to the grace of God for the work which they had not done.

²⁷And when they came there, and had got the church together, they gave them an account of all the things which God had done through them, and how he had made open a door of faith to the Gentiles.

²⁸And they were with the disciples there for a long time.

15Now certain men came down from Judaea, teaching the brothers and saying that without circumcision, after the rule of Moses, there is no salvation.

²And after Paul and Barnabas had had no little argument and discussion with them, the brothers made a decision to send Paul and Barnabas and certain others of them to the Apostles and the rulers of the church at Jerusalem about this question.

³So they, being sent on their way by the church, went through Phoenicia and Samaria, giving news of the salvation of the Gentiles, to the great joy of all the brothers.

⁴And when they came to Jerusalem, they had a meeting with the church and the Apostles and the rulers, and they gave an account of all the things which God had done through them.

⁵But some of the Pharisees, who were of the faith, got up and said, It is necessary for these to have circumcision and to keep the law of Moses.

⁶And the Apostles and the rulers of the church came together and gave thought to the question.

⁷And when there had been much discussion, Peter got up and said to them, My brothers, you have knowledge that some time back it was God's pleasure that by my mouth the good news might be given to the Gentiles so that they might have faith.

⁸And God, the searcher of hearts, was a witness to them, giving them the Holy Spirit even as he did to us;

⁹Making no division between them and us, but making clean their hearts by faith.

¹⁰Why then are you testing God, by putting on the neck of the disciples a yoke so hard that not even our fathers or we were strong enough for it?

¹¹But we have faith that we will get salvation through the grace of the Lord Jesus in the same way as they.

¹²And all the people were quiet while Barnabas and Paul gave an account of the signs and wonders which God had done among the Gentiles by them.

¹³And when they had come to an end, James, answering, said, My brothers, give ear to me:

¹⁴Symeon has given an account of how God was first pleased to take from among the Gentiles a people for himself.

¹⁵And this is in agreement with the words of the prophets, as it is said,

¹⁶After these things I will come back, and will put up the tent of David which has been broken down, building up again its broken parts and making it complete:

¹⁷So that the rest of men may make search for the Lord, and all the Gentiles on whom my name is named,

¹⁸Says the Lord, who has made these things clear from the earliest times.

¹⁹For this reason my decision is, that we do not put trouble in the way of those who from among the Gentiles are turned to God;

²⁰But that we give them orders to keep themselves from things offered to false gods, and from the evil desires of the body, and from the flesh of animals put to death in ways against the law, and from blood.

²¹For Moses, from times long past, has his preachers in every town, reading his law in the Synagogues every Sabbath.

²²Then it seemed good to the Apostles and the rulers and all the church, to send men from among them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas; Judas, named Barsabbas, and Silas, chief men among the brothers:

²³And they sent a letter by them, saying, The Apostles and the older brothers, to the brothers who are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, may joy be with you:

²⁴Because we have knowledge that some who went from us have been troubling you with their words, putting your souls in doubt; to whom we gave no such order;

²⁵It seemed good to us, having come to an agreement together, to send these men to you, with our well loved Barnabas and Paul,

²⁶Men who have given up their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

²⁷And so we have sent Judas and Silas, who will say the same things to you themselves, by word of mouth.

²⁸For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us, to put on you nothing more than these necessary things;

²⁹To keep from things offered to false gods, and from blood, and from things put to death in ways which are against the law, and from the evil desires of the body; if you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. May you be happy.

³⁰So they, being sent away, came down to Antioch, and having got the people together, they gave them the letter.

³¹And after reading it, they were glad of its comfort.

³²And Judas and Silas, who themselves were prophets, gave teaching to the brothers and made them strong in the faith.

³³And when they had been there for some time, they were sent back in peace by the brothers to those who had sent them.

³⁴[]

³⁵But Paul and Barnabas kept on in Antioch, teaching and preaching the word of God, with a number of others.

³⁶And after some days, Paul said to Barnabas, Let us go back and see the brothers in every town where we have given the word of God, and see how they are.

³⁷And Barnabas had a desire to take with them John, named Mark.

³⁸But Paul was of the opinion that it was not right to take with them one who had gone away from them in Pamphylia, and had not gone on with the work.

³⁹And there was a sharp argument between them, so that they were parted from one another, and Barnabas took Mark with him and went by ship to Cyprus;

⁴⁰But Paul took Silas and went away with the blessing of the brothers.

⁴¹And he went through Syria and Cilicia, making the churches stronger in the faith.

16And he came to Derbe and Lystra: and there was a certain disciple there named Timothy, whose mother was one of the Jews of the faith, but his father was a Greek;

²Of whom the brothers at Lystra and Iconium had a high opinion.

³Paul had a desire for him to go with him, and he gave him circumcision because of the Jews who were in those parts: for they all had knowledge that his father was a Greek.

⁴And on their way through the towns, they gave them the rules which had been made by the Apostles and the rulers of the church at Jerusalem, so that they might keep them.

⁵So the churches were made strong in the faith and were increased in number every day.

⁶And after they had gone through the land of Phrygia and Galatia, the Holy Spirit did not let them take the word into Asia;

⁷And having come to Mysia, they made an attempt to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not let them;

⁸And going past Mysia, they came down to Troas.

⁹And Paul had a vision in the night; a man of Macedonia came, requesting him, and saying, Come over into Macedonia and give us help.

¹⁰And when he had seen the vision, straight away we made the decision to go into Macedonia, for it seemed certain to us that God had sent us to give the good news to them.

¹¹So, from Troas we went straight by ship to Samothrace and the day after to Neapolis;

¹²And from there to Philippi, which is the most important town of Macedonia and a Roman colony: and we were there for some days.

¹³And on the Sabbath we went outside the town, by the river, where we had an idea that there would be a place of prayer; and, being seated, we had talk with the women who had come together.

¹⁴And a certain woman named Lydia, a trader in purple cloth of the town of Thyatira, and a God-fearing woman, gave ear to us: whose heart the Lord made open to give attention to the things which Paul was saying.

¹⁵And when she and her family had had baptism, she made a request to us, saying, If it seems to you that I am true to the Lord, come into my house and be my guests. And she made us come.

¹⁶And when we were going to the place of prayer, we came across a girl with a spirit which gave knowledge of the future, whose masters made great profit from her power.

¹⁷She came after Paul and us, crying out and saying, These men are the servants of the Most High God, who are giving you news of the way of salvation.

¹⁸And this she did on a number of days. But Paul was greatly troubled and, turning, said to the spirit, I give you orders in the name of Jesus Christ, to come out of her. And it came out that very hour.

¹⁹But when her masters saw that their hope of profit was gone, they took Paul and Silas, pulling them into the market-place before the rulers;

²⁰And when they had taken them before the authorities, they said, These men, who are Jews, are greatly troubling our town;

²¹Teaching rules of living which it is not right for us to have or to keep, being Romans.

²²And the people made an attack on them all together: and the authorities took their clothing off them, and gave orders for them to be whipped.

²³And when they had given them a great number of blows, they put them in prison, giving orders to the keeper of the prison to keep them safely:

²⁴And he, having such orders, put them into the inner prison with chains on their feet.

²⁵But about the middle of the night, Paul and Silas were making prayers and songs to God in the hearing of the prisoners;

²⁶And suddenly there was an earth-shock, so that the base of the prison was moved: and all the doors came open, and everyone's chains came off.

²⁷And the keeper, coming out of his sleep, and seeing the prison doors open, took his sword and was about to put himself to death, fearing that the prisoners had got away.

²⁸But Paul said in a loud voice, Do yourself no damage, for we are all here.

²⁹And he sent for lights and came rushing in and, shaking with fear, went down on his face before Paul and Silas,

³⁰And took them out and said, Sirs, what have I to do to get salvation?

³¹And they said, Have faith in the Lord Jesus, and you and your family will have salvation.

³²And they gave the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house.

³³And that same hour of the night, he took them, and when he had given attention to their wounds, he and all his family had baptism straight away.

³⁴And he took them into his house and gave them food, and he was full of joy, having faith in God with all his family.

³⁵But when it was day, the authorities sent the police, saying, Let these men go.

³⁶And the keeper said to Paul, The authorities have given orders to let you go: come out now, and go in peace.

³⁷But Paul said to them, They have given us who are Romans a public whipping without judging us, and have put us in prison. Will they now send us out secretly? no, truly, let them come themselves and take us out.

³⁸And the police gave an account of these words to the authorities, and they were full of fear on hearing that they were Romans;

³⁹Then they came and made prayers to them, requesting them, when they had taken them out, to go away from the town.

⁴⁰And they came out of the prison and went to the house of Lydia: and when they had seen the brothers they gave them comfort and went away.

17Now when they had gone through Amphipolis and Apollonia they came to Thessalonica, where there was a Synagogue of the Jews:

²And Paul, as he generally did, went in to them, and on three Sabbath days had discussions with them from the holy Writings,

³Saying to them clearly and openly that Christ had to be put to death and come back to life again; and that this Jesus, whom, he said, I am preaching to you, is the Christ.

⁴And some of them had faith, and were joined to Paul and Silas; and a number of the God-fearing Greeks, and some of the chief women.

⁵But the Jews, being moved with envy, took with them certain low persons from among the common people, and getting together a great number of people, made an outcry in the town, attacking the house of Jason with the purpose of taking them out to the people.

⁶And when they were not able to get them, they took Jason and some of the brothers by force before the rulers of the town, crying, These men, who have made trouble all over the world have now come here;

⁷Whom Jason has taken into his house: and they are acting against the orders of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus.

⁸And hearing these things the people and the rulers of the town were troubled.

⁹And having made Jason and the others give an undertaking to keep the peace, they let them go.

¹⁰And the brothers straight away sent Paul and Silas away by night to Beroea: and they, when they came there, went to the Synagogue of the Jews.

¹¹Now these were more noble than the Jews of Thessalonica, for they gave serious attention to the word, searching in the holy Writings every day, to see if these things were so.

¹²And a number of them had faith, and no small number of the Greek women of high position and of the men.

¹³But when the Jews of Thessalonica had news that Paul was preaching the word at Beroea, they came there, troubling the people and working them up.

¹⁴So the brothers sent Paul straight away to the sea: but Silas and Timothy kept there still.

¹⁵But those who went with Paul took him as far as Athens, and then went away, with orders from him to Silas and Timothy to come to him quickly.

¹⁶Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was troubled, for he saw all the town full of images of the gods.

¹⁷So he had discussions in the Synagogue with the Jews and God-fearing Gentiles, and every day in the market-place with those who were there.

¹⁸And some of those who were supporters of the theories of the Epicureans and the Stoics, had a meeting with him. And some said, What is this talker of foolish words saying? And others, He seems to be a preacher of strange gods: because he was preaching of Jesus and his coming back from the dead.

¹⁹And they took him to Mars' Hill, saying, Will you make clear to us what is this new teaching of yours?

²⁰For you seem to us to say strange things, and we have a desire to get the sense of them.

²¹(Now all the Athenians and the men from other lands who come there were giving all their time to talking or hearing of anything new.)

²²And Paul got to his feet on Mars' Hill and said, O men of Athens, I see that you are overmuch given to fear of the gods.

²³For when I came by, I was looking at the things to which you give worship, and I saw an altar with this writing on it, TO THE GOD OF WHOM THERE IS NO KNOWLEDGE. Now, what you, without knowledge, give worship to, I make clear to you.

²⁴The God who made the earth and everything in it, he, being Lord of heaven and earth, is not housed in buildings made with hands;

²⁵And he is not dependent on the work of men's hands, as if he had need of anything, for he himself gives to all life and breath and all things;

²⁶And he has made of one blood all the nations of men living on all the face of the earth, ordering their times and the limits of their lands,

²⁷So that they might make search for God, in order, if possible, to get knowledge of him and make discovery of him, though he is not far from every one of us:

²⁸For in him we have life and motion and existence; as certain of your verse writers have said, For we are his offspring.

²⁹If then we are the offspring of God, it is not right for us to have the idea that God is like gold or silver or stone, formed by the art or design of man.

³⁰Those times when men had no knowledge were overlooked by God; but now he gives orders to all men in every place to undergo a change of heart:

³¹Because a day has been fixed in which all the world will be judged in righteousness by the man who has been marked out by him for this work; of which he has given a sign to all men by giving him back from the dead.

³²Now on hearing about the coming back from death, some of them made sport of it, but others said, Let us go more fully into this another time.

³³And so Paul went away from among them.

³⁴But some men gave him their support: among whom was Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.

18After these things, he went away from Athens, and came to Corinth.

²And there he came across a certain Jew named Aquila, a man of Pontus by birth, who not long before had come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had given orders that all Jews were to go away from Rome: and he came to them;

³And because he was of the same trade, he was living with them, and they did their work together; for by trade they were tent-makers.

⁴And every Sabbath he had discussions in the Synagogue, turning Jews and Greeks to the faith.

⁵And when Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia, Paul was completely given up to the word, preaching to the Jews that the Christ was Jesus.

⁶And when they put themselves against him, and said evil words, he said, shaking his clothing, Your blood be on your heads, I am clean: from now I will go to the Gentiles.

⁷And moving from there, he went into the house of a man named Titus Justus, a God-fearing man, whose house was very near the Synagogue.

⁸And Crispus, the ruler of the Synagogue, with all his family, had faith in the Lord; and a great number of the people of Corinth, hearing the word, had faith and were given baptism.

⁹And the Lord said to Paul in the night, in a vision, Have no fear and go on preaching:

¹⁰For I am with you, and no one will make an attack on you to do you damage: for I have a number of people in this town.

¹¹And he was there for a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them.

¹²But when Gallio was ruler of Achaia, all the Jews together made an attack on Paul, and took him to the judge's seat,

¹³Saying, This man is teaching the people to give worship to God in a way which is against the law.

¹⁴But when Paul was about to say something, Gallio said to the Jews, If this was anything to do with wrongdoing or crime, there would be a reason for me to give you a hearing:

¹⁵But if it is a question of words or names or of your law, see to it yourselves; I will not be a judge of such things.

¹⁶And he sent them away from the judge's seat.

¹⁷And they all made an attack on Sosthenes, the ruler of the Synagogue, and gave him blows before the judge's seat; but Gallio gave no attention to these things.

¹⁸And Paul, after waiting some days, went away from the brothers and went by ship to Syria, Priscilla and Aquila being with him; and he had had his hair cut off in Cenchrea, for he had taken an oath.

¹⁹And they came down to Ephesus and he left them there: and he himself went into the Synagogue and had a discussion with the Jews.

²⁰And being requested by them to be there for a longer time, he said, No;

²¹And went from them, saying, I will come back to you if God lets me; and he took ship from Ephesus.

²²And when he had come to land at Caesarea, he went to see the church, and then went down to Antioch.

²³And having been there for some time, he went through the country of Galatia and Phrygia in order, making the disciples strong in the faith.

²⁴Now a certain Jew named Apollos, an Alexandrian by birth, and a man of learning, came to Ephesus; and he had great knowledge of the holy Writings.

²⁵This man had been trained in the way of the Lord; and burning in spirit, he gave himself up to teaching the facts about Jesus, though he had knowledge only of John's baptism:

²⁶And he was preaching in the Synagogue without fear. But Priscilla and Aquila, hearing his words, took him in, and gave him fuller teaching about the way of God.

²⁷And when he had a desire to go over into Achaia, the brothers gave him help, and sent letters to the disciples requesting them to take him in among them: and when he had come, he gave much help to those who had faith through grace:

²⁸For he overcame the Jews in public discussion, making clear from the holy Writings that the Christ was Jesus.

19And it came about that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul, having gone through the higher country, came to Ephesus, where there were certain disciples:

²And he said to them, Did you get the Holy Spirit when you had faith? And they said to him, No, we have had no knowledge of the Holy Spirit.

³And he said, What sort of baptism did you have? And they said, The baptism of John.

⁴And Paul said, John gave a baptism which goes with a change of heart, saying to the people that they were to have faith in him who was coming after him, that is, in Jesus.

⁵And hearing this, they had baptism in the name of the Lord Jesus.

⁶And when Paul had put his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them; and they had the power of talking in tongues, and acting like prophets.

⁷And there were about twelve of these men.

⁸And he went into the Synagogue, and for three months he was preaching there without fear, reasoning and teaching about the kingdom of God.

⁹But because some of the people were hard-hearted and would not give hearing, saying evil words about the Way before the people, he went away from them, and kept the disciples separate, reasoning every day in the school of Tyrannus.

¹⁰And this went on for two years, so that all those who were living in Asia had knowledge of the word of the Lord, Greeks as well as Jews.

¹¹And God did special works of power by the hands of Paul:

¹²So that bits of linen and clothing from his body were taken to people who were ill, and their diseases went away from them and the evil spirits went out.

¹³But some of the Jews who went from place to place driving out evil spirits, took it on themselves to make use of the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, I give you orders, by Jesus, whom Paul is preaching.

¹⁴And there were seven sons of a man named Sceva, a Jew and a chief priest, who did this.

¹⁵And the evil spirit, answering, said to them, I have knowledge of Jesus, and of Paul, but who are you?

¹⁶And the man in whom the evil spirit was, jumping on them, was stronger than the two of them, and overcame them, so that they went running from that house, wounded and without their clothing.

¹⁷And this came to the ears of all those, Jews and Greeks, who were living at Ephesus; and fear came on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was made great.

¹⁸And a number of those who had faith came and made a public statement of their sins and all their acts.

¹⁹And a great number of those who were experts in strange arts took their books and put them on the fire in front of everyone: and when the books were valued they came to fifty thousand bits of silver.

²⁰So the word of the Lord was increased very greatly and was full of power.

²¹Now after these things were ended, Paul came to a decision that when he had gone through Macedonia and Achaia he would go to Jerusalem, saying, After I have been there, I have a desire to see Rome.

²²And having sent two of his helpers, Timothy and Erastus, into Macedonia, he himself went on living in Asia for a time.

²³And about that time a great outcry took place about the Way.

²⁴For there was a certain man named Demetrius, a silver-worker, who made silver boxes for the images of Diana, and gave no small profit to the workmen;

²⁵Whom he got together, with other workmen of the same trade, and said to them, Men, it is clear that from this business we get our wealth.

²⁶And you see, for it has come to your ears, that not only at Ephesus, but almost all through Asia, this Paul has been teaching numbers of people and turning them away, saying that those are not gods who are made by men's hands:

²⁷And there is danger, not only that our trade may be damaged in the opinion of men, but that the holy place of the great goddess Diana may be no longer honoured, and that she to whom all Asia and the world give worship, will be put down from her high position.

²⁸And hearing this, they were very angry, crying out and saying, Great is Diana of Ephesus.

²⁹And the town was full of noise and trouble, and they all came running into the theatre, having taken by force Gaius and Aristarchus, men of Macedonia who were journeying in company with Paul.

³⁰And when Paul was about to go in to the people, the disciples did not let him.

³¹And some of the rulers of Asia, being his friends, sent to him, requesting him seriously not to put himself in danger by going into the theatre.

³²And some said one thing, and some another: for there was no order in the meeting; and most of them had no idea why they had come together.

³³Then they took Alexander out from among the people, the Jews putting him forward. And Alexander, making a sign with his hand, was about to make a statement to the people in answer:

³⁴But when they saw that he was a Jew, all of them with one voice went on crying out for about two hours, Great is Diana of Ephesus.

³⁵And when the chief secretary had got the people quiet, he said, Men of Ephesus, is any man without knowledge that the town of Ephesus is the keeper of the holy place of the great Diana, who was sent down from Jupiter?

³⁶So then, because these things may not be doubted, it would be better for you to be quiet, and do nothing unwise.

³⁷For you have taken these men, who are not doing damage to the holy place or talking against our goddess.

³⁸If, then, Demetrius and the workmen who are with him have a protest to make against any man, the law is open to them, and there are judges; let them put up a cause at law against one another.

³⁹But if any other business is in question, let it be taken up in the regular meeting.

⁴⁰For, truly, we are in danger of being made responsible for this day's trouble, there being no cause for it: and we are not able to give any reason for this coming together.

⁴¹And when he had said this, he sent the meeting away.

20And after the noise had come to an end, Paul, having sent for the disciples and given them comfort, went away from them to Macedonia.

²And when he had gone through those parts and given them much teaching, he came into Greece.

³And when he had been there three months, because the Jews had made a secret design against him when he was about to take ship for Syria, he made a decision to go back through Macedonia.

⁴And Sopater of Beroea, the son of Pyrrhus, and Aristarchus and Secundus of Thessalonica, and Gaius of Derbe, and Timothy, and Tychicus and Trophimus of Asia, went with him as far as Asia.

⁵But these had gone before, and were waiting for us at Troas.

⁶And we went away from Philippi by ship after the days of unleavened bread, and came to them at Troas in five days; and we were there for seven days.

⁷And on the first day of the week, when we had come together for the holy meal, Paul gave them a talk, for it was his purpose to go away on the day after; and he went on talking till after the middle of the night.

⁸And there were a number of lights in the room where we had come together.

⁹And a certain young man named Eutychus, who was seated in the window, went into a deep sleep; and while Paul went on talking, being overcome by sleep, he had a fall from the third floor, and was taken up dead.

¹⁰And Paul went down and, falling on him, took him in his arms and said, Do not be troubled, for his life is in him.

¹¹And when he had gone up, and had taken the broken bread, he went on talking to them for a long time, even till dawn, and then he went away.

¹²And they took the boy in, living, and were greatly comforted.

¹³But we, going before him by ship, went to Assos with the purpose of taking Paul in there: for so he had given orders, because he himself was coming by land.

¹⁴And when he came up with us at Assos, we took him in the ship and went on to Mitylene.

¹⁵And going from there by sea, we came on the day after opposite Chios, and touching at Samos on the day after that, we came on the third day to Miletus.

¹⁶For Paul's purpose was to go past Ephesus, so that he might not be kept in Asia; for he was going quickly, in order, if possible, to be at Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost.

¹⁷And from Miletus he sent to Ephesus for the rulers of the church.

¹⁸And when they had come, he said to them, You yourselves have seen what my life has been like all the time from the day when I first came into Asia,

¹⁹Doing the Lord's work without pride, through all the sorrow and troubles which came on me because of the evil designs of the Jews:

²⁰And how I kept back nothing which might be of profit to you, teaching you publicly and privately,

²¹Preaching to Jews and to Greeks the need for a turning of the heart to God, and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

²²And now, as you see, I am going to Jerusalem, a prisoner in spirit, having no knowledge of what will come to me there:

²³Only that the Holy Spirit makes clear to me in every town that prison and pains are waiting for me.

²⁴But I put no value on my life, if only at the end of it I may see the work complete which was given to me by the Lord Jesus, to be a witness of the good news of the grace of God.

²⁵And now I am conscious that you, among whom I have gone about preaching the kingdom, will not see my face again.

²⁶And so I say to you this day that I am clean from the blood of all men.

²⁷For I have not kept back from you anything of the purpose of God.

²⁸Give attention to yourselves, and to all the flock which the Holy Spirit has given into your care, to give food to the church of God, for which he gave his blood.

²⁹I am conscious that after I am gone, evil wolves will come in among you, doing damage to the flock;

³⁰And from among yourselves will come men who will give wrong teaching, turning away the disciples after them.

³¹So keep watch, having in mind that for three years without resting I was teaching every one of you, day and night, with weeping.

³²And now, I give you into the care of God and the word of his grace, which is able to make you strong and to give you your heritage among all the saints.

³³I have had no desire for any man's silver or gold or clothing.

³⁴You yourselves have seen that with these hands I got what was necessary for me and those who were with me.

³⁵In all things I was an example to you of how, in your lives, you are to give help to the feeble, and keep in memory the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, There is a greater blessing in giving than in getting.

³⁶And having said these words, he went down on his knees in prayer with them all.

³⁷And they were all weeping, falling on Paul's neck and kissing him,

³⁸Being sad most of all because he had said that they would not see his face again. And so they went with him to the ship.

21And after parting from them, we put out to sea and came straight to Cos, and the day after to Rhodes, and from there to Patara:

²And as there was a ship going to Phoenicia, we went in it.

³And when we had come in view of Cyprus, going past it on our left, we went on to Syria, and came to land at Tyre: for there the goods which were in the ship had to be taken out.

⁴And meeting the disciples we were there for seven days: and they gave Paul orders through the Spirit not to go up to Jerusalem.

⁵And when these days came to an end, we went on our journey; and they all, with their wives and children, came with us on our way till we were out of the town: and after going on our knees in prayer by the sea,

⁶We said our last words to one another, and got into the ship, and they went back to their houses.

⁷And journeying by ship from Tyre we came to Ptolemais; and there we had talk with the brothers and were with them for one day.

⁸And on the day after, we went away and came to Caesarea, where we were guests in the house of Philip, the preacher, who was one of the seven.

⁹And he had four daughters, virgins, who were prophets.

¹⁰And while we were waiting there for some days, a certain prophet, named Agabus, came down from Judaea.

¹¹And he came to us, and took the band of Paul's clothing, and putting it round his feet and hands, said, The Holy Spirit says these words, So will the Jews do to the man who is the owner of this band, and they will give him up into the hands of the Gentiles.

¹²And hearing these things, we and those who were living in that place made request to him not to go to Jerusalem.

¹³Then Paul said, What are you doing, weeping and wounding my heart? for I am ready, not only to be a prisoner, but to be put to death at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.

¹⁴And as he might not be moved we did no more, saying, Let the purpose of God be done.

¹⁵And after these days we got ready and went up to Jerusalem.

¹⁶And some of the disciples from Caesarea went with us, taking a certain Mnason of Cyprus, one of the early disciples, in whose house we were to be living.

¹⁷And when we came to Jerusalem, the brothers were pleased to see us.

¹⁸And on the day after, Paul went with us to James, and all the rulers of the church were present.

¹⁹And when he had said how glad he was to see them, he gave them a detailed account of the things which God had done through his work among the Gentiles.

²⁰And hearing it, they gave praise to God; and they said to him, You see, brother, what thousands there are among the Jews, who have the faith; and they all have a great respect for the law:

²¹And they have had news of you, how you have been teaching all the Jews among the Gentiles to give up the law of Moses, and not to give circumcision to their children, and not to keep the old rules.

²²What then is the position? They will certainly get news that you have come.

²³Do this, then, which we say to you: We have four men who have taken an oath;

²⁴Go with these, and make yourself clean with them, and make the necessary payments for them, so that they may be free from their oath: and everyone will see that the statements made about you are not true, but that you put yourself under rule, and keep the law.

²⁵But as to the Gentiles who have the faith, we sent a letter, giving our decision that they were to keep themselves from offerings made to false gods, and from blood, and from the flesh of animals put to death in ways against the law, and from the evil desires of the body.

²⁶Then Paul took the men, and on the day after, making himself clean with them, he went into the Temple, giving out the statement that the days necessary for making them clean were complete, till the offering was made for every one of them.

²⁷And when the seven days were almost ended, the Jews from Asia, seeing him in the Temple, got the people together and put their hands on him,

²⁸Crying out, Men of Israel, come to our help: this is the man who is teaching all men everywhere against the people and the law and this place: and in addition, he has taken Greeks into the Temple, and made this holy place unclean.

²⁹For they had seen him before in the town with Trophimus of Ephesus, and had the idea that Paul had taken him with him into the Temple.

³⁰And all the town was moved, and the people came running together and put their hands on Paul, pulling him out of the Temple: and then the doors were shut.

³¹And while they were attempting to put him to death, news came to the chief captain of the band that all Jerusalem was out of control.

³²And straight away he took some armed men and went quickly down to them: and the Jews, seeing them, gave no more blows to Paul.

³³Then the chief captain came near and took him, and gave orders for him to be put in chains, questioning them as to who he was and what he had done.

³⁴And some said one thing and some another, among the people: and as he was not able to get a knowledge of the facts because of the noise, he gave orders for Paul to be taken into the army building.

³⁵And when he came on to the steps, he was lifted up by the armed men, because of the force of the people;

³⁶For a great mass of people came after them, crying out, Away with him!

³⁷And when Paul was about to be taken into the building, he said to the chief captain, May I say something to you? And he said, Have you a knowledge of Greek?

³⁸Are you by chance the Egyptian who, before this, got the people worked up against the government and took four thousand men of the Assassins out into the waste land?

³⁹But Paul said, I am a Jew of Tarsus in Cilicia, which is not an unimportant town: I make a request to you to let me say a word to the people.

⁴⁰And when he let him do so, Paul, from the steps, made a sign with his hand to the people, and when they were all quiet, he said to them in the Hebrew language,

22My brothers and fathers, give ear to the story of my life which I now put before you.

²And, hearing him talking in the Hebrew language, they became the more quiet, and he said,

³I am a Jew of Tarsus in Cilicia by birth, but I had my education in this town at the feet of Gamaliel, being trained in the keeping of every detail of the law of our fathers; given up to the cause of God with all my heart, as you are today.

⁴And I made attacks on this Way, even to death, taking men and women and putting them in prison.

⁵Of which the high priest will be a witness, and all the rulers, from whom I had letters to the brothers; and I went into Damascus, to take those who were there as prisoners to Jerusalem for punishment.

⁶And it came about that while I was on my journey, coming near to Damascus, about the middle of the day, suddenly I saw a great light from heaven shining round me.

⁷And when I went down on the earth, a voice came to my ears saying to me, Saul, Saul, why are you attacking me so cruelly?

⁸And I, answering, said, Who are you; Lord? And he said to me, I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are attacking.

⁹And those who were with me saw the light, but the voice of him who was talking to me came not to their ears.

¹⁰And I said, What have I to do, Lord? And the Lord said to me, Get up, and go into Damascus; and it will be made clear to you what you have to do.

¹¹And because I was unable to see because of the glory of that light, those who were with me took me by the hand, and so I came to Damascus.

¹²And one Ananias, a God-fearing man, who kept the law, and of whom all the Jews in that place had a high opinion,

¹³Came to my side and said, Brother Saul, let your eyes be open. And in that very hour I was able to see him.

¹⁴And he said, You have been marked out by the God of our fathers to have knowledge of his purpose, and to see the Upright One and to give ear to the words of his mouth.

¹⁵For you will be a witness for him to all men of what you have seen and of what has come to your ears.

¹⁶And now, why are you waiting? get up, and have baptism, for the washing away of your sins, giving worship to his name.

¹⁷And it came about that when I had come back to Jerusalem, while I was at prayer in the Temple, my senses became more than naturally clear,

¹⁸And I saw him saying to me, Go out of Jerusalem straight away because they will not give hearing to your witness about me.

¹⁹And I said, Lord, they themselves have knowledge that I went through the Synagogues putting in prison and whipping all those who had faith in you:

²⁰And when Stephen your witness was put to death, I was there, giving approval, and looking after the clothing of those who put him to death.

²¹And he said to me, Go, for I will send you far away to the Gentiles.

²²And they gave him a hearing as far as this word; then with loud voices they said, Away with this man from the earth; it is not right for him to be living.

²³And while they were crying out, and pulling off their clothing, and sending dust into the air,

²⁴The chief captain gave orders for him to be taken into the army building, saying that he would put him to the test by whipping, so that he might have knowledge of the reason why they were crying out so violently against him.

²⁵And when they had put leather bands round him, Paul said to the captain who was present, Is it the law for you to give blows to a man who is a Roman and has not been judged?

²⁶And hearing this, the man went to the chief captain and gave him an account of it, saying, What are you about to do? for this man is a Roman.

²⁷And the chief captain came to him and said, Give me an answer, are you a Roman? And he said, Yes.

²⁸And the chief captain said, I got Roman rights for myself at a great price. And Paul said, But I had them by birth.

²⁹Then those who were about to put him to the test went away: and the chief captain was in fear, seeing that he was a Roman, and that he had put chains on him.

³⁰But on the day after, desiring to have certain knowledge of what the Jews had to say against him, he made him free, and gave orders for the chief priests and all the Sanhedrin to come together, and he took Paul and put him before them.

23And Paul, looking fixedly at the Sanhedrin, said, My brothers, my life has been upright before God till this day.

²And the high priest, Ananias, gave orders to those who were near him to give him a blow on the mouth.

³Then Paul said to him, God will give blows to you, you whitewashed wall: are you here to be my judge by law, and by your orders am I given blows against the law?

⁴And those who were near said, Do you say such words against God's high priest?

⁵And Paul said, Brother, I had no idea that he was the high priest: for it has been said, You may not say evil about the ruler of your people.

⁶But when Paul saw that half of them were Sadducees and the rest Pharisees, he said in the Sanhedrin, Brothers, I am a Pharisee, and the son of Pharisees: I am here to be judged on the question of the hope of the coming back from the dead.

⁷And when he had said this, there was an argument between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and a division in the meeting.

⁸For the Sadducees say that there is no coming back from the dead, and no angels or spirits: but the Pharisees have belief in all these.

⁹And there was a great outcry: and some of the scribes on the side of the Pharisees got up and took part in the discussion, saying, We see no evil in this man: what if he has had a revelation from an angel or a spirit?

¹⁰And when the argument became very violent, the chief captain, fearing that Paul would be pulled in two by them, gave orders to the armed men to take him by force from among them, and take him into the army building.

¹¹And the night after, the Lord came to his side and said, Be of good heart, for as you have been witnessing for me in Jerusalem, so will you be my witness in Rome.

¹²And when it was day, the Jews came together and put themselves under an oath that they would take no food or drink till they had put Paul to death.

¹³And more than forty of them took this oath.

¹⁴And they came to the chief priests and the rulers and said, We have taken a great oath to take no food till we have put Paul to death

¹⁵So now, will you and the Sanhedrin make a request to the military authorities to have him sent down to you, as if you were desiring to go into the business in greater detail; and we, before ever he gets to you, will be waiting to put him to death.

¹⁶But Paul's sister's son had word of their design, and he came into the army building and gave news of it to Paul.

¹⁷And Paul sent for a captain and said, Take this young man to your chief, for he has news for him.

¹⁸So he took him to the chief captain and said, Paul, the prisoner, made a request to me to take this young man to you, for he has something to say to you.

¹⁹And the chief took him by the hand and, going on one side, said to him privately, What is it you have to say to me?

²⁰And he said, The Jews are in agreement together to make a request to you for Paul to be taken, on the day after this, into the Sanhedrin, to be questioned in greater detail.

²¹But do not give way to them, for more than forty of them are waiting for him, having taken an oath not to take food or drink till they have put him to death: and now they are ready, waiting for your order.

²²So the chief captain let the young man go, saying to him, Do not say to anyone that you have given me word of these things.

²³And he sent for two captains and said, Make ready two hundred men, with seventy horsemen and two hundred spearmen, to go to Caesarea, at the third hour of the night:

²⁴And get beasts so that they may put Paul on them, and take him safely to Felix, the ruler.

²⁵And he sent a letter in these words:

²⁶Claudius Lysias, to the most noble ruler, Felix, peace be with you.

²⁷This man was taken by the Jews, and was about to be put to death by them, when I came on them with the army and took him out of danger, having knowledge that he was a Roman.

²⁸And, desiring to get at the reason for their attack on him, I took him down to their Sanhedrin:

²⁹Then it became clear to me that it was a question of their law, and that nothing was said against him which might be a reason for prison or death.

³⁰And when news was given to me that a secret design was being made against the man, I sent him straight away to you, giving orders to those who are against him to make their statements before you.

³¹So the armed men, as they were ordered, took Paul and came by night to Antipatris.

³²But on the day after, they sent the horsemen on with him, and went back to their place:

³³And they, when they came to Caesarea, gave the letter to the ruler, and took Paul before him.

³⁴And after reading it, he said, What part of the country do you come from? And, hearing that he was from Cilicia,

³⁵I will give hearing to your cause, he said, when those who are against you have come. And he gave orders for him to be kept in Herod's Praetorium.

24And after five days, the high priest, Ananias, came with certain of the rulers, and an expert talker, one Tertullus; and they made a statement to Felix against Paul.

²And when he had been sent for, Tertullus, starting his statement, said, Because by you we are living in peace, and through your wisdom wrongs are put right for this nation,

³In all things and in all places we are conscious of our great debt to you, most noble Felix.

⁴But, so that I may not make you tired, I make a request to you of your mercy, to give hearing to a short statement.

⁵For this man, in our opinion, is a cause of trouble, a maker of attacks on the government among Jews through all the empire, and a chief mover in the society of the Nazarenes:

⁶Who, in addition, was attempting to make the Temple unclean: whom we took,

⁷[]

⁸And from whom you will be able, by questioning him yourself, to get knowledge of all the things which we say against him.

⁹And the Jews were in agreement with his statement, saying that these things were so.

¹⁰Then when the ruler had given him a sign to make his answer, Paul said, Because I have knowledge that you have been a judge over this nation for a number of years, I am glad to make my answer:

¹¹Seeing that you are able to make certain of the fact that it is not more than twelve days from the time when I came up to Jerusalem for worship;

¹²And they have not seen me in argument with any man in the Temple, or working up the feelings of the people, in the Synagogues or in the town:

¹³And they are not able to give facts in support of the things which they say against me now.

¹⁴But this I will say openly to you, that I do give worship to the God of our fathers after that Way, which to them is not the true religion: but I have belief in all the things which are in the law and in the books of the prophets:

¹⁵Hoping in God for that which they themselves are looking for, that there will be a coming back from the dead for upright men and wrongdoers.

¹⁶And in this, I do my best at all times to have no reason for shame before God or men.

¹⁷Now after a number of years I came to give help and offerings to my nation:

¹⁸And having been made clean, I was in the Temple, but not with a great number of people, and not with noise: but there were certain Jews from Asia,

¹⁹And it would have been better if they had come here to make a statement, if they have anything against me.

²⁰Or let these men here present say what wrongdoing was seen in me when I was before the Sanhedrin,

²¹But only this one thing which I said among them in a loud voice, I am this day being judged on the question of the coming back from the dead.

²²But Felix, who had a more detailed knowledge of the Way, put them off, saying, When Lysias, the chief captain, comes down, I will give attention to your business.

²³And he gave orders to the captain to keep Paul under his control, and to let him have everything he had need of; and not to keep his friends from coming to see him.

²⁴But after some days, Felix came with Drusilla his wife, who was of the Jews by birth, and sent for Paul, and gave hearing to him about faith in Christ Jesus.

²⁵And while he was talking about righteousness and self-control and the judging which was to come, Felix had great fear and said, Go away for the present, and when the right time comes I will send for you.

²⁶For he was hoping that Paul would give him money: so he sent for him more frequently and had talk with him.

²⁷But after two years Porcius Festus took the place of Felix, who, desiring to have the approval of the Jews, kept Paul in chains.

25So Festus, having come into that part of the country which was under his rule, after three days went up to Jerusalem from Caesarea.

²And the chief priests and the chief men of the Jews made statements against Paul,

³Requesting Festus to give effect to their design against him, and send him to Jerusalem, when they would be waiting to put him to death on the way.

⁴But Festus, in answer, said that Paul was being kept in prison at Caesarea, and that in a short time he himself was going there.

⁵So, he said, let those who have authority among you go with me, and if there is any wrong in the man, let them make a statement against him.

⁶And when he had been with them not more than eight or ten days, he went down to Caesarea; and on the day after, he took his place on the judge's seat, and sent for Paul.

⁷And when he came, the Jews who had come down from Jerusalem came round him, and made all sorts of serious statements against him, which were not supported by the facts.

⁸Then Paul, in his answer to them, said, I have done no wrong against the law of the Jews, or against the Temple, or against Caesar.

⁹But Festus, desiring to get the approval of the Jews, said to Paul, Will you go up to Jerusalem, and be judged before me there in connection with these things?

¹⁰And Paul said, I am before the seat of Caesar's authority where it is right for me to be judged: I have done no wrong to the Jews, as you are well able to see.

¹¹If, then, I am a wrongdoer and there is a cause of death in me, I am ready for death: if it is not as they say against me, no man may give me up to them. Let my cause come before Caesar.

¹²Then Festus, having had a discussion with the Jews, made answer, You have said, Let my cause come before Caesar; to Caesar you will go.

¹³Now when some days had gone by, King Agrippa and Bernice came to Caesarea and went to see Festus.

¹⁴And as they were there for some days, Festus gave them Paul's story, saying, There is a certain man here who was put in prison by Felix:

¹⁵Against whom the chief priests and the rulers of the Jews made a statement when I was at Jerusalem, requesting me to give a decision against him.

¹⁶To whom I gave answer that it is not the Roman way to give a man up, till he has been face to face with those who are attacking him, and has had a chance to give an answer to the statements made against him.

¹⁷So, when they had come together here, straight away, on the day after, I took my place on the judge's seat and sent for the man.

¹⁸But when they got up they said nothing about such crimes as I had in mind:

¹⁹But had certain questions against him in connection with their religion, and about one Jesus, now dead, who, Paul said, was living.

²⁰And as I had not enough knowledge for the discussion of these things, I made the suggestion to him to go to Jerusalem and be judged there.

²¹But when Paul made a request that he might be judged by Caesar, I gave orders for him to be kept till I might send him to Caesar.

²²And Agrippa said to Festus, I have a desire to give the man a hearing myself. Tomorrow, he said, you may give him a hearing.

²³So on the day after, when Agrippa and Bernice in great glory had come into the public place of hearing, with the chief of the army and the chief men of the town, at the order of Festus, Paul was sent for.

²⁴And Festus said, King Agrippa, and all those who are present here with us, you see this man, about whom all the Jews have made protests to me, at Jerusalem and in this place, saying that it is not right for him to be living any longer.

²⁵But, in my opinion, there is no cause of death in him, and as he himself has made a request to be judged by Caesar, I have said that I would send him.

²⁶But I have no certain account of him to send to Caesar. So I have sent for him to come before you, and specially before you, King Agrippa, so that after the business has been gone into, I may have something to put in writing.

²⁷For it seems to me against reason to send a prisoner without making clear what there is against him.

26And Agrippa said to Paul, You may put your cause before us. Then Paul, stretching out his hand, made his answer, saying:

²In my opinion I am happy, King Agrippa, to be able to give my answer before you today to all these things which the Jews say against me:

³The more so, because you are expert in all questions to do with the Jews and their ways: so I make my request to you to give me a hearing to the end.

⁴All the Jews have knowledge of my way of life from my early years, as it was from the start among my nation, and at Jerusalem;

⁵And they are able to say, if they would give witness, that I was living as a Pharisee, in that division of our religion which is most regular in the keeping of the law.

⁶And now I am here to be judged because of the hope given by God's word to our fathers;

⁷For the effecting of which our twelve tribes have been working and waiting night and day with all their hearts. And in connection with this hope I am attacked by the Jews, O king!

⁸Why, in your opinion, is it outside belief for God to make the dead come to life again?

⁹For I, truly, was of the opinion that it was right for me to do a number of things against the name of Jesus of Nazareth.

¹⁰And this I did in Jerusalem: and numbers of the saints I put in prison, having had authority given to me from the chief priests, and when they were put to death, I gave my decision against them.

¹¹And I gave them punishment frequently, in all the Synagogues, forcing them to say things against God; and burning with passion against them, I went after them even into far-away towns.

¹²Then, when I was journeying to Damascus with the authority and orders of the chief priests,

¹³In the middle of the day, on the road I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining round me and those who were journeying with me.

¹⁴And when we had all gone down on the earth, a voice came to me, saying in the Hebrew language, Saul, Saul, why are you attacking me so cruelly? It is hard for you to go against the impulse which is driving you.

¹⁵And I said, Who are you, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus, whom you are attacking.

¹⁶But get up on your feet: for I have come to you for this purpose, to make you a servant and a witness of the things in which you have seen me, and of those in which you will see me;

¹⁷And I will keep you safe from the people, and from the Gentiles, to whom I send you,

¹⁸To make their eyes open, turning them from the dark to the light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may have forgiveness of sins and a heritage among those who are made holy by faith in me.

¹⁹So, then, King Agrippa, I did not go against the vision from heaven;

²⁰But I went about, first to those in Damascus and Jerusalem, and through all the country of Judaea, and then to the Gentiles, preaching a change of heart, so that they, being turned to God, might give, in their works, the fruits of a changed heart.

²¹For this reason, the Jews took me in the Temple, and made an attempt to put me to death.

²²And so, by God's help, I am here today, witnessing to small and great, saying nothing but what the prophets and Moses said would come about;

²³That the Christ would go through pain, and being the first to come back from the dead, would give light to the people and to the Gentiles.

²⁴And when he made his answer in these words, Festus said in a loud voice, Paul, you are off your head; your great learning has made you unbalanced.

²⁵Then Paul said, I am not off my head, most noble Festus, but my words are true and wise.

²⁶For the king has knowledge of these things, to whom I am talking freely; being certain that all this is common knowledge to him; for it has not been done in secret.

²⁷King Agrippa, have you faith in the prophets? I am certain that you have.

²⁸And Agrippa said to Paul, A little more and you will be making me a Christian.

²⁹And Paul said, It is my prayer to God that, in little or great measure, not only you, but all those hearing me today might be even as I am, but for these chains.

³⁰And the king and the ruler and Bernice and those who were seated with them got up;

³¹And when they had gone away they said to one another, This man has done nothing which might give cause for death or prison.

³²And Agrippa said to Festus, This man might have been made free, if he had not put his cause before Caesar.

27And when the decision had been made that we were to go by sea to Italy, they gave Paul and certain other prisoners into the care of a captain named Julius, of the Augustan band.

²And we went to sea in a ship of Adramyttium which was sailing to the sea towns of Asia, Aristarchus, a Macedonian of Thessalonica, being with us.

³And on the day after, we came to Sidon; and Julius was kind to Paul, and let him go to see his friends and take a rest.

⁴And sailing again from there, we went on under cover of Cyprus, because the wind was against us.

⁵And having gone across the sea off Cilicia and Pamphylia we came to Myra, in Lycia.

⁶And there the captain came across a ship of Alexandria, sailing for Italy, and put us in it.

⁷And when we had gone on slowly for a long time, and had had hard work getting across to Cnidus, for the wind was against us, we went under cover of Crete, in the direction of Salmone;

⁸And sailing down the side of it, as well as we were able, we came to a certain place named Fair Havens, near which was the town of Lasea.

⁹And as a long time had gone by, and the journey was now full of danger, because it was late in the year, Paul put the position before them,

¹⁰Saying, Friends, I see that this journey will be one of great damage and loss, not only to the goods and the ship, but to ourselves.

¹¹But the captain gave more attention to the master and the owner of the ship than to what Paul said.

¹²And as the harbour was not a good one in which to be for the winter, the greater number of them were for going out to sea, in order, if possible, to put in for the winter at Phoenix, a harbour of Crete, looking to the north-east and south-east.

¹³And when the south wind came softly, being of the opinion that their purpose might be effected, they let the ship go and went sailing down the side of Crete, very near to the land.

¹⁴But after a little time, a very violent wind, named Euraquilo, came down from it with great force.

¹⁵And when the ship got into the grip of it, and was not able to make headway into the wind, we gave way, and went before it.

¹⁶And, sailing near the side of a small island named Cauda, we were able, though it was hard work, to make the ship's boat safe:

¹⁷And having got it up, they put cords under and round the ship; but fearing that they might be pushed on to the Syrtis, they let down the sails and so went running before the wind.

¹⁸And, still fighting the storm with all our strength, the day after they made a start at getting the goods out of the ship;

¹⁹And on the third day, they let all the sailing apparatus go over the side.

²⁰And as we had not seen the sun or stars for a long time, and a great storm was on us, all hope of salvation was gone.

²¹And when they had been without food for a long time, Paul got up among them and said, Friends, it would have been better if you had given attention to me and not gone sailing out from Crete, to undergo this damage and loss.

²²But now, I say to you, be of good heart, for there will be no loss of life, but only of the ship.

²³For this night there came to my side an angel of the God who is my Master and whose servant I am,

²⁴Saying, Have no fear, Paul, for you will come before Caesar, and God has given to you all those who are sailing with you.

²⁵And so, O men, be of good heart, for I have faith in God that it will be as he said to me.

²⁶But we will be sent on to a certain island.

²⁷But when the fourteenth day came, while we were going here and there in the Adriatic sea, about the middle of the night the sailors had an idea that they were getting near land;

²⁸And they let down the lead, and saw that the sea was a hundred and twenty feet deep; and after a little time they did it again and it was ninety feet.

²⁹Then, fearing that by chance we might come on to the rocks, they let down four hooks from the back of the ship, and made prayers for the coming of day.

³⁰Then the sailors made attempts secretly to get away from the ship, letting down a boat as if they were about to put down hooks from the front of the ship;

³¹But Paul said to the captain and his men, If you do not keep these men in the ship, you will not be safe.

³²Then the armed men, cutting the cords of the boat, let her go.

³³And when dawn was near, Paul gave them all orders to take food, saying, This is the fourteenth day you have been waiting and taking no food.

³⁴So I make request to you to take food; for this is for your salvation: not a hair from the head of any of you will come to destruction.

³⁵And when he had said this and had taken bread, he gave praise to God before them all, and took a meal of the broken bread.

³⁶Then they all took heart and did the same.

³⁷And we were, in the ship, two hundred and seventy-six persons.

³⁸And when they had had enough food, they made the weight of the ship less, turning the grain out into the sea.

³⁹And when it was day, they had no knowledge of the land, but they saw an inlet of the sea with a floor of sand, and they had the idea of driving the ship up on to it if possible.

⁴⁰So cutting away the hooks, and letting them go into the sea, and freeing the cords of the guiding-blades, and lifting up the sail to the wind, they went in the direction of the inlet.

⁴¹And coming to a point between two seas, they got the ship to land; and the front part was fixed in the sand and not able to be moved, but the back part was broken by the force of the waves.

⁴²Then the armed men were for putting the prisoners to death, so that no one would get away by swimming.

⁴³But the captain, desiring to keep Paul safe, kept them from their purpose, and gave orders that those who had knowledge of swimming were to go off the ship and get first to land:

⁴⁴And the rest, some on boards and some on things from the ship. And so it came about that they all got safe to land.

28And when we were safe, we made the discovery that the island was named Melita.

²And the simple people living there were uncommonly kind to us, for they made a fire for us, and took us in, because it was raining and cold.

³But when Paul had got some sticks together and put them on the fire, a snake came out, because of the heat, and gave him a bite on the hand.

⁴And when the people saw it hanging on his hand, they said to one another, Without doubt this man has put someone to death, and though he has got safely away from the sea, God will not let him go on living.

⁵But shaking off the beast into the fire, he got no damage.

⁶But they had the idea that they would see him becoming ill, or suddenly falling down dead; but after waiting a long time, and seeing that no damage came to him, changing their opinion, they said he was a god.

⁷Now near that place there was some land, the property of the chief man of the island, who was named Publius; who very kindly took us into his house as his guests for three days.

⁸And the father of Publius was ill, with a disease of the stomach; to whom Paul went, and put his hands on him, with prayer, and made him well.

⁹And when this took place, all the others in the island who had diseases came and were made well.

¹⁰Then they gave us great honour, and, when we went away, they put into the ship whatever things we were in need of.

¹¹And after three months we went to sea in a ship of Alexandria sailing under the sign of the Dioscuri, which had been at the island for the winter.

¹²And going into the harbour at Syracuse, we were waiting there for three days.

¹³And from there, going about in a curve, we came to Rhegium: and after one day a south wind came up and on the day after we came to Puteoli:

¹⁴Where we came across some of the brothers, who kept us with them for seven days; and so we came to Rome.

¹⁵And the brothers, when they had news of us, came out from town as far as Appii Forum and the Three Taverns to have a meeting with us: and Paul, seeing them, gave praise to God and took heart.

¹⁶And when we came into Rome, they let Paul have a house for himself and the armed man who kept watch over him.

¹⁷Then after three days he sent for the chief men of the Jews: and when they had come together, he said to them, My brothers, though I had done nothing against the people or the ways of our fathers, I was given, a prisoner from Jerusalem, into the hands of the Romans.

¹⁸Who, when they had put questions to me, were ready to let me go free, because there was no cause of death in me.

¹⁹But when the Jews made protest against it, I had to put my cause into Caesar's hands; not because I have anything to say against my nation.

²⁰But for this reason I sent for you, to see and have talk with you: for because of the hope of Israel I am in these chains.

²¹And they said to him, We have not had letters from Judaea about you, and no one of the brothers has come to us here to give an account or say any evil about you.

²²But we have a desire to give hearing to your opinion: for as to this form of religion, we have knowledge that in all places it is attacked.

²³And when a day had been fixed, they came to his house in great numbers; and he gave them teaching, giving witness to the kingdom of God, and having discussions with them about Jesus, from the law of Moses and from the prophets, from morning till evening.

²⁴And some were in agreement with what he said, but some had doubts.

²⁵And they went away, for there was a division among them after Paul had said this one thing: Well did the Holy Spirit say by the prophet Isaiah to your fathers,

²⁶Go to this people and say, Though you give ear, you will not get knowledge; and seeing, you will see, but the sense will not be clear to you:

²⁷For the heart of this people has become fat and their ears are slow in hearing and their eyes are shut; for fear that they might see with their eyes and give hearing with their ears and become wise in their hearts and be turned again to me, so that I might make them well.

²⁸Be certain, then, that the salvation of God is sent to the Gentiles, and they will give hearing.

²⁹[]

³⁰And for the space of two years, Paul was living in the house of which he had the use, and had talk with all those who went in to see him,

³¹Preaching the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ without fear, and no orders were given that he was not to do so.

1Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, an Apostle by the selection of God, given authority as a preacher of the good news,

²Of which God had given word before by his prophets in the holy Writings,

³About his Son who, in the flesh, came from the family of David,

⁴But was marked out as Son of God in power by the Holy Spirit through the coming to life again of the dead; Jesus Christ our Lord,

⁵Through whom grace has been given to us, sending us out to make disciples to the faith among all nations, for his name:

⁶Among whom you in the same way have been marked out to be disciples of Jesus Christ:

⁷To all those who are in Rome, loved by God, marked out as saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

⁸First of all, I give praise to my God through Jesus Christ for you all, because news of your faith has gone into all the world.

⁹For God is my witness, whose servant I am in spirit in the good news of his Son, that you are at all times in my memory and in my prayers,

¹⁰And that I am ever making prayers that God will give me a good journey to you.

¹¹For I have a strong desire to see you, and to give you some grace of the spirit, so that you may be made strong;

¹²That is to say, that all of us may be comforted together by the faith which is in you and in me.

¹³You may be certain, my brothers, that it has frequently been in my mind to come to you (but till now I was kept from it), so that I might have some fruit from you in the same way as I have had it from the other nations.

¹⁴I have a debt to Greeks and to the nations outside; to the wise and to those who have no learning.

¹⁵For which reason I have the desire, as far as I am able, to give the knowledge of the good news to you who are in Rome.

¹⁶For I have no feeling of shame about the good news, because it is the power of God giving salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first, and then to the Greek.

¹⁷For in it there is the revelation of the righteousness of God from faith to faith: as it is said in the holy Writings, The man who does righteousness will be living by his faith.

¹⁸For there is a revelation of the wrath of God from heaven against all the wrongdoing and evil thoughts of men who keep down what is true by wrongdoing;

¹⁹Because the knowledge of God may be seen in them, God having made it clear to them.

²⁰For from the first making of the world, those things of God which the eye is unable to see, that is, his eternal power and existence, are fully made clear, he having given the knowledge of them through the things which he has made, so that men have no reason for wrongdoing:

²¹Because, having the knowledge of God, they did not give glory to God as God, and did not give praise, but their minds were full of foolish things, and their hearts, being without sense, were made dark.

²²Seeming to be wise, they were in fact foolish,

²³And by them the glory of the eternal God was changed and made into the image of man who is not eternal, and of birds and beasts and things which go on the earth.

²⁴For this reason God gave them up to the evil desires of their hearts, working shame in their bodies with one another:

²⁵Because by them the true word of God was changed into that which is false, and they gave worship and honour to the thing which is made, and not to him who made it, to whom be blessing for ever. So be it.

²⁶For this reason God gave them up to evil passions, and their women were changing the natural use into one which is unnatural:

²⁷And in the same way the men gave up the natural use of the woman and were burning in their desire for one another, men doing shame with men, and getting in their bodies the right reward of their evil-doing.

²⁸And because they had not the mind to keep God in their knowledge, God gave them up to an evil mind, to do those things which are not right;

²⁹Being full of all wrongdoing, evil, desire for the goods of others, hate, envy, putting to death, fighting, deceit, cruel ways, evil talk, and false statements about others;

³⁰Hated by God, full of pride, without respect, full of loud talk, given to evil inventions, not honouring father or mother,

³¹Without knowledge, not true to their undertakings, unkind, having no mercy:

³²Who, though they have knowledge of the law of God, that the fate of those who do these things is death, not only go on doing these things themselves, but give approval to those who do them.

2So you have no reason, whoever you are, for judging: for in judging another you are judging yourself, for you do the same things.

²And we are conscious that God is a true judge against those who do such things.

³But you who are judging another for doing what you do yourself, are you hoping that God's decision will not take effect against you?

⁴Or is it nothing to you that God had pity on you, waiting and putting up with you for so long, not seeing that in his pity God's desire is to give you a change of heart?

⁵But by your hard and unchanged heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of the revelation of God's judging in righteousness;

⁶Who will give to every man his right reward:

⁷To those who go on with good works in the hope of glory and honour and salvation from death, he will give eternal life:

⁸But to those who, from a love of competition, are not guided by what is true, will come the heat of his wrath,

⁹Trouble and sorrow on all whose works are evil, to the Jew first and then to the Greek;

¹⁰But glory and honour and peace to all whose works are good, to the Jew first and then to the Greek:

¹¹For one man is not different from another before God.

¹²All those who have done wrong without the law will get destruction without the law: and those who have done wrong under the law will have their punishment by the law;

¹³For it is not the hearers of the law who will be judged as having righteousness before God, but only the doers:

¹⁴For when the Gentiles without the law have a natural desire to do the things in the law, they are a law to themselves;

¹⁵Because the work of the law is seen in their hearts, their sense of right and wrong giving witness to it, while their minds are at one time judging them and at another giving them approval;

¹⁶In the day when God will be a judge of the secrets of men, as it says in the good news of which I am a preacher, through Jesus Christ.

¹⁷But as for you who have the name of Jew, and are resting on the law, and take pride in God,

¹⁸And have knowledge of his desires, and are a judge of the things which are different, having the learning of the law,

¹⁹In the belief that you are a guide to the blind, a light to those in the dark,

²⁰A teacher of the foolish, having in the law the form of knowledge and of what is true;

²¹You who give teaching to others, do you give it to yourself? you who say that a man may not take what is not his, do you take what is not yours?

²²You who say that a man may not be untrue to his wife, are you true to yours? you who are a hater of images, do you do wrong to the house of God?

²³You who take pride in the law, are you doing wrong to the honour of God by behaviour which is against the law?

²⁴For the name of God is shamed among the Gentiles because of you, as it is said in the holy Writings.

²⁵It is true that circumcision is of use if you keep the law, but if you go against the law it is as if you had it not.

²⁶If those who have not circumcision keep the rules of the law, will it not be credited to them as circumcision?

²⁷And they, by their keeping of the law without circumcision, will be judges of you, by whom the law is broken though you have the letter of the law and circumcision.

²⁸The true Jew is not one who is only so publicly, and circumcision is not that which may be seen in the flesh:

²⁹But he is a Jew who is a secret one, whose circumcision is of the heart, in the spirit and not in the letter; whose praise is not from men, but from God.

3How then is the Jew better off? or what profit is there in circumcision?

²Much in every way: first of all because the words of God were given to them.

³And if some have no faith, will that make the faith of God without effect?

⁴In no way: but let God be true, though every man is seen to be untrue; as it is said in the Writings, That your words may be seen to be true, and you may be seen to be right when you are judged.

⁵But if the righteousness of God is supported by our wrongdoing what is to be said? is it wrong for God to be angry (as men may say)?

⁶In no way: because if it is so, how is God able to be the judge of all the world?

⁷But if, because I am untrue, God being seen to be true gets more glory, why am I to be judged as a sinner?

⁸Let us not do evil so that good may come (a statement which we are falsely said by some to have made), because such behaviour will have its right punishment.

⁹What then? are we worse off than they? In no way: because we have before made it clear that Jews as well as Greeks are all under the power of sin;

¹⁰As it is said in the holy Writings, There is not one who does righteousness;

¹¹Not one who has the knowledge of what is right, not one who is a searcher after God;

¹²They have all gone out of the way, there is no profit in any of them; there is not one who does good, not so much as one:

¹³Their throat is like an open place of death; with their tongues they have said what is not true: the poison of snakes is under their lips:

¹⁴Whose mouth is full of curses and bitter words:

¹⁵Their feet are quick in running after blood;

¹⁶Destruction and trouble are in their ways;

¹⁷And of the way of peace they have no knowledge:

¹⁸There is no fear of God before their eyes.

¹⁹Now, we have knowledge that what the law says is for those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and all men may be judged by God:

²⁰Because by the works of the law no man is able to have righteousness in his eyes, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin.

²¹But now without the law there is a revelation of the righteousness of God, to which witness is given by the law and the prophets;

²²That is, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ, to all those who have faith; and one man is not different from another,

²³For all have done wrong and are far from the glory of God;

²⁴And they may have righteousness put to their credit, freely, by his grace, through the salvation which is in Christ Jesus:

²⁵Whom God has put forward as the sign of his mercy, through faith, by his blood, to make clear his righteousness when, in his pity, God let the sins of earlier times go without punishment;

²⁶And to make clear his righteousness now, so that he might himself be upright, and give righteousness to him who has faith in Jesus.

²⁷What reason, then, is there for pride? It is shut out. By what sort of law? of works? No, but by a law of faith.

²⁸For this reason, then, a man may get righteousness by faith without the works of the law.

²⁹Or is God the God of Jews only? is he not in the same way the God of Gentiles? Yes, of Gentiles:

³⁰If God is one; and he will give righteousness because of faith to those who have circumcision, and through faith to those who have not circumcision.

³¹Do we, then, through faith make the law of no effect? in no way: but we make it clear that the law is important.

4What, then, may we say that Abraham, our father after the flesh, has got?

²For if Abraham got righteousness by works, he has reason for pride; but not before God.

³But what does it say in the holy Writings? And Abraham had faith in God, and it was put to his account as righteousness.

⁴Now, the reward is credited to him who does works, not as of grace but as a debt.

⁵But to him who without working has faith in him who gives righteousness to the evil-doer, his faith is put to his account as righteousness.

⁶As David says that there is a blessing on the man to whose account God puts righteousness without works, saying,

⁷Happy are those who have forgiveness for their wrongdoing, and whose sins are covered.

⁸Happy is the man against whom no sin is recorded by the Lord.

⁹Is this blessing, then, for the circumcision only, or in the same way for those who have not circumcision? for we say that the faith of Abraham was put to his account as righteousness.

¹⁰How, then, was it judged? when he had circumcision, or when he had it not? Not when he had it, but when he did not have it:

¹¹And he was given the sign of circumcision as a witness of the faith which he had before he underwent circumcision: so that he might be the father of all those who have faith, though they have not circumcision, and so that righteousness might be put to their account;

¹²And the father of circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision, but who keep to the way of that faith which our father Abraham had before he underwent circumcision.

¹³For God's word, that the earth would be his heritage, was given to Abraham, not through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.

¹⁴For if they who are of the law are the people who get the heritage, then faith is made of no use, and the word of God has no power;

¹⁵For the outcome of the law is wrath; but where there is no law it will not be broken.

¹⁶For this reason it is of faith, so that it may be through grace; and so that the word of God may be certain to all the seed; not only to that which is of the law, but to that which is of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all,

¹⁷(As it is said in the holy Writings, I have made you a father of a number of nations) before him in whom he had faith, that is, God, who gives life to the dead, and to whom the things which are not are as if they were.

¹⁸Who without reason for hope, in faith went on hoping, so that he became the father of a number of nations, as it had been said, So will your seed be.

¹⁹And not being feeble in faith though his body seemed to him little better than dead (he being about a hundred years old) and Sarah was no longer able to have children:

²⁰Still, he did not give up faith in the undertaking of God, but was made strong by faith, giving glory to God,

²¹And being certain that God was able to keep his word.

²²For which reason it was put to his account as righteousness.

²³Now, it was not because of him only that this was said,

²⁴But for us in addition, to whose account it will be put, if we have faith in him who made Jesus our Lord come back again from the dead,

²⁵Who was put to death for our evil-doing, and came to life again so that we might have righteousness.

5For which reason, because we have righteousness through faith, let us be at peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ;

²Through whom, in the same way, we have been able by faith to come to this grace in which we now are; and let us have joy in hope of the glory of God.

³And not only so, but let us have joy in our troubles: in the knowledge that trouble gives us the power of waiting;

⁴And waiting gives experience; and experience, hope:

⁵And hope does not put to shame; because our hearts are full of the love of God through the Holy Spirit which is given to us.

⁶For when we were still without strength, at the right time Christ gave his life for evil-doers.

⁷Now it is hard for anyone to give his life even for an upright man, though it might be that for a good man someone would give his life.

⁸But God has made clear his love to us, in that, when we were still sinners, Christ gave his life for us.

⁹Much more, if we now have righteousness by his blood, will salvation from the wrath of God come to us through him.

¹⁰For if, when we were haters of God, the death of his Son made us at peace with him, much more, now that we are his friends, will we have salvation through his life;

¹¹And not only so, but we have joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we are now at peace with God.

¹²For this reason, as through one man sin came into the world, and death because of sin, and so death came to all men, because all have done evil:

¹³Because, till the law came, sin was in existence, but sin is not put to the account of anyone when there is no law to be broken.

¹⁴But still death had power from Adam till Moses, even over those who had not done wrong like Adam, who is a picture of him who was to come.

¹⁵But the free giving of God is not like the wrongdoing of man. For if, by the wrongdoing of one man death came to numbers of men, much more did the grace of God, and the free giving by the grace of one man, Jesus Christ, come to men.

¹⁶And the free giving has not the same effect as the sin of one: for the effect of one man's sin was punishment by the decision of God, but the free giving had power to give righteousness to wrongdoers in great number.

¹⁷For, if by the wrongdoing of one, death was ruling through the one, much more will those to whom has come the wealth of grace and the giving of righteousness, be ruling in life through the one, even Jesus Christ.

¹⁸So then, as the effect of one act of wrongdoing was that punishment came on all men, even so the effect of one act of righteousness was righteousness of life for all men.

¹⁹Because, as numbers of men became sinners through the wrongdoing of one man, even so will great numbers get righteousness through the keeping of the word of God by one man.

²⁰And the law came in addition, to make wrongdoing worse; but where there was much sin, there was much more grace:

²¹That, as sin had power in death, so grace might have power through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

6What may we say, then? are we to go on in sin so that there may be more grace?

²In no way. How may we, who are dead to sin, be living in it any longer?

³Or are you without the knowledge that all we who had baptism into Christ Jesus, had baptism into his death?

⁴We have been placed with him among the dead through baptism into death: so that as Christ came again from the dead by the glory of the Father, we, in the same way, might be living in new life.

⁵For, if we have been made like him in his death, we will, in the same way, be like him in his coming to life again;

⁶Being conscious that our old man was put to death on the cross with him, so that the body of sin might be put away, and we might no longer be servants to sin.

⁷Because he who is dead is free from sin.

⁸But if we are dead with Christ, we have faith that we will be living with him;

⁹Having knowledge that because Christ has come back from the dead, he will never again go down to the dead; death has no more power over him.

¹⁰For his death was a death to sin, but his life now is a life which he is living to God.

¹¹Even so see yourselves as dead to sin, but living to God in Christ Jesus.

¹²For this cause do not let sin be ruling in your body which is under the power of death, so that you give way to its desires;

¹³And do not give your bodies to sin as the instruments of wrongdoing, but give yourselves to God, as those who are living from the dead, and your bodies as instruments of righteousness to God.

¹⁴For sin may not have rule over you: because you are not under law, but under grace.

¹⁵What then? are we to go on in sin because we are not under law but under grace? Let it not be so.

¹⁶Are you not conscious that you are the servants of him to whom you give yourselves to do his desire? if to sin, the end being death, or if to do the desire of God, the end being righteousness.

¹⁷But praise be to God that though you were the servants of sin, you have now given yourselves freely to that form of teaching under which you were placed;

¹⁸And being made free from sin you have been made the servants of righteousness.

¹⁹I am using words in the way of men, because your flesh is feeble: as you gave your bodies as servants to what is unclean, and to evil to do evil, so now give them as servants to righteousness to do what is holy.

²⁰When you were servants of sin you were free from righteousness.

²¹What fruit had you at that time in the things which are now a shame to you? for the end of such things is death.

²²But now, being free from sin, and having been made servants to God, you have your fruit in that which is holy, and the end is eternal life.

²³For the reward of sin is death; but what God freely gives is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord.

7Is it not clear, my brothers (I am using an argument to those who have knowledge of the law), that the law has power over a man as long as he is living?

²For the woman who has a husband is placed by the law under the power of her husband as long as he is living; but if her husband is dead, she is free from the law of the husband.

³So if, while the husband is living, she is joined to another man, she will get the name of one who is untrue to her husband: but if the husband is dead, she is free from the law, so that she is not untrue, even if she takes another man.

⁴In the same way, my brothers, you were made dead to the law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, even to him who came again from the dead, so that we might give fruit to God.

⁵For when we were in the flesh, the evil passions which came into being through the law were working in our bodies to give the fruit of death.

⁶But now we are free from the law, having been made dead to that which had power over us; so that we are servants in the new way of the spirit, not in the old way of the letter.

⁷What then is to be said? is the law sin? in no way. But I would not have had knowledge of sin but for the law: for I would not have been conscious of desire if the law had not said, You may not have a desire for what is another's.

⁸But sin, taking its chance through that which was ordered by the law, was working in me every form of desire: because without the law sin is dead.

⁹And there was a time when I was living without the law: but when the law gave its orders, sin came to life and put me to death;

¹⁰And I made the discovery that the law whose purpose was to give life had become a cause of death:

¹¹For I was tricked and put to death by sin, which took its chance through the law.

¹²But the law is holy, and its orders are holy, upright, and good.

¹³Was then that which is good, death to me? In no way. But the purpose was that sin might be seen to be sin by working death to me through that which is good; so that through the orders of the law sin might seem much more evil.

¹⁴For we are conscious that the law is of the spirit; but I am of the flesh, given into the power of sin.

¹⁵And I have no clear knowledge of what I am doing, for that which I have a mind to do, I do not, but what I have hate for, that I do.

¹⁶But, if I do that which I have no mind to do, I am in agreement with the law that the law is good.

¹⁷So it is no longer I who do it, but the sin living in me.

¹⁸For I am conscious that in me, that is, in my flesh, there is nothing good: I have the mind but not the power to do what is right.

¹⁹For the good which I have a mind to do, I do not: but the evil which I have no mind to do, that I do.

²⁰But if I do what I have no mind to do, it is no longer I who do it, but the sin living in me.

²¹So I see a law that, though I have a mind to do good, evil is present in me.

²²In my heart I take pleasure in the law of God,

²³But I see another law in my body, working against the law of my mind, and making me the servant of the law of sin which is in my flesh.

²⁴How unhappy am I! who will make me free from the body of this death?

²⁵I give praise to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So with my mind I am a servant to the law of God, but with my flesh to the law of sin.

8For this cause those who are in Christ Jesus will not be judged as sinners.

²For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.

³For what the law was not able to do because it was feeble through the flesh, God, sending his Son in the image of the evil flesh, and as an offering for sin, gave his decision against sin in the flesh:

⁴So that what was ordered by the law might be done in us, who are living, not in the way of the flesh, but in the way of the Spirit.

⁵For those who are living in the way of the flesh give their minds to the things of the flesh, but those who go in the way of the Spirit, to the things of the Spirit.

⁶For the mind of the flesh is death, but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace:

⁷Because the mind of the flesh is opposite to God; it is not under the law of God, and is not able to be:

⁸So that those who are in the flesh are not able to give pleasure to God.

⁹You are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if the Spirit of God is in you. But if any man has not the Spirit of Christ he is not one of his.

¹⁰And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

¹¹But if the Spirit of him who made Jesus come again from the dead is in you, he who made Christ Jesus come again from the dead will in the same way, through his Spirit which is in you, give life to your bodies which now are under the power of death.

¹²So then, my brothers, we are in debt, not to the flesh to be living in the way of the flesh:

¹³For if you go in the way of the flesh, death will come on you; but if by the Spirit you put to death the works of the body, you will have life.

¹⁴And all those who are guided by the Spirit of God are sons of God.

¹⁵For you did not get the spirit of servants again to put you in fear, but the spirit of sons was given to you, by which we say, Abba, Father.

¹⁶The Spirit is witness with our spirit that we are children of God:

¹⁷And if we are children, we have a right to a part in the heritage; a part in the things of God, together with Christ; so that if we have a part in his pain, we will in the same way have a part in his glory.

¹⁸I am of the opinion that there is no comparison between the pain of this present time and the glory which we will see in the future.

¹⁹For the strong desire of every living thing is waiting for the revelation of the sons of God.

²⁰For every living thing was put under the power of change, not by its desire, but by him who made it so, in hope

²¹That all living things will be made free from the power of death and will have a part with the free children of God in glory.

²²For we are conscious that all living things are weeping and sorrowing in pain together till now.

²³And not only so, but we who have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we have sorrow in our minds, waiting for the time when we will take our place as sons, that is, the salvation of our bodies.

²⁴For our salvation is by hope: but hope which is seen is not hope: for who is hoping for what he sees?

²⁵But if we have hope for that which we see not, then we will be able to go on waiting for it.

²⁶And in the same way the Spirit is a help to our feeble hearts: for we are not able to make prayer to God in the right way; but the Spirit puts our desires into words which are not in our power to say;

²⁷And he who is the searcher of hearts has knowledge of the mind of the Spirit, because he is making prayers for the saints in agreement with the mind of God.

²⁸And we are conscious that all things are working together for good to those who have love for God, and have been marked out by his purpose.

²⁹Because those of whom he had knowledge before they came into existence, were marked out by him to be made like his Son, so that he might be the first among a band of brothers:

³⁰And those who were marked out by him were named; and those who were named were given righteousness; and to those to whom he gave righteousness, in the same way he gave glory.

³¹What may we say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us?

³²He who did not keep back his only Son, but gave him up for us all, will he not with him freely give us all things?

³³Who will say anything against the saints of God? It is God who makes us clear from evil;

³⁴Who will give a decision against us? It is Christ Jesus who not only was put to death, but came again from the dead, who is now at the right hand of God, taking our part.

³⁵Who will come between us and the love of Christ? Will trouble, or pain, or cruel acts, or the need of food or of clothing, or danger, or the sword?

³⁶As it is said in the holy Writings, Because of you we are put to death every day; we are like sheep ready for destruction.

³⁷But we are able to overcome all these things and more through his love.

³⁸For I am certain that not death, or life, or angels, or rulers, or things present, or things to come, or powers,

³⁹Or things on high, or things under the earth, or anything which is made, will be able to come between us and the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

9I say what is true in Christ, and not what is false, my mind giving witness with me in the Holy Spirit,

²That I am full of sorrow and pain without end.

³For I have a desire to take on myself the curse for my brothers, my family in the flesh:

⁴Who are Israelites: who have the place of sons, and the glory, and the agreements with God, and the giving of the law, and the worship, and the hope offered by God:

⁵Whose are the fathers, and of whom came Christ in the flesh, who is over all, God, to whom be blessing for ever. So be it.

⁶But it is not as if the word of God was without effect. For they are not all Israel, who are of Israel:

⁷And they are not all children because they are the seed of Abraham; but, In Isaac will your seed be named.

⁸That is, it is not the children of the flesh, but the children of God's undertaking, who are named as the seed.

⁹For this is the word of God's undertaking, At this time will I come, and Sarah will have a son.

¹⁰And not only so, but Rebecca being about to have a child by our father Isaac--

¹¹Before the children had come into existence, or had done anything good or bad, in order that God's purpose and his selection might be effected, not by works, but by him whose purpose it is,

¹²It was said to her, The older will be the servant of the younger.

¹³Even as it is said, I had love for Jacob, but for Esau I had hate.

¹⁴What may we say then? is God not upright? let it not be said.

¹⁵For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and pity on whom I will have pity.

¹⁶So then, it is not by the desire or by the attempt of man, but by the mercy of God.

¹⁷For the holy Writings say to Pharaoh, For this same purpose did I put you on high, so that I might make my power seen in you, and that there might be knowledge of my name through all the earth.

¹⁸So then, at his pleasure he has mercy on a man, and at his pleasure he makes the heart hard.

¹⁹But you will say to me, Why does he still make us responsible? who is able to go against his purpose?

²⁰But, O man, who are you, to make answer against God? May the thing which is made say to him who made it, Why did you make me so?

²¹Or has not the potter the right to make out of one part of his earth a vessel for honour, and out of another a vessel for shame?

²²What if God, desiring to let his wrath and his power be seen, for a long time put up with the vessels of wrath which were ready for destruction:

²³And to make clear the wealth of his glory to vessels of mercy, which he had before made ready for glory,

²⁴Even us, who were marked out by him, not only from the Jews, but from the Gentiles?

²⁵As he says in Hosea, They will be named my people who were not my people, and she will be loved who was not loved.

²⁶And in the place where it was said to them, You are not my people, there they will be named the sons of the living God.

²⁷And Isaiah says about Israel, Even if the number of the children of Israel is as the sand of the sea, only a small part will get salvation:

²⁸For the Lord will give effect to his word on the earth, putting an end to it and cutting it short.

²⁹And, as Isaiah had said before, If the Lord of armies had not given us a seed, we would have been like Sodom and Gomorrah.

³⁰What then may we say? That the nations who did not go after righteousness have got righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith:

³¹But Israel, going after a law of righteousness, did not get it.

³²Why? Because they were not searching for it by faith, but by works. They came up against the stone which was in the way;

³³As it is said, See, I am putting in Zion a stone causing a fall, and a rock in the way: but he who has faith in him will not be put to shame.

10Brothers, my heart's desire and my prayer to God for them is, that they may get salvation.

²For I give witness of them that they have a strong desire for God, but not with knowledge.

³Because, not having knowledge of God's righteousness, and desiring to give effect to their righteousness, they have not put themselves under the righteousness of God.

⁴For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who has faith.

⁵For Moses says that the man who does the righteousness which is of the law will get life by it.

⁶But the righteousness which is of faith says these words, Say not in your heart, Who will go up to heaven? (that is, to make Christ come down:)

⁷Or, Who will go down into the deep? (that is, to make Christ come again from the dead:)

⁸But what does it say? The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart: that is, the word of faith of which we are the preachers:

⁹Because, if you say with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and have faith in your heart that God has made him come back from the dead, you will have salvation:

¹⁰For with the heart man has faith to get righteousness, and with the mouth he says that Jesus is Lord to get salvation.

¹¹Because it is said in the holy Writings, Whoever has faith in him will not be shamed.

¹²And the Jew is not different from the Greek: for there is the same Lord of all, who is good to all who have hope in his name:

¹³Because, Whoever will give worship to the name of the Lord will get salvation.

¹⁴But how will they give worship to him in whom they have no faith? and how will they have faith in him of whom they have not had news? and how will they have news without a preacher?

¹⁵And how will there be preachers if they are not sent? As it is said, How beautiful are the feet of those who give the glad news of good things.

¹⁶But they have not all given ear to the good news. For Isaiah says, Lord, who has had faith in our word?

¹⁷So faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.

¹⁸But I say, Did not the word come to their ears? Yes, certainly: Their sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.

¹⁹But I say, Had Israel no knowledge? First Moses says, You will be moved to envy by that which is not a nation, and by a foolish people I will make you angry.

²⁰And Isaiah says without fear, Those who were not searching for me made discovery of me; and I was seen by those whose hearts were turned away from me.

²¹But about Israel he says; All the day my hands have been stretched out to a people whose hearts were turned away, and who put themselves against my word.

11So I say, Has God put his people on one side? Let there be no such thought. For I am of Israel, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.

²God has not put away the people of his selection. Or have you no knowledge of what is said about Elijah in the holy Writings? how he says words to God against Israel,

³Lord, they have put your prophets to death, and made waste your altars, and now I am the last, and they are searching for me to take away my life.

⁴But what answer does God make to him? I have still seven thousand men whose knees have not been bent to Baal.

⁵In the same way, there are at this present time some who are marked out by the selection of grace.

⁶But if it is of grace, then it is no longer of works: or grace would not be grace.

⁷What then? That which Israel was searching for he did not get, but those of the selection got it and the rest were made hard.

⁸As it was said in the holy Writings, God gave them a spirit of sleep, eyes which might not see, and ears which have no hearing, to this day.

⁹And David says, Let their table be made a net for taking them, and a stone in their way, and a punishment:

¹⁰Let their eyes be made dark so that they may not see, and let their back be bent down at all times.

¹¹So I say, Were their steps made hard in order that they might have a fall? In no way: but by their fall salvation has come to the Gentiles, so that they might be moved to envy.

¹²Now, if their fall is the wealth of the world, and their loss the wealth of the Gentiles, how much greater will be the glory when they are made full?

¹³But I say to you, Gentiles, in so far as I am the Apostle of the Gentiles, I make much of my position:

¹⁴If in any way those who are of my flesh may be moved to envy, so that some of them may get salvation by me.

¹⁵For, if by their putting away, the rest of men have been made friends with God, what will their coming back again be, but life from the dead?

¹⁶And if the first-fruit is holy, so is the mass: and if the root is holy, so are the branches.

¹⁷But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, an olive-tree of the fields, were put in among them, and were given a part with them in the root by which the olive-tree is made fertile,

¹⁸Do not be uplifted in pride over the branches: because it is not you who are the support of the root, but it is by the root that you are supported.

¹⁹You will say, Branches were broken off so that I might be put in.

²⁰Truly, because they had no faith they were broken off, and you have your place by reason of your faith. Do not be lifted up in pride, but have fear;

²¹For, if God did not have mercy on the natural branches, he will not have mercy on you.

²²See then that God is good but his rules are fixed: to those who were put away he was hard, but to you he has been good, on the condition that you keep in his mercy; if not, you will be cut off as they were.

²³And they, if they do not go on without faith, will be united to the tree again, because God is able to put them in again.

²⁴For if you were cut out of a field olive-tree, and against the natural use were united to a good olive-tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be united again with the olive-tree which was theirs?

²⁵For it is my desire, brothers, that this secret may be clear to you, so that you may not have pride in your knowledge, that Israel has been made hard in part, till all the Gentiles have come in;

²⁶And so all Israel will get salvation: as it is said in the holy Writings, There will come out of Zion the One who makes free; by him wrongdoing will be taken away from Jacob:

²⁷And this is my agreement with them, when I will take away their sins.

²⁸As far as the good news is in question, they are cut off from God on account of you, but as far as the selection is in question, they are loved on account of the fathers.

²⁹Because God's selection and his mercies may not be changed.

³⁰For as you, in time past, were not under the rule of God, but now have got mercy through their turning away,

³¹So in the same way these have gone against the orders of God, so that by the mercy given to you they may now get mercy.

³²For God has let them all go against his orders, so that he might have mercy on them all.

³³O how deep is the wealth of the wisdom and knowledge of God! no one is able to make discovery of his decisions, and his ways may not be searched out.

³⁴Who has knowledge of the mind of the Lord? or who has taken part in his purposes?

³⁵Or who has first given to him, and it will be given back to him again?

³⁶For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things. To him be the glory for ever. So be it.

12For this reason I make request to you, brothers, by the mercies of God, that you will give your bodies as a living offering, holy, pleasing to God, which is the worship it is right for you to give him.

²And let not your behaviour be like that of this world, but be changed and made new in mind, so that by experience you may have knowledge of the good and pleasing and complete purpose of God.

³But I say to every one of you, through the grace given to me, not to have an over-high opinion of himself, but to have wise thoughts, as God has given to every one a measure of faith.

⁴For, as we have a number of parts in one body, but all the parts have not the same use,

⁵So we, though we are a number of persons, are one body in Christ, and are dependent on one another;

⁶And having different qualities by reason of the grace given to us, such as the quality of a prophet, let it be made use of in relation to the measure of our faith;

⁷Or the position of a Deacon of the church, let a man give himself to it; or he who has the power of teaching, let him make use of it;

⁸He who has the power of comforting, let him do so; he who gives, let him give freely; he who has the power of ruling, let him do it with a serious mind; he who has mercy on others, let it be with joy.

⁹Let love be without deceit. Be haters of what is evil; keep your minds fixed on what is good.

¹⁰Be kind to one another with a brother's love, putting others before yourselves in honour;

¹¹Be not slow in your work, but be quick in spirit, as the Lord's servants;

¹²Being glad in hope, quiet in trouble, at all times given to prayer,

¹³Giving to the needs of the saints, ready to take people into your houses.

¹⁴Give blessing and not curses to those who are cruel to you.

¹⁵Take part in the joy of those who are glad, and in the grief of those who are sorrowing.

¹⁶Be in harmony with one another. Do not have a high opinion of yourselves, but be in agreement with common people. Do not give yourselves an air of wisdom.

¹⁷Do not give evil for evil to any man. Let all your business be well ordered in the eyes of all men.

¹⁸As far as it is possible for you be at peace with all men.

¹⁹Do not give punishment for wrongs done to you, dear brothers, but give way to the wrath of God; for it is said in the holy Writings, Punishment is mine, I will give reward, says the Lord.

²⁰But if one who has hate for you is in need of food or of drink, give it to him, for in so doing you will put coals of fire on his head.

²¹Do not let evil overcome you, but overcome evil by good.

13Let everyone put himself under the authority of the higher powers, because there is no power which is not of God, and all powers are ordered by God.

²For which reason everyone who puts himself against the authority puts himself against the order of God: and those who are against it will get punishment for themselves.

³For rulers are not a cause of fear to the good work but to the evil. If you would have no fear of the authority, do good and you will have praise;

⁴For he is the servant of God to you for good. But if you do evil, have fear; for the sword is not in his hand for nothing: he is God's servant, making God's punishment come on the evil-doer.

⁵So put yourselves under the authority, not for fear of wrath, but because you have the knowledge of what is right.

⁶For the same reason, make payment of taxes; because the authority is God's servant, to take care of such things at all times.

⁷Give to all what is their right: taxes to him whose they are, payment to him whose right it is, fear to whom fear, honour to whom honour is to be given.

⁸Be in debt for nothing, but to have love for one another: for he who has love for his neighbour has kept all the law.

⁹And this, Do not be untrue in married life, Do not put to death, Do not take what is another's, Do not have desire for what is another's, and if there is any other order, it is covered by this word, Have love for your neighbour as for yourself.

¹⁰Love does no wrong to his neighbour, so love makes the law complete.

¹¹See then that the time has come for you to be awake from sleep: for now is your salvation nearer than when you first had faith.

¹²The night is far gone, and the day is near: so let us put off the works of the dark, arming ourselves with light,

¹³With right behaviour as in the day; not in pleasure-making and drinking, not in bad company and unclean behaviour, not in fighting and envy.

¹⁴But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not give thought to the flesh to do its desires.

14Do not put on one side him who is feeble in faith, and do not put him in doubt by your reasonings.

²One man has faith to take all things as food: another who is feeble in faith takes only green food.

³Let not him who takes food have a low opinion of him who does not: and let not him who does not take food be a judge of him who does; for he has God's approval.

⁴Who are you to make yourself a judge of another man's servant? it is to his master that he is responsible for good or bad. Yes, his place will be safe, because the Lord is able to keep him from falling.

⁵This man puts one day before another: to that man they are the same. Let every man be certain in his mind.

⁶He who keeps the day, keeps it to the Lord; and he who takes food, takes it as to the Lord, for he gives praise to God; and he who does not take food, to the Lord he takes it not, and gives praise to God.

⁷For every man's life and every man's death has a relation to others as well as to himself.

⁸As long as we have life we are living to the Lord; or if we give up our life it is to the Lord; so if we are living, or if our life comes to an end, we are the Lord's.

⁹And for this purpose Christ went into death and came back again, that he might be the Lord of the dead and of the living.

¹⁰But you, why do you make yourself your brother's judge? or again, why have you no respect for your brother? because we will all have to take our place before God as our judge.

¹¹For it is said in the holy Writings, By my life, says the Lord, to me every knee will be bent, and every tongue will give worship to God.

¹²So every one of us will have to give an account of himself to God.

¹³Then let us not be judges of one another any longer: but keep this in mind, that no man is to make it hard for his brother, or give him cause for doubting.

¹⁴I am conscious of this, and am certain in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean in itself; but for the man in whose opinion it is unclean, for him it is unclean.

¹⁵And if because of food your brother is troubled, then you are no longer going on in the way of love. Do not let your food be destruction to him for whom Christ went into death.

¹⁶Let it not be possible for men to say evil about your good:

¹⁷For the kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

¹⁸And he who in these things is Christ's servant, is pleasing to God and has the approval of men.

¹⁹So then, let us go after the things which make peace, and the things by which we may be a help to one another.

²⁰Do not let the work of God come to nothing on account of food. All things are certainly clean; but it is evil for that man who by taking food makes it hard for another.

²¹It is better not to take meat or wine or to do anything which might be a cause of trouble to your brother.

²²The faith which you have, have it to yourself before God. Happy is the man who is not judged by that to which he gives approval.

²³But he who is in doubt is judged if he takes food, because he does it not in faith; and whatever is not of faith is sin.

15We who are strong have to be a support to the feeble, and not give pleasure to ourselves.

²Let every one of us give pleasure to his neighbour for his good, to make him strong.

³For Christ did not give pleasure to himself, but, as it is said, The bitter words of those who were angry with you came on me.

⁴Now those things which were put down in writing before our time were for our learning, so that through quiet waiting and through the comfort of the holy Writings we might have hope.

⁵Now may the God who gives comfort and strength in waiting make you of the same mind with one another in harmony with Christ Jesus:

⁶So that with one mouth you may give glory to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

⁷So then, take one another to your hearts, as Christ took us, to the glory of God.

⁸Now I say that Christ has been made a servant of the circumcision to give effect to the undertakings given by God to the fathers,

⁹And so that the Gentiles might give glory to God for his mercy; as it is said, For this reason I will give praise to you among the Gentiles, and I will make a song to your name.

¹⁰And again he says, Take part, you Gentiles, in the joy of his people.

¹¹And again, Give praise to the Lord, all you Gentiles; and let all the nations give praise to him.

¹²And again Isaiah says, There will be the root of Jesse, and he who comes to be the ruler over the Gentiles; in him will the Gentiles put their hope.

¹³Now may the God of hope make you full of joy and peace through faith, so that all hope may be yours in the power of the Holy Spirit.

¹⁴And I myself am certain of you, brothers, that you are full of what is good, complete in all knowledge, able to give direction to one another.

¹⁵But I have, in some measure, less fear in writing to you to put these things before you again, because of the grace which was given to me by God,

¹⁶To be a servant of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, doing the work of a priest in the good news of God, so that the offering of the Gentiles might be pleasing to God, being made holy by the Holy Spirit.

¹⁷So I have pride in Christ Jesus in the things which are God's.

¹⁸And I will keep myself from talking of anything but those things which Christ has done by me to put the Gentiles under his rule in word and in act,

¹⁹By signs and wonders, in the power of the Holy Spirit; so that from Jerusalem and round about as far as Illyricum I have given all the good news of Christ;

²⁰Making it my purpose not to take the good news where Christ was named, so that my work might not be resting on that of others;

²¹But as it is said in the holy Writings, They will see, to whom the news of him had not been given, and those to whose ears it had not come will have knowledge.

²²For which reason I was frequently kept from coming to you:

²³But now, having no longer any place in these parts and having had for a number of years a great desire to come to you,

²⁴Whenever I go to Spain (for it is my hope to see you on my way, and to be sent on there by you, if first I may in some measure have been comforted by your company)--

²⁵But now I go to Jerusalem, taking help for the saints.

²⁶For it has been the good pleasure of those of Macedonia and Achaia to send a certain amount of money for the poor among the saints at Jerusalem.

²⁷Yes, it has been their good pleasure; and they are in their debt. For if the Gentiles have had a part in the things of the Spirit which were theirs, it is right for them, in the same way, to give them help in the things of the flesh.

²⁸So when I have done this, and have given them this fruit of love, I will go on by you into Spain.

²⁹And I am certain that when I come, I will be full of the blessing of Christ.

³⁰Now I make request to you, brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ, and by the love of the Spirit, that you will be working together with me in your prayers to God for me;

³¹So that I may be kept safe from those in Judaea who have not put themselves under the rule of God, and that the help which I am taking for Jerusalem may be pleasing to the saints;

³²So that I may come to you in joy by the good pleasure of God, and have rest with you.

³³Now may the God of peace be with you all. So be it.

16It is my desire to say a good word for Phoebe, who is a servant of the church in Cenchreae:

²That you will take her in kindly, after the way of the saints, as one who is the Lord's, and give her help in anything in which she may have need of you: because she has been a help to a great number and to myself.

³Give my love to Prisca and Aquila, workers with me in Christ Jesus,

⁴Who for my life put their necks in danger; to whom not only I but all the churches of the Gentiles are in debt:

⁵And say a kind word to the church which is in their house. Give my love to my dear Epaenetus, who is the first fruit of Asia to Christ.

⁶Give my love to Mary, who gave much care to you.

⁷Give my love to Andronicus and Junia, my relations, who were in prison with me, who are noted among the Apostles, and who were in Christ before me.

⁸Give my love to Ampliatus, who is dear to me in the Lord,

⁹Give my love to Urbanus, a worker in Christ with us, and to my dear Stachys.

¹⁰Give my love to Apelles, who has the approval of Christ. Say a kind word to those who are of the house of Aristobulus.

¹¹Give my love to Herodion, my relation. Say a kind word to those of the house of Narcissus, who are in the Lord.

¹²Give my love to Tryphaena and Tryphosa, workers in the Lord. Give my love to my dear Persis, who did much work in the Lord.

¹³Give my love to Rufus, one of the Lord's selection, and to his mother and mine.

¹⁴Give my love to Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermes, Patrobas, Hermas, and the brothers who are with them.

¹⁵Give my love to Philologus and Julia, Nereus and his sister, and Olympas, and all the saints who are with them.

¹⁶Give one another a holy kiss. All the churches of Christ send their love to you.

¹⁷Now, it is my desire, brothers, that you will take note of those who are causing division and trouble among you, quite against the teaching which was given to you: and keep away from them.

¹⁸For such people are not servants of the Lord Christ, but of their stomachs; and by their smooth and well-said words the hearts of those who have no knowledge of evil are tricked.

¹⁹For all have knowledge of how you do what you are ordered. For this reason I have joy in you, but it is my desire that you may be wise in what is good, and without knowledge of evil.

²⁰And the God of peace will be crushing Satan under your feet before long. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

²¹Timothy, who is working with me, sends his love to you, so do Lucius and Jason and Sosipater, my relations.

²²I, Tertius, who have done the writing of this letter, send love in the Lord.

²³Gaius, with whom I am living, whose house is open to all the church, sends his love, so does Erastus, the manager of the accounts of the town, and Quartus, the brother.

²⁴[]

²⁵Now to him who is able to make you strong in agreement with the good news which I gave you and the preaching of Jesus Christ, in the light of the revelation of that secret which has been kept through times eternal,

²⁶But is now made clear; and by the writings of the prophets, by the order of the eternal God, the knowledge of it has been given to all the nations, so that they may come under the rule of the faith;

²⁷To the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, be the glory for ever. So be it.

1Paul, an Apostle of Jesus Christ by the purpose of God, and Sosthenes the brother,

²To the church of God which is in Corinth, to those who have been made holy in Christ Jesus, saints by the selection of God, with all those who in every place give honour to the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours:

³Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

⁴I give praise to my God for you at all times, because of the grace of God which has been given to you in Christ Jesus;

⁵So that in him you have wealth in all things, in word and in knowledge of every sort;

⁶Even as the witness of the Christ has been made certain among you:

⁷So that having every grace you are living in the hope of the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ;

⁸Who will give you strength to the end, to be free from all sin in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

⁹God is true, through whom you have been given a part with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

¹⁰Now I make request to you, my brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you will all say the same thing, and that there may be no divisions among you, so that you may be in complete agreement, in the same mind and in the same opinion.

¹¹Because it has come to my knowledge, through those of the house of Chloe, that there are divisions among you, my brothers.

¹²That is, that some of you say, I am of Paul; some say, I am of Apollos; some say, I am of Cephas; and some say, I am Christ's.

¹³Is there a division in Christ? was Paul nailed to the cross for you? or were you given baptism in the name of Paul?

¹⁴I give praise to God that not one of you had baptism from me, but Crispus and Gaius;

¹⁵So that no one may be able to say that you had baptism in my name.

¹⁶And I gave baptism to the house of Stephanas; but I am not certain that any others had baptism from me.

¹⁷For Christ sent me, not to give baptism, but to be a preacher of the good news: not with wise words, for fear that the cross of Christ might be made of no value.

¹⁸For the word of the cross seems foolish to those who are on the way to destruction; but to us who are on the way to salvation it is the power of God.

¹⁹As it says in the holy Writings, I will put an end to the wisdom of the wise, and will put on one side the designs of those who have knowledge.

²⁰Where is the wise? where is he who has knowledge of the law? where is the man of this world who has a love of discussion? has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?

²¹For because, by the purpose of God, the world, with all its wisdom, had not the knowledge of God, it was God's pleasure, by so foolish a thing as preaching, to give salvation to those who had faith in him.

²²Seeing that the Jews make request for signs, and the Greeks are looking for knowledge:

²³But we give the good news of Christ on the cross, a hard thing to the Jews, and a foolish thing to the Gentiles;

²⁴But to those of God's selection, Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power and the wisdom of God.

²⁵Because what seems foolish in God is wiser than men; and what seems feeble in God is stronger than men.

²⁶For you see God's design for you, my brothers, that he has not taken a great number of the wise after the flesh, not the strong, not the noble:

²⁷But God made selection of the foolish things of this world so that he might put the wise to shame; and the feeble things that he might put to shame the strong;

²⁸And the low things of the world, and the things without honour, did God make selection of, yes, even the things which are not, so that he might make as nothing the things which are:

²⁹So that no flesh might have glory before God.

³⁰But God has given you a place in Christ Jesus, through whom God has given us wisdom and righteousness and salvation, and made us holy:

³¹So that, as it is said in the holy Writings, Whoever has a desire for glory, let his glory be in the Lord.

2And when I came to you, my brothers, I did not come with wise words of knowledge, putting before you the secret of God.

²For I had made the decision to have knowledge of nothing among you but only of Jesus Christ on the cross.

³And I was with you without strength, in fear and in doubt.

⁴And in my preaching there were no honeyed words of wisdom, but I was dependent on the power of the Spirit to make it clear to you:

⁵So that your faith might be based not on man's wisdom but on the power of God.

⁶But still we have wisdom for those who are complete in knowledge, though not the wisdom of this world, and not of the rulers of this world, who are coming to nothing:

⁷But we give the news of the secret wisdom of God, which he had kept in store before the world came into existence, for our glory;

⁸Of which not one of the rulers of this world had knowledge: for if they had, they would not have put the Lord of glory on the cross:

⁹But as it says in the holy Writings, Things which the eye saw not, and which had not come to the ears or into the heart of man, such things as God has made ready for those who have love for him.

¹⁰But God has given us the revelation of these things through his Spirit, for the Spirit makes search into all things, even the deep things of God.

¹¹For who has knowledge of the things of a man but the spirit of the man which is in him? in the same way, no one has knowledge of the things of God but the Spirit of God.

¹²But we have not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which comes from God, so that we may have knowledge of the things which are freely given to us by God.

¹³And these are the things which we say, not in the language of man's wisdom, but in words given to us by the Spirit, judging the things of the spirit by the help of the Spirit.

¹⁴For the natural man is not able to take in the things of the Spirit of God: for they seem foolish to him, and he is not able to have knowledge of them, because such knowledge comes only through the Spirit.

¹⁵But he who has the Spirit, though judging all things, is himself judged by no one.

¹⁶For who has knowledge of the mind of the Lord, so as to be his teacher? But we have the mind of Christ.

3And the teaching I gave you, my brothers, was such as I was able to give, not to those who have the Spirit, but to those who are still in the flesh, even to children in Christ.

²I gave you milk and not meat, because you were, then, unable to take it, and even now you are not able;

³Because you are still in the flesh: for when there is envy and division among you, are you not still walking after the way of the flesh, even as natural men?

⁴For when one says, I am of Paul; and another says, I am of Apollos; are you not talking like natural men?

⁵What then is Apollos? and what is Paul? They are but servants who gave you the good news as God gave it to them.

⁶I did the planting, Apollos did the watering, but God gave the increase.

⁷So then the planter is nothing, and the waterer is nothing; but God who gives the increase.

⁸Now the planter and the waterer are working for the same end: but they will have their separate rewards in the measure of their work.

⁹For we are workers with God: you are God's planting, God's building.

¹⁰In the measure of the grace given to me, I, as a wise master-builder, have put the base in position, and another goes on building on it. But let every man take care what he puts on it.

¹¹For there is no other base for the building but that which has been put down, which is Jesus Christ.

¹²But on the base a man may put gold, silver, stones of great price, wood, dry grass, cut stems;

¹³Every man's work will be made clear in that day, because it will be tested by fire; and the fire itself will make clear the quality of every man's work.

¹⁴If any man's work comes through the test, he will have a reward.

¹⁵If the fire puts an end to any man's work, it will be his loss: but he will get salvation himself, though as by fire.

¹⁶Do you not see that you are God's holy house, and that the Spirit of God has his place in you?

¹⁷If anyone makes the house of God unclean, God will put an end to him; for the house of God is holy, and you are his house.

¹⁸Let no man have a false idea. If any man seems to himself to be wise among you, let him become foolish, so that he may be wise.

¹⁹For the wisdom of this world is foolish before God. As it is said in the holy Writings, He who takes the wise in their secret designs:

²⁰And again, The Lord has knowledge of the reasonings of the wise, that they are nothing.

²¹So let no one take pride in men. For all things are yours;

²²Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours;

²³And you are Christ's; and Christ is God's.

4Let us be judged as servants of Christ, and as those who are responsible for the secret things of God.

²And it is right for such servants to be safe persons.

³But it is a small thing to me that I am judged by you or by man's judging; I am not even a judge of myself.

⁴For I am not conscious of any wrong in myself; but this does not make me clear, for it is the Lord who is my judge.

⁵For this reason let there be no judging before the time, till the Lord comes, who will make clear the secret things of the dark, and the designs of the heart; and then will every man have his praise from God.

⁶My brothers, it is because of you that I have taken Apollos and myself as examples of these things, so that in us you might see that it is not wise to go farther than what is in the holy Writings, so that no one of you may be lifted up against his brother.

⁷For who made you better than your brother? or what have you that has not been given to you? but if it has been given to you, what cause have you for pride, as if it had not been given to you?

⁸For even now you are full, even now you have wealth, you have been made kings without us: truly, I would be glad if you were kings, so that we might be kings with you.

⁹For it seems to me that God has put us the Apostles last of all, as men whose fate is death: for we are put on view to the world, and to angels, and to men.

¹⁰We are made to seem foolish for Christ, but you are wise in Christ; we are feeble, but you are strong; you have glory, but we have shame.

¹¹Even to this hour we are without food, drink, and clothing, we are given blows and have no certain resting-place;

¹²And with our hands we do the hardest work: when they give us curses we give blessings, when we undergo punishment we take it quietly;

¹³When evil things are said about us we give gentle answers: we are made as the unclean things of the world, as that for which no one has any use, even till now.

¹⁴I am not saying these things to put you to shame, but so that, as my dear children, you may see what is right.

¹⁵For even if you had ten thousand teachers in Christ, you have not more than one father: for in Christ Jesus I have given birth to you through the good news.

¹⁶So my desire is that you take me as your example.

¹⁷For this cause I have sent Timothy to you, who is my dear and true child in the Lord; he will make clear to you my ways in Christ, even as I am teaching everywhere in every church.

¹⁸Now some are full of pride, as if I was not coming to you.

¹⁹But I will come to you in a short time, if it is pleasing to the Lord, and I will take note, not of the word of those who are full of pride, but of the power.

²⁰For the kingdom of God is not in word but in power.

²¹What is your desire? is my coming to be with punishment, or is it to be in love and a gentle spirit?

5It is said, in fact, that there is among you a sin of the flesh, such as is not seen even among the Gentiles, that one of you has his father's wife.

²And in place of feeling sorrow, you are pleased with yourselves, so that he who has done this thing has not been sent away from among you.

³For I myself, being present in spirit though not in body, have come to a decision about him who has done this thing;

⁴In the name of our Lord Jesus, when you have come together with my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus,

⁵That this man is to be handed over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may have forgiveness in the day of the Lord Jesus.

⁶This pride of yours is not good. Do you not see that a little leaven makes a change in all the mass?

⁷Take away, then, the old leaven, so that you may be a new mass, even as you are without leaven. For Christ has been put to death as our Passover.

⁸Let us then keep the feast, not with old leaven, and not with the leaven of evil thoughts and acts, but with the unleavened bread of true thoughts and right feelings.

⁹In my letter I said to you that you were not to keep company with those who go after the desires of the flesh;

¹⁰But I had not in mind the sinners who are outside the church, or those who have a desire for and take the property of others, or those who give worship to images; for it is not possible to keep away from such people without going out of the world completely:

¹¹But the sense of my letter was that if a brother had the name of being one who went after the desires of the flesh, or had the desire for other people's property, or was in the way of using violent language, or being the worse for drink, or took by force what was not his, you might not keep company with such a one, or take food with him.

¹²For it is no business of mine to be judging those who are outside; but it is yours to be judging those who are among you;

¹³As for those who are outside, God is their judge. So put away the evil man from among you.

6How is it, that if any one of you has a cause at law against another, he takes it before a Gentile judge and not before the saints?

²Is it not certain that the saints will be the judges of the world? if then the world will be judged by you, are you unable to give a decision about the smallest things?

³Is it not certain that we are to be the judges of angels? how much more then of the things of this life?

⁴If then there are questions to be judged in connection with the things of this life, why do you put them in the hands of those who have no position in the church?

⁵I say this to put you to shame. Is there not among you one wise man who may be able to give a decision between his brothers?

⁶But a brother who has a cause at law against another takes it before Gentile judges.

⁷More than this, it is not to your credit to have causes at law with one another at all. Why not put up with wrong? why not undergo loss?

⁸So far from doing this, you yourselves do wrong and take your brothers' property.

⁹Have you not knowledge that evil-doers will have no part in the kingdom of God? Have no false ideas about this: no one who goes after the desires of the flesh, or gives worship to images, or is untrue when married, or is less than a man, or makes a wrong use of men,

¹⁰Or is a thief, or the worse for drink, or makes use of strong language, or takes by force what is not his, will have any part in the kingdom of God.

¹¹And such were some of you; but you have been washed, you have been made holy, you have been given righteousness in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.

¹²I am free to do all things; but not all things are wise. I am free to do all things; but I will not let myself come under the power of any.

¹³Food is for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will put an end to them together. But the body is not for the desires of the flesh, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body:

¹⁴And God who made the Lord Jesus come back from the dead will do the same for us by his power.

¹⁵Do you not see that your bodies are part of the body of Christ? how then may I take what is a part of the body of Christ and make it a part of the body of a loose woman? such a thing may not be.

¹⁶Or do you not see that he who is joined to a loose woman is one body with her? for God has said, The two of them will become one flesh.

¹⁷But he who is united to the Lord is one spirit.

¹⁸Keep away from the desires of the flesh. Every sin which a man does is outside of the body; but he who goes after the desires of the flesh does evil to his body.

¹⁹Or are you not conscious that your body is a house for the Holy Spirit which is in you, and which has been given to you by God? and you are not the owners of yourselves;

²⁰For a payment has been made for you: let God be honoured in your body.

7Now, as to the things in your letter to me: It is good for a man to have nothing to do with a woman.

²But because of the desires of the flesh, let every man have his wife, and every woman her husband.

³Let the husband give to the wife what is right; and let the wife do the same to the husband.

⁴The wife has not power over her body, but the husband; and in the same way the husband has not power over his body, but the wife.

⁵Do not keep back from one another what is right, but only for a short time, and by agreement, so that you may give yourselves to prayer, and come together again; so that Satan may not get the better of you through your loss of self-control.

⁶But this I say as my opinion, and not as an order of the Lord.

⁷It is my desire that all men might be even as I am. But every man has the power of his special way of life given him by God, one in this way and one in that.

⁸But I say to the unmarried and to the widows, It is good for them to be even as I am.

⁹But if they have not self-control let them get married; for married life is better than the burning of desire.

¹⁰But to the married I give orders, though not I but the Lord, that the wife may not go away from her husband

¹¹(Or if she goes away from him, let her keep unmarried, or be united to her husband again); and that the husband may not go away from his wife.

¹²But to the rest I say, and not the Lord; If a brother has a wife who is not a Christian, and it is her desire to go on living with him, let him not go away from her.

¹³And if a woman has a husband who is not a Christian, and it is his desire to go on living with her, let her not go away from her husband.

¹⁴For the husband who has not faith is made holy through his Christian wife, and the wife who is not a Christian is made holy through the brother: if not, your children would be unholy, but now are they holy.

¹⁵But if the one who is not a Christian has a desire to go away, let it be so: the brother or the sister in such a position is not forced to do one thing or the other: but it is God's pleasure that we may be at peace with one another.

¹⁶For how may you be certain, O wife, that you will not be the cause of salvation to your husband? or you, O husband, that you may not do the same for your wife?

¹⁷Only, as the Lord has given to a man, and as is the purpose of God for him, so let him go on living. And these are my orders for all the churches.

¹⁸If any man who is a Christian has had circumcision, let him keep so; and if any man who is a Christian has not had circumcision, let him make no change.

¹⁹Circumcision is nothing, and its opposite is nothing, but only doing the orders of God is of value.

²⁰Let every man keep the position in which he has been placed by God.

²¹If you were a servant when you became a Christian, let it not be a grief to you; but if you have a chance to become free, make use of it.

²²For he who was a servant when he became a Christian is the Lord's free man; and he who was free when he became a Christian is the Lord's servant.

²³It is the Lord who has made payment for you: be not servants of men.

²⁴My brothers, let every man keep in that condition which is the purpose of God for him.

²⁵Now about virgins I have no orders from the Lord: but I give my opinion as one to whom the Lord has given mercy to be true to him.

²⁶In my opinion then, because of the present trouble, it is good for a man to keep as he is.

²⁷If you are married to a wife, make no attempt to get free from her: if you are free from a wife, do not take a wife.

²⁸If you get married it is not a sin; and if an unmarried woman gets married it is not a sin. But those who do so will have trouble in the flesh. But I will not be hard on you.

²⁹But I say this, my brothers, the time is short; and from now it will be wise for those who have wives to be as if they had them not;

³⁰And for those who are in sorrow, to give no signs of it; and for those who are glad, to give no signs of joy; and for those who are getting property, to be as if they had nothing;

³¹And for those who make use of the world, not to be using it fully; for this world's way of life will quickly come to an end.

³²But it is my desire for you to be free from cares. The unmarried man gives his mind to the things of the Lord, how he may give pleasure to the Lord:

³³But the married man gives his attention to the things of this world, how he may give pleasure to his wife.

³⁴And the wife is not the same as the virgin. The virgin gives her mind to the things of the Lord, so that she may be holy in body and in spirit: but the married woman takes thought for the things of the world, how she may give pleasure to her husband.

³⁵Now I say this for your profit; not to make things hard for you, but because of what is right, and so that you may be able to give all your attention to the things of the Lord.

³⁶But if, in any man's opinion, he is not doing what is right for his virgin, if she is past her best years, and there is need for it, let him do what seems right to him; it is no sin; let them be married.

³⁷But the man who is strong in mind and purpose, who is not forced but has control over his desires, does well if he comes to the decision to keep her a virgin.

³⁸So then, he who gets married to his virgin does well, and he who keeps her unmarried does better.

³⁹It is right for a wife to be with her husband as long as he is living; but when her husband is dead, she is free to be married to another; but only to a Christian.

⁴⁰But it will be better for her to keep as she is, in my opinion: and it seems to me that I have the Spirit of God.

8Now about things offered to images: we all seem to ourselves to have knowledge. Knowledge gives pride, but love gives true strength.

²If anyone seems to himself to have knowledge, so far he has not the right sort of knowledge about anything;

³But if anyone has love for God, God has knowledge of him.

⁴So, then, as to the question of taking food offered to images, we are certain that an image is nothing in the world, and that there is no God but one.

⁵For though there are those who have the name of gods, in heaven or on earth, as there are a number of gods and a number of lords,

⁶There is for us only one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we are for him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we have our being through him.

⁷Still, all men have not that knowledge: but some, being used till now to the image, are conscious that they are taking food which has been offered to the image; and because they are not strong in the faith, their minds are troubled.

⁸But God's approval of us is not based on the food we take: if we do not take it we are no worse for it; and if we take it we are no better.

⁹But take care that this power of yours does not give cause for trouble to the feeble.

¹⁰For if a man sees you, who have knowledge, taking food as a guest in the house of an image, will it not give him, if he is feeble, the idea that he may take food offered to images?

¹¹And so, through your knowledge, you are the cause of destruction to your brother, for whom Christ underwent death.

¹²And in this way, doing evil to the brothers, and causing trouble to those whose faith is feeble, you are sinning against Christ.

¹³For this reason, if food is a cause of trouble to my brother, I will give up taking meat for ever, so that I may not be a cause of trouble to my brother.

9Am I not free? am I not an Apostle? have I not seen Jesus our Lord? are you not my work in the Lord?

²If to others I am not an Apostle, at least I am one to you: for the fact that you are Christians is the sign that I am an Apostle.

³My answer to those who are judging me is this.

⁴Have we no right to take food and drink?

⁵Have we no right to take about with us a Christian wife, like the rest of the Apostles, and the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas?

⁶Or I only and Barnabas, have we no right to take a rest from work?

⁷Who ever goes to war without looking to someone to be responsible for his payment? who puts in vines and does not take the fruit of them? or who takes care of sheep without drinking of their milk?

⁸Am I talking as a man? does not the law say the same?

⁹For it says in the law of Moses, It is not right to keep the ox from taking the grain when he is crushing it. Is it for the oxen that God is giving orders?

¹⁰Or has he us in mind? Yes, it was said for us; because it is right for the ploughman to do his ploughing in hope, and for him who is crushing the grain to do his work hoping for a part in the fruits of it.

¹¹If we have been planting the things of the Spirit for you, does it seem a great thing for you to give us a part in your things of this world?

¹²If others have a part in this right over you, have we not even more? But we did not make use of our right, so that we might put nothing in the way of the good news of Christ.

¹³Do you not see that the servants of the holy things get their living from the Temple, and the servants of the altar have their part in the food which is offered on the altar?

¹⁴Even so did the Lord give orders that the preachers of the good news might get their living from the good news.

¹⁵But I have not made use of any of these things: and I am not writing this in the hope that it may be so for me: for it would be better for me to undergo death, than for any man to make this pride of mine of no effect.

¹⁶For if I am a preacher of the good news, I have no cause for pride in this; because I am forced to do so, for a curse is on me if I do not.

¹⁷But if I do it gladly, I have a reward; and if not, I am under orders to do it.

¹⁸What then is my reward? This, that when I am giving the good news, I may give it without payment, not making use of my rights as a preacher of the good news.

¹⁹For though I was free from all men, I made myself a servant to all, so that more might have salvation.

²⁰And to the Jews I was as a Jew, so that I might give the good news to them; to those under the law I was the same, not as being myself under the law, but so that I might give the good news to those under the law.

²¹To those without the law I was as one without the law, not as being without law to God, but as under law to Christ, so that I might give the good news to those without the law.

²²To the feeble, I was as one who is feeble, so that they might have salvation: I have been all things to all men, so that some at least might have salvation.

²³And I do all things for the cause of the good news, so that I may have a part in it.

²⁴Do you not see that in a running competition all take part, but only one gets the reward? So let your minds be fixed on the reward.

²⁵And every man who takes part in the sports has self-control in all things. Now they do it to get a crown which is of this world, but we for an eternal crown.

²⁶So then I am running, not uncertainly; so I am fighting, not as one who gives blows in the air:

²⁷But I give blows to my body, and keep it under control, for fear that, after having given the good news to others, I myself might not have God's approval.

10For it is my desire, my brothers, that you may keep in mind how all our fathers were under the cloud, and they all went through the sea;

²And they all had baptism from Moses in the cloud and in the sea;

³And they all took the same holy food;

⁴And the same holy drink: for they all took of the water from the holy rock which came after them: and the rock was Christ.

⁵But with most of them God was not pleased: for they came to their end in the waste land.

⁶Now these things were for an example to us, so that our hearts might not go after evil things, as they did.

⁷Then do not go after false gods, as some of them did; as it is said in the holy Writings, After resting and feasting, the people got up to take their pleasure.

⁸Again, let us not give way to the desires of the flesh, as some of them did, of whom twenty-three thousand came to their end in one day.

⁹And let us not put the Lord to the test, as some of them did, and came to their death by snakes.

¹⁰And do not say evil things against the Lord, as some of them did, and destruction overtook them.

¹¹Now these things were done as an example; and were put down in writing for our teaching, on whom the last days have come.

¹²So let him who seems to himself to be safe go in fear of a fall.

¹³You have been put to no test but such as is common to man: and God is true, who will not let any test come on you which you are not able to undergo; but he will make with the test a way out of it, so that you may be able to go through it.

¹⁴For this cause, my dear brothers, give no worship to false gods.

¹⁵What I am saying is for wise men, do you be the judges of it.

¹⁶The cup of blessing which we take, does it not give us a part in the blood of Christ? and is not the broken bread a taking part in the body of Christ?

¹⁷Because we, being a number of persons, are one bread, we are one body: for we all take part in the one bread.

¹⁸See Israel after the flesh: do not those who take as food the offerings of the altar take a part in the altar?

¹⁹Do I say, then, that what is offered to images is anything, or that the image is anything?

²⁰What I say is that the things offered by the Gentiles are offered to evil spirits and not to God; and it is not my desire for you to have any part with evil spirits.

²¹It is not possible for you, at the same time, to take the cup of the Lord and the cup of evil spirits; you may not take part in the table of the Lord and the table of evil spirits.

²²Or may we be the cause of envy to the Lord? are we stronger than he?

²³We are free to do all things, but there are things which it is not wise to do. We are free to do all things, but not all things are for the common good.

²⁴Let a man give attention not only to what is good for himself, but equally to his neighbour's good.

²⁵Whatever meat may be had at the public market, take as food without question of right or wrong;

²⁶For the earth is the Lord's and all things in it.

²⁷If a Gentile makes a feast for you, and you are pleased to go as a guest, take whatever is put before you, without question of right or wrong.

²⁸But if anyone says to you, This food has been used as an offering, do not take it, on account of him who said it, and on account of his sense of right and wrong:

²⁹Right and wrong, I say, not for you, but for the other man; for the fact that I am free is not dependent on another man's sense of right or wrong.

³⁰But if I give praise to God for the food which I take, let no man say evil of me for that reason.

³¹So then, if it is a question of food or drink, or any other thing, whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

³²Give no cause of trouble to Jews, or to Greeks, or to the church of God.

³³Even as I give way to all men in all things, not looking for profit for myself, but for the good of others, that they may get salvation.

11So take me for your example, even as I take Christ for mine.

²Now I am pleased to see that you keep me in memory in all things, and that you give attention to the teaching which was handed down from me to you.

³But it is important for you to keep this fact in mind, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God.

⁴Every man who takes part in prayer, or gives teaching as a prophet, with his head covered, puts shame on his head.

⁵But every woman who does so with her head unveiled, puts shame on her head: for it is the same as if her hair was cut off.

⁶For if a woman is not veiled, let her hair be cut off; but if it is a shame to a woman to have her hair cut off, let her be veiled.

⁷For it is not right for a man to have his head covered, because he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man.

⁸For the man did not come from the woman, but the woman from the man.

⁹And the man was not made for the woman, but the woman for the man.

¹⁰For this reason it is right for the woman to have a sign of authority on her head, because of the angels.

¹¹But the woman is not separate from the man, and the man is not separate from the woman in the Lord.

¹²For as the woman is from the man, so the man is through the woman; but all things are from God.

¹³Be judges yourselves of the question: does it seem right for a woman to take part in prayer unveiled?

¹⁴Does it not seem natural to you that if a man has long hair, it is a cause of shame to him?

¹⁵But if a woman has long hair, it is a glory to her: for her hair is given to her for a covering.

¹⁶But if any man will not be ruled in this question, this is not our way of doing things, and it is not done in the churches of God.

¹⁷But in giving you this order, there is one thing about which I am not pleased: it is that when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse.

¹⁸For first of all, it has come to my ears that when you come together in the church, there are divisions among you, and I take the statement to be true in part.

¹⁹For divisions are necessary among you, in order that those who have God's approval may be clearly seen among you.

²⁰But now, when you come together, it is not possible to take the holy meal of the Lord:

²¹For when you take your food, everyone takes his meal before the other; and one has not enough food, and another is the worse for drink.

²²What? have you not houses to take your meals in? or have you no respect for the church of God, putting the poor to shame? What am I to say to you? am I to give you praise? certainly not.

²³For it was handed down to me from the Lord, as I gave it to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night when Judas was false to him, took bread,

²⁴And when it had been broken with an act of praise, he said, This is my body which is for you: do this in memory of me.

²⁵In the same way, with the cup, after the meal, he said, This cup is the new testament in my blood: do this, whenever you take it, in memory of me.

²⁶For whenever you take the bread and the cup you give witness to the Lord's death till he comes.

²⁷If, then, anyone takes the bread or the cup of the Lord in the wrong spirit, he will be responsible for the body and blood of the Lord.

²⁸But let no man take of the bread and the cup without testing himself.

²⁹For a man puts himself in danger, if he takes part in the holy meal without being conscious that it is the Lord's body.

³⁰For this cause a number of you are feeble and ill, and a number are dead.

³¹But if we were true judges of ourselves, punishment would not come on us.

³²But if punishment does come, it is sent by the Lord, so that we may be safe when the world is judged.

³³So then, my brothers, when you come together to the holy meal of the Lord, let there be waiting for one another.

³⁴If any man is in need of food, let him take his meal in his house; so that you may not come together to your damage. And the rest I will put in order when I come.

12But about the things of the spirit, my brothers, it is not right for you to be without teaching.

²You are conscious that when you were Gentiles, in whatever way you were guided, you went after images without voice or power.

³So it is my desire for you to be clear about this; that no one is able to say by the Spirit of God that Jesus is cursed; and no one is able to say that Jesus is Lord, but by the Holy Spirit.

⁴Now there are different qualities given to men, but the same Spirit.

⁵And there are different sorts of servants, but the same Lord.

⁶And there are different operations, but the same God, who is working all things in all.

⁷But to every man some form of the Spirit's working is given for the common good.

⁸For to one are given words of wisdom through the Spirit; and to another words of knowledge through the same Spirit:

⁹To another faith in the same Spirit; and to another the power of taking away disease, by the one Spirit;

¹⁰And to another the power of working wonders; and to another the prophet's word; and to another the power of testing spirits; to another different sorts of tongues; and to another the power of making clear the sense of the tongues:

¹¹But all these are the operations of the one and the same Spirit, giving to every man separately as his pleasure is.

¹²For as the body is one, and has a number of parts, and all the parts make one body, so is Christ.

¹³For through the baptism of the one Spirit we were all formed into one body, Jews or Greeks, servants or free men, and were all made full of the same Spirit.

¹⁴For the body is not one part, but a number of parts.

¹⁵If the foot says, Because I am not the hand, I am not a part of the body; it is no less a part of the body.

¹⁶And if the ear says, Because I am not the eye, I am not a part of the body; it is a part of the body all the same.

¹⁷If all the body was an eye, where would be the hearing? if all was hearing, where would be the smelling?

¹⁸But now God has put every one of the parts in the body as it was pleasing to him.

¹⁹And if they were all one part, where would the body be?

²⁰But now they are all different parts, but one body.

²¹And the eye may not say to the hand, I have no need of you: or again the head to the feet, I have no need of you.

²²No, those parts which seem to be feeble are the more necessary;

²³And to those parts of the body which seem to have less honour we give all the more honour; and to those parts of the body which are a cause of shame to us we give the greater respect;

²⁴But those parts of the body which are beautiful have no need of such care: and so the body has been joined together by God in such a way as to give more honour to those parts which had need of it;

²⁵So that there might be no division in the body; but all the parts might have the same care for one another.

²⁶And if there is pain in one part of the body, all the parts will be feeling it; or if one part is honoured, all the parts will be glad.

²⁷Now you are the body of Christ, and every one of you the separate parts of it.

²⁸And God has put some in the church, first, Apostles; second, prophets; third, teachers; then those with wonder-working powers, then those with the power of taking away disease, helpers, wise guides, users of strange tongues.

²⁹Are all Apostles? are all prophets? are all teachers? have all the power of working wonders?

³⁰Are all able to take away disease? have all the power of tongues? are all able to give their sense?

³¹But let your desires be turned to the more important things given by the Spirit. And now I am pointing out to you an even better way.

13If I make use of the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am like sounding brass, or a loud-tongued bell.

²And if I have a prophet's power, and have knowledge of all secret things; and if I have all faith, by which mountains may be moved from their place, but have not love, I am nothing.

³And if I give all my goods to the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it is of no profit to me.

⁴Love is never tired of waiting; love is kind; love has no envy; love has no high opinion of itself, love has no pride;

⁵Love's ways are ever fair, it takes no thought for itself; it is not quickly made angry, it takes no account of evil;

⁶It takes no pleasure in wrongdoing, but has joy in what is true;

⁷Love has the power of undergoing all things, having faith in all things, hoping all things.

⁸Though the prophet's word may come to an end, tongues come to nothing, and knowledge have no more value, love has no end.

⁹For our knowledge is only in part, and the prophet's word gives only a part of what is true:

¹⁰But when that which is complete is come, then that which is in part will be no longer necessary.

¹¹When I was a child, I made use of a child's language, I had a child's feelings and a child's thoughts: now that I am a man, I have put away the things of a child.

¹²For now we see things in a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now my knowledge is in part; then it will be complete, even as God's knowledge of me.

¹³But now we still have faith, hope, love, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

14Go after love; still desiring to have the things which the Spirit gives, but most of all that you may have the prophet's power.

²For he who makes use of tongues is not talking to men but to God; because no one has the sense of what he is saying; but in the Spirit he is talking of secret things.

³But the word of the prophet gives men knowledge and comfort and strength.

⁴He who makes use of tongues may do good to himself; but he who gives the prophet's word does good to the church.

⁵Now though it is my desire for you all to have the power of tongues, it would give me more pleasure to be hearing the prophet's word from you; for this is a greater thing than using tongues, if the sense is not given at the same time, for the good of the church.

⁶But, now, my brothers, if I come to you using tongues, what profit will it be to you, if I do not give you a revelation, or knowledge, or the word of the prophet, or teaching?

⁷Even things without life, having a voice, such as a music-pipe or other instrument, if they do not give out different sounds, who may be certain what is being played?

⁸For if the war-horn gives out an uncertain note, who will get ready for the fight?

⁹So if you, in using a strange tongue, say words which have no sense, how will anyone take in what you are saying? for you will be talking to the air.

¹⁰There are, it may be, a number of different voices in the world, and no voice is without sense.

¹¹But if the sense of the voice is not clear to me, I am like a man from a strange country to him who is talking, and he will be the same to me.

¹²So if you are desiring the things which the Spirit gives, let your minds be turned first to the things which are for the good of the church.

¹³For this reason, let the man who has the power of using tongues make request that he may, at the same time, be able to give the sense.

¹⁴For if I make use of tongues in my prayers, my spirit makes the prayer, but not my mind.

¹⁵What then? let my prayer be from the spirit, and equally from the mind; let my song be from the spirit, and equally from mind.

¹⁶For if you give a blessing with the spirit, how will the man who has no knowledge say, So be it, after your prayer, seeing that he has not taken in what you are saying?

¹⁷For your giving of the blessing is certainly well done, but of no profit to the man without knowledge.

¹⁸I give praise to God that I am able to make use of tongues more than you all:

¹⁹But in the church it would be better for me to make use of five words of which the sense was clear, so that others might have profit, than ten thousand words in a strange tongue.

²⁰My brothers, do not be children in mind: in evil be as little children, but in mind be of full growth.

²¹In the law it is said, By men of other tongues and by strange lips will my words come to this people; and not even so will they give ear to me, says the Lord.

²²For this reason tongues are for a sign, not to those who have faith, but to those who have not: but the prophet's word is for those who have faith, and not for the rest who have not.

²³If, then, the church has come together, and all are using tongues, and there come in men without knowledge or faith, will they not say that you are unbalanced?

²⁴But if all are teaching as prophets, and a man without faith or knowledge comes in, he is tested by all, he is judged by all;

²⁵The secrets of his heart are made clear; and he will go down on his face and give worship to God, saying that God is truly among you.

²⁶What is it then, my brothers? when you come together everyone has a holy song, or a revelation, or a tongue, or is giving the sense of it. Let everything be done for the common good.

²⁷If any man makes use of a tongue, let it not be more than two, or at the most three, and in turn; and let someone give the sense:

²⁸But if there is no one to give the sense, let him keep quiet in the church; and let his words be to himself and to God.

²⁹And let the prophets give their words, but not more than two or three, and let the others be judges of what they say.

³⁰But if a revelation is given to another who is seated near, let the first be quiet.

³¹For you may all be prophets in turn so that all may get knowledge and comfort;

³²And the spirits of the prophets are controlled by the prophets;

³³For God is not a God whose ways are without order, but a God of peace; as in all the churches of the saints.

³⁴Let women keep quiet in the churches: for it is not right for them to be talking; but let them be under control, as it says in the law.

³⁵And if they have a desire for knowledge about anything, let them put questions to their husbands privately: for talking in the church puts shame on a woman.

³⁶What? was it from you that the word of God went out? or did it only come in to you?

³⁷If any man seems to himself to be a prophet or to have the Spirit, let him take note of the things which I am writing to you, as being the word of the Lord.

³⁸But if any man is without knowledge, let him be so.

³⁹So then, my brothers, let it be your chief desire to be prophets; but let no one be stopped from using tongues.

⁴⁰Let all things be done in the right and ordered way.

15Now I am going to make clear to you, my brothers, what the good news was which I gave to you, and which you took, and on which your faith is based,

²By which you have salvation; that is to say, the form in which it was given to you, if it is fixed in your minds, and if your faith in it is not without effect.

³For I gave to you first of all what was handed down to me, how Christ underwent death for our sins, as it says in the Writings;

⁴And he was put in the place of the dead; and on the third day he came back from the dead, as it says in the Writings;

⁵And he was seen by Cephas; then by the twelve;

⁶Then by more than five hundred brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, but some are sleeping;

⁷Then he was seen by James; then by all the Apostles.

⁸And last of all, as by one whose birth was out of the right time, he was seen by me.

⁹For I am the least of the Apostles, having no right to be named an Apostle, because of my cruel attacks on the church of God.

¹⁰But by the grace of God, I am what I am: and his grace which was given to me has not been for nothing; for I did more work than all of them; though not I, but the grace of God which was with me.

¹¹If then it is I who am the preacher, or they, this is our word, and to this you have given your faith.

¹²Now if the good news says that Christ came back from the dead, how do some of you say that there is no coming back from the dead?

¹³But if there is no coming back from the dead, then Christ has not come back from the dead:

¹⁴And if Christ did not come again from the dead, then our good news and your faith in it are of no effect.

¹⁵Yes, and we are seen to be false witnesses of God; because we gave witness of God that by his power Christ came again from the dead: which is not true if there is no coming back from the dead.

¹⁶For if it is not possible for the dead to come to life again, then Christ has not come to life again:

¹⁷And if that is so, your faith is of no effect; you are still in your sins.

¹⁸And, in addition, the dead in Christ have gone to destruction.

¹⁹If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most unhappy.

²⁰But now Christ has truly come back from the dead, the first-fruits of those who are sleeping.

²¹For as by man came death, so by man there is a coming back from the dead.

²²For as in Adam death comes to all, so in Christ will all come back to life.

²³But every man in his right order: Christ the first-fruits; then those who are Christ's at his coming.

²⁴Then comes the end, when he will give up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he will have put an end to all rule and to all authority and power.

²⁵For his rule will go on till he has put all those who are against him under his feet.

²⁶The last power to come to an end is death.

²⁷For, as it says, He has put all things under his feet. But when he says, All things are put under him, it is clear that it is not said about him who put all things under him.

²⁸And when all things have been put under him, then will the Son himself be under him who put all things under him, so that God may be all in all.

²⁹Again, what will they do who are given baptism for the dead? if the dead do not come back at all, why are people given baptism for them?

³⁰And why are we in danger every hour?

³¹Yes, truly, by your pride in me, my brothers in Christ Jesus our Lord, my life is one long death.

³²If, after the way of men, I was fighting with beasts at Ephesus, what profit is it to me? If the dead do not come to life again, let us take our pleasure in feasting, for tomorrow we come to an end.

³³Do not be tricked by false words: evil company does damage to good behaviour.

³⁴Be awake to righteousness and keep yourselves from sin; for some have no knowledge of God: I say this to put you to shame.

³⁵But someone will say, How do the dead come back? and with what sort of body do they come?

³⁶Foolish man, it is necessary for the seed which you put into the earth to undergo death in order that it may come to life again:

³⁷And when you put it into the earth, you do not put in the body which it will be, but only the seed, of grain or some other sort of plant;

³⁸But God gives it a body, as it is pleasing to him, and to every seed its special body.

³⁹All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one flesh of men, another of beasts, another of birds, and another of fishes.

⁴⁰And there are bodies of heaven and bodies of earth, but the glory of the one is different from that of the other.

⁴¹There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for the glory of one star is different from that of another.

⁴²So is it with the coming back from the dead. It is planted in death; it comes again in life:

⁴³It is planted in shame; it comes again in glory: feeble when it is planted, it comes again in power:

⁴⁴It is planted a natural body; it comes again as a body of the spirit. If there is a natural body, there is equally a body of the spirit.

⁴⁵And so it is said, The first man Adam was a living soul. The last Adam is a life-giving spirit.

⁴⁶But that which is natural comes before that which is of the spirit.

⁴⁷The first man is from the earth, and of the earth: the second man is from heaven.

⁴⁸Those who are of the earth are like the man who was from the earth: and those who are of heaven are like the one from heaven.

⁴⁹And in the same way as we have taken on us the image of the man from the earth, so we will take on us the image of the one from heaven.

⁵⁰Now I say this, my brothers, that it is not possible for flesh and blood to have a part in the kingdom of God; and death may not have a part in life.

⁵¹See, I am giving you the revelation of a secret: we will not all come to the sleep of death, but we will all be changed.

⁵²In a second, in the shutting of an eye, at the sound of the last horn: for at that sound the dead will come again, free for ever from the power of death, and we will be changed.

⁵³For this body which comes to destruction will be made free from the power of death, and the man who is under the power of death will put on eternal life.

⁵⁴But when this has taken place, then that which was said in the Writings will come true, Death is overcome by life.

⁵⁵O death, where is your power? O death, where are your pains?

⁵⁶The pain of death is sin; and the power of sin is the law:

⁵⁷But praise be to God who gives us strength to overcome through our Lord Jesus Christ.

⁵⁸For this cause, my dear brothers, be strong in purpose and unmoved, ever giving yourselves to the work of the Lord, because you are certain that your work is not without effect in the Lord.

16Now about the giving of money for the saints, as I gave orders to the churches of Galatia, so do you.

²On the first day of the week, let every one of you put by him in store, in measure as he has done well in business, so that it may not be necessary to get money together when I come.

³And when I come, I will send the men of your selection with letters to take the money you have got together to Jerusalem.

⁴And if it is possible for me to go there, they will go with me.

⁵But I will come to you after I have gone through Macedonia, for that is my purpose;

⁶But I may be with you for a time, or even for the winter, so that you may see me on my way, wherever I go.

⁷For it is not my desire to see you now, on my way; because it is my hope to be with you for some time, if that is the Lord's pleasure.

⁸But I will be at Ephesus till Pentecost;

⁹For a great and important door there is open to me, and there are a number of people against me.

¹⁰Now if Timothy comes, see that he is with you without fear; because he is doing the Lord's work, even as I am:

¹¹See then that he has the honour which is right. But send him on his way in peace, so that he may come to me: for I am looking for him with the brothers.

¹²But as for Apollos, the brother, I had a great desire for him to come to you with the brothers, but it was not his pleasure to come now; but he will come when he has a chance.

¹³Be on the watch, unmoved in the faith, and be strong like men.

¹⁴Let all you do be done in love.

¹⁵Now I make my request to you, my brothers, for you have knowledge that the house of Stephanas is the first-fruits of Achaia, and that they have made themselves the servants of the saints,

¹⁶That you put yourselves under such, and under everyone who is helping the Lord's work.

¹⁷And I am glad of the coming of Stephanas and Fortunatus and Achaicus: for they have done what was needed to make your work complete.

¹⁸For they gave comfort to my spirit and to yours: for which cause give respect to such people.

¹⁹The churches of Asia send their love to you. So do Aquila and Prisca, with the church which is in their house.

²⁰All the brothers send their love to you. Give one another a holy kiss.

²¹I, Paul, send you these words of love in my writing.

²²If any man has not love for the Lord, let him be cursed. Maran atha (our Lord comes).

²³The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

²⁴My love be with you all in Christ Jesus. So be it.

1The Revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave him so that his servants might have knowledge of the things which will quickly take place: and he sent and made it clear by his angel to his servant John;

²Who gave witness of the word of God, and of the witness of Jesus Christ, even of all the things which he saw.

³A blessing be on the reader, and on those who give ear to the prophet's words, and keep the things which he has put in the book: for the time is near.

⁴John to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace to you and peace, from him who is and was and is to come; and from the seven Spirits which are before his high seat;

⁵And from Jesus Christ, the true witness, the first to come back from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who had love for us and has made us clean from our sins by his blood;

⁶And has made us to be a kingdom and priests to his God and Father; to him let glory and power be given for ever and ever. So be it.

⁷See, he comes with the clouds, and every eye will see him, and those by whom he was wounded; and all the tribes of the earth will be sorrowing because of him. Yes, so be it.

⁸I am the First and the Last, says the Lord God who is and was and is to come, the Ruler of all.

⁹I, John, your brother, who have a part with you in the trouble and the kingdom and the quiet strength of Jesus, was in the island which is named Patmos, for the word of God and the witness of Jesus.

¹⁰I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and a great voice at my back, as of a horn, came to my ears,

¹¹Saying, What you see, put in a book, and send it to the seven churches; to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamos and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea.

¹²And turning to see the voice which said these words to me, I saw seven gold vessels with lights burning in them;

¹³And in the middle of them one like a son of man, clothed with a robe down to his feet, and with a band of gold round his breasts.

¹⁴And his head and his hair were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire;

¹⁵And his feet like polished brass, as if it had been burned in a fire; and his voice was as the sound of great waters.

¹⁶And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword: and his face was like the sun shining in its strength.

¹⁷And when I saw him, I went down on my face at his feet as one dead. And he put his right hand on me, saying, Have no fear; I am the first and the last and the Living one;

¹⁸And I was dead, and see, I am living for ever, and I have the keys of death and of Hell.

¹⁹Put in writing, then, the things which you have seen, and the things which are, and the things which will be after these;

²⁰The secret of the seven stars which you saw in my right hand, and of the seven gold vessels with burning lights. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches: and the seven lights are the seven churches.

2To the angel of the church in Ephesus say: These things says he who has the seven stars in his right hand, who is walking in the middle of the seven gold lights:

²I have knowledge of your doings, and of your hard work and long waiting, and that you will not put up with evil men, and have put to the test those who say they are Apostles and are not, and have seen that they are false;

³And you have the power of waiting, and have undergone trouble because of my name, without weariness.

⁴But I have this against you, that you are turned away from your first love.

⁵So keep in mind where you were at first, and be changed in heart and do the first works; or I will come to you, and will take away your light from its place, if your hearts are not changed.

⁶But at least you have the credit of hating the works of the Nicolaitans, as I do.

⁷He who has ears, let him give ear to what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes I will give of the fruit of the tree of life, which is in the Paradise of God.

⁸And to the angel of the church in Smyrna say: These things says the first and the last, who was dead and is living:

⁹I have knowledge of your troubles and how poor you are (but you have true wealth), and the evil words of those who say they are Jews, and are not, but are a Synagogue of Satan.

¹⁰Have no fear of the things which you will have to undergo: see, the Evil One will send some of you into prison, so that you may be put to the test; and you will have great trouble for ten days. Be true till death, and I will give you the crown of life.

¹¹He who has ears, let him give ear to what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes will not come under the power of the second death.

¹²And to the angel of the church in Pergamos say: These things says he who has the sharp two-edged sword:

¹³I have knowledge that your living-place is where Satan has his seat: and you are true to my name, and were not turned away from your faith in me, even in the days of Antipas, my true witness, who was put to death among you, where Satan has his place.

¹⁴But I have some things against you, because you have with you those who keep the teaching of Balaam, by whose suggestion Balak made the children of Israel go out of the right way, taking food which was offered to false gods, and going after the desires of the flesh.

¹⁵And you have those who keep the teaching of the Nicolaitans.

¹⁶See, then, that you have a change of heart; or I will come to you quickly, and will make war against them with the sword of my mouth.

¹⁷He who has ears, let him give ear to what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes I will give of the secret manna, and I will give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name, of which no one has knowledge but he to whom it is given.

¹⁸And to the angel of the church in Thyatira say: These things says the Son of God, whose eyes are like a flame of fire, and his feet like polished brass:

¹⁹I have knowledge of your works, and your love and faith and help and strength in trouble, and that your last works are more than the first.

²⁰But I have this against you, that you let the woman Jezebel say she is a prophet and give false teaching, making my servants go after the desires of the flesh and take food offered to false gods.

²¹And I gave her time for a change of heart, but she has no mind to give up her unclean ways.

²²See, I will put her into a bed, and those who make themselves unclean with her, into great trouble, if they go on with her works.

²³And I will put her children to death; and all the churches will see that I am he who makes search into the secret thoughts and hearts of men: and I will give to every one of you the reward of your works.

²⁴But to you I say, to the rest in Thyatira, even to those who have not this teaching, and have no knowledge of the secrets of Satan, as they say; I put on you no other weight.

²⁵But what you have, keep safe till I come.

²⁶He who overcomes, and keeps my works to the end, to him I will give rule over the nations,

²⁷And he will be ruling them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of the potter they will be broken, even as I have power from my Father:

²⁸And I will give him the morning star.

²⁹He who has ears, let him give ear to what the Spirit says to the churches.

3And to the angel of the church in Sardis say: These things says he who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars: I have knowledge of your works, that you seem to be living but are dead.

²Be on the watch, and make strong the rest of the things which are near to death; because as judged by me your works have not come up to God's measure.

³Keep in mind, then, the teaching which was given to you, and be ruled by it and have a change of heart. If then you do not keep watch, I will come like a thief, and you will have no knowledge of the hour when I will come on you.

⁴But you have some names in Sardis who have kept clean their robes; and as a reward they will go in white with me.

⁵He who overcomes will be dressed in white, and I will not take his name from the book of life, and I will give witness to his name before my Father, and before his angels.

⁶He who has ears, let him give ear to what the Spirit says to the churches.

⁷And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia say: These things says he who is holy, he who is true, he who has the key of David, opening the door so that it may be shut by no one, and shutting it so that it may be open to no one.

⁸I have knowledge of your works (see, I have put before you an open door which may be shut by no one), and that you have a little strength, and have kept my word, and have been true to my name.

⁹See, I will make those of the Synagogue of Satan who say they are Jews, and are not, but say what is false; I will make them come and give worship before your feet, and see my love for you.

¹⁰Because you have kept my word in quiet strength, I will keep you from the hour of testing which is coming on all the world, to put to the test those who are on earth.

¹¹I come quickly: keep that which you have, so that no one may take your crown.

¹²Him who overcomes I will make a pillar in the house of my God, and he will go out no more: and I will put on him the name of my God, and the name of the town of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from my God, and my new name.

¹³He who has ears, let him give ear to what the Spirit says to the churches.

¹⁴And to the angel of the church in Laodicea say: These things says the true and certain witness, the head of God's new order:

¹⁵I have knowledge of your works, that you are not cold or warm: it would be better if you were cold or warm.

¹⁶So because you are not one thing or the other, I will have no more to do with you.

¹⁷For you say, I have wealth, and have got together goods and land, and have need of nothing; and you are not conscious of your sad and unhappy condition, that you are poor and blind and without clothing.

¹⁸If you are wise you will get from me gold tested by fire, so that you may have true wealth; and white robes to put on, so that your shame may not be seen; and oil for your eyes, so that you may see.

¹⁹To all those who are dear to me, I give sharp words and punishment: then with all your heart have sorrow for your evil ways.

²⁰See, I am waiting at the door and giving the sign; if my voice comes to any man's ears and he makes the door open, I will come in to him, and will take food with him and he with me.

²¹To him who overcomes I will give a place with me on my high seat, even as I overcame, and am seated with my Father on his high seat.

²²He who has ears, let him give ear to what the Spirit says to the churches.

4After these things I saw a door open in heaven, and the first voice came to my ears, like the sound of a horn, saying, Come up here, and I will make clear to you the things which are to come.

²Straight away I was in the Spirit: and I saw a high seat in heaven, and one was seated on it;

³And to my eyes he was like a jasper and a sardius stone: and there was an arch of light round the high seat, like an emerald.

⁴And round about the high seat were four and twenty seats: and on them I saw four and twenty rulers seated, clothed in white robes; and on their heads crowns of gold.

⁵And out of the high seat came flames and voices and thunders. And seven lights of fire were burning before the high seat, which are the seven Spirits of God;

⁶And before the high seat there was, as it seemed, a clear sea of glass; and in the middle of the high seat, and round about it, four beasts full of eyes round about.

⁷And the first beast was like a lion, and the second like an ox, and the third had a face like a man, and the fourth was like an eagle in flight.

⁸And the four beasts, having every one of them six wings, are full of eyes round about and inside: and without resting day and night, they say, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God, Ruler of all, who was and is and is to come.

⁹And when the beasts give glory and honour to him who is seated on the high seat, to him who is living for ever and ever,

¹⁰The four and twenty rulers go down on their faces before him who is seated on the high seat, and give worship to him who is living for ever and ever, and take off their crowns before the high seat, saying,

¹¹It is right, our Lord and our God, for you to have glory and honour and power: because by you were all things made, and by your desire they came into being.

5And I saw in the right hand of him who was seated on the high seat, a book with writing inside it and on the back, shut with seven stamps of wax.

²And I saw a strong angel saying in a loud voice, Who is able to make the book open, and to undo its stamps?

³And no one in heaven, or on the earth, or under the earth, was able to get the book open, or to see what was in it.

⁴And I was very sad, because there was no one able to get the book open or to see what was in it.

⁵And one of the rulers said to me, Do not be sad: see, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has overcome, and has power to undo the book and its seven stamps.

⁶And I saw in the middle of the high seat and of the four beasts, and in the middle of the rulers, a Lamb in his place, which seemed as if it had been put to death, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God, sent out into all the earth.

⁷And he came and took it out of the right hand of him who was seated on the high seat.

⁸And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and the four and twenty rulers went down on their faces before the Lamb, having every one an instrument of music, and gold vessels full of perfumes, which are the prayers of the saints.

⁹And their voices are sounding in a new song, saying, It is right for you to take the book and to make it open: for you were put to death and have made an offering to God of your blood for men of every tribe, and language, and people, and nation,

¹⁰And have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they are ruling on the earth.

¹¹And I saw, and there came to my ears the sound of a great number of angels round about the high seat and the beasts and the rulers; and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands;

¹²Saying with a great voice, It is right to give to the Lamb who was put to death, power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and blessing.

¹³And to my ears came the voice of everything in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and of all things which are in them, saying, To him who is seated on the high seat, and to the Lamb, may blessing and honour and glory and power be given for ever and ever.

¹⁴And the four beasts said, So be it. And the rulers went down on their faces and gave worship.

6And I saw when the Lamb undid one of the stamps, and the voice of one of the four beasts came to my ears, saying as with a voice of thunder, Come and see.

²And I saw a white horse, and he who was seated on it had a bow; and there was given to him a crown: and he went out with power to overcome.

³And when the second stamp was undone, the voice of the second beast came to my ears, saying, Come and see.

⁴And another horse came out, a red horse; and it was given to him who was seated on it to take peace from the earth, so that people might put one another to death: and there was given to him a great sword.

⁵And when the third stamp was undone, the voice of the third beast came to my ears, saying, Come and see. And I saw a black horse; and he who was seated on it had scales in his hand.

⁶And a voice came to my ears, from the middle of the four beasts, saying, A measure of grain for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny: and see that you do no damage to the oil and the wine.

⁷And when the fourth stamp was undone, the voice of the fourth beast came to my ears, saying, Come and see.

⁸And I saw a grey horse, and the name of him who was seated on it was Death; and Hell came after him. And there was given to them authority over the fourth part of the earth, to put to destruction by the sword, and by taking away their food, and by death, and by the beasts of the earth.

⁹And when the fifth stamp was undone, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been put to death for the word of God, and for the witness which they kept.

¹⁰And they gave a great cry, saying, How long will it be, O Ruler, holy and true, before you take your place as judge and give punishment for our blood to those on the earth?

¹¹And there was given to every one a white robe, and they were ordered to take their rest for a little time, till the number was complete of the other servants, their brothers, who would be put to death, even as they had been.

¹²And I saw when the sixth stamp was undone, and there was a great earth-shock; and the sun became black as haircloth, and all the moon became as blood;

¹³And the stars of heaven were falling to the earth, like green fruit from a tree before the force of a great wind.

¹⁴And the heaven was taken away like the roll of a book when it is rolled up; and all the mountains and islands were moved out of their places.

¹⁵And the kings of the earth, and the rulers, and the chief captains, and the men of wealth, and the strong, and every servant and free man, took cover in the holes and the rocks of the mountains;

¹⁶And they say to the mountains and to the rocks, Come down on us, covering us from the face of him who is seated on the high seat, and from the wrath of the Lamb:

¹⁷For the great day of their wrath is come, and who may keep his place?

7After this I saw four angels in their places at the four points of the earth, keeping back the four winds in their hands, so that there might be no moving of the wind on the earth, or on the sea, or on any tree.

²And I saw another angel coming up from the east, having the mark of the living God: and he said with a great voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to do damage to the earth and the sea,

³Do no damage to the earth, or the sea, or the trees, till we have put a mark on the servants of our God.

⁴And there came to my ears the number of those who had the mark on their brows, a hundred and forty-four thousand, who were marked out of every tribe of the people of Israel.

⁵Of the tribe of Judah were marked twelve thousand: of the tribe of Reuben twelve thousand: of the tribe of Gad twelve thousand:

⁶Of the tribe of Asher twelve thousand: of the tribe of Naphtali twelve thousand: of the tribe of Manasseh twelve thousand:

⁷Of the tribe of Simeon twelve thousand: of the tribe of Levi twelve thousand: of the tribe of Issachar twelve thousand:

⁸Of the tribe of Zebulun twelve thousand: of the tribe of Joseph twelve thousand: of the tribe of Benjamin were marked twelve thousand.

⁹After these things I saw a great army of people more than might be numbered, out of every nation and of all tribes and peoples and languages, taking their places before the high seat and before the Lamb, dressed in white robes, and with branches in their hands,

¹⁰Saying with a loud voice, Salvation to our God who is seated on the high seat, and to the Lamb.

¹¹And all the angels were round about the high seat, and about the rulers and the four beasts; and they went down on their faces before the high seat, and gave worship to God, saying,

¹²So be it. Let blessing and glory and wisdom and praise and honour and power and strength be given to our God for ever and ever. So be it.

¹³And one of the rulers made answer, saying to me, These who have on white robes, who are they, and where did they come from?

¹⁴And I said to him, My lord, you have knowledge. And he said to me, These are they who came through the great testing, and their robes have been washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb.

¹⁵This is why they are before the high seat of God; and they are his servants day and night in his house: and he who is seated on the high seat will be a tent over them.

¹⁶They will never be in need of food or drink: and they will never again be troubled by the burning heat of the sun:

¹⁷For the Lamb who is on the high seat will be their keeper and their guide to fountains of living water: and God will make glad their eyes for ever.

8And when the seventh stamp was undone there was quiet in heaven for about half an hour.

²And I saw the seven angels who had their place before God; and seven horns were given to them.

³And another angel came and took his place at the altar, having a gold vessel for burning perfume; and there was given to him much perfume, so that he might put it with the prayers of all the saints on the gold altar which was before the high seat.

⁴And the smoke of the perfume, with the prayers of the saints, went up before God out of the angel's hand.

⁵And the angel took the vessel; and he made it full of the fire of the altar, and sent it down on the earth: and there came thunders and voices and flames and a shaking of the earth.

⁶And the seven angels who had the seven horns made ready for sounding them.

⁷And at the sounding of the first, a rain of ice and fire, mixed with blood, was sent on the earth: and a third part of the earth, and of the trees, and all green grass was burned up.

⁸And at the sounding of the second angel, it was as if a great mountain burning with fire was sent into the sea: and a third part of the sea became blood,

⁹And destruction came on a third part of the living things which were in the sea, and on a third part of the ships.

¹⁰And at the sounding of the third angel, there went down from heaven a great star, burning like a flame, and it came on a third part of the rivers, and on the fountains of water.

¹¹And the name of the star is Wormwood: and a third part of the waters became bitter; and a number of men came to their end because of the waters, for they were made bitter.

¹²And at the sounding of the fourth angel, a third part of the sun, and of the moon, and of the stars was made dark, so that there was no light for a third part of the day and of the night.

¹³And there came to my ears the cry of an eagle in flight in the middle of heaven, saying with a great voice, Trouble, trouble, trouble, to all on the earth, because of the other voices of the horns of the three angels, whose sounding is still to come.

9And at the sounding of the fifth angel I saw a star falling from heaven to the earth: and there was given to him the key of the great deep.

²And he made the great deep open and a smoke went up from it, like the smoke of a great oven; and the sun and the air were made dark because of the smoke.

³And from the smoke locusts came out on the earth; and power was given them, like the power of scorpions.

⁴And they were ordered to do no damage to the grass of the earth, or any green thing, or any tree, but only to such men as have not the mark of God on their brows.

⁵And orders were given them not to put them to death, but to give them great pain for five months: and their pain was as the pain from the wound of a scorpion.

⁶And in those days men will be hoping for death, and it will not come to them; and they will have a great desire for death, and death will go in flight from them.

⁷And the forms of the locusts were like horses made ready for war; and on their heads they had crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men.

⁸And they had hair like the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions.

⁹And they had breastplates like iron, and the sound of their wings was as the sound of carriages, like an army of horses rushing to the fight.

¹⁰And they have pointed tails like scorpions; and in their tails is their power to give men wounds for five months.

¹¹They have over them as king the angel of the great deep: his name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in the Greek language Apollyon.

¹²The first Trouble is past: see, there are still two Troubles to come.

¹³And at the sounding of the sixth angel a voice came to my ears from the horns of the gold altar which is before God,

¹⁴Saying to the sixth angel who had the horn, Make free the four angels who are chained at the great river Euphrates.

¹⁵And the four angels were made free, who were ready for the hour and day and month and year, that they might put to death a third part of men.

¹⁶And the number of the armies of the horsemen was twice ten thousand times ten thousand: the number of them came to my ears.

¹⁷And so I saw the horses in the vision, and those who were seated on them, having breastplates of fire and glass and of burning stone: and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths came fire and smoke and a smell of burning.

¹⁸By these evils a third part of men was put to death, by the fire, and the smoke, and the burning smell which came out of their mouths.

¹⁹For the power of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails: because their tails are like snakes, and have heads, and with them they give wounds.

²⁰And the rest of the people, who were not put to death by these evils, were not turned from the works of their hands, but went on giving worship to evil spirits, and images of gold and silver and brass and stone and wood which have no power of seeing or hearing or walking:

²¹And they had no regret for putting men to death, or for their use of secret arts, or for the evil desires of the flesh, or for taking the property of others.

10And I saw another strong angel coming down out of heaven, clothed with a cloud; and an arch of coloured light was round his head, and his face was like the sun, and his feet like pillars of fire;

²And he had in his hand a little open book: and he put his right foot on the sea, and his left on the earth;

³And he gave a loud cry, like the angry voice of a lion: and at his cry the voices of the seven thunders were sounding.

⁴And when the seven thunders had given out their voices, I was about to put their words down: and a voice from heaven came to my ears, saying, Keep secret the things which the seven thunders said, and do not put them in writing.

⁵And the angel which I saw taking his position on the sea and on the earth, put up his right hand to heaven,

⁶And took his oath by him who is living for ever and ever, who made the heaven and the things in it, and the earth and the things in it, and the sea and the things in it, that there would be no more waiting:

⁷But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when the sound of his horn is about to come, then will the secret of God be complete, of which he gave the good news to his servants the prophets.

⁸And the voice came to me again from heaven, saying, Go, take the book which is open in the hand of the angel who has his place on the sea and on the earth.

⁹And I went to the angel, and said to him, Give me the little book. And he said to me: Put it in your mouth; and it will make your stomach bitter, but in your mouth it will be sweet as honey.

¹⁰And I took the little book out of the angel's hand and did as he said; and it was sweet as honey in my mouth: and when I had taken it, my stomach was made bitter.

¹¹And they said to me, You are to give word again of what is coming in the future to the peoples and nations and languages and kings.

11And there was given to me a measuring rod: and one said, Go up and take the measure of the house of God, and the altar, and the worshippers in it.

²But do not take the measure of the space outside the house; because it has been given to the nations: and the holy town will be under their feet for forty-two months.

³And I will give orders to my two witnesses, and they will be prophets for a thousand, two hundred and sixty days, clothed with haircloth.

⁴These are the two olive-trees and the two lights, which are before the Lord of the earth.

⁵And if any man would do them damage, fire comes out of their mouth and puts an end to those who are working against them: and if any man has a desire to do them damage, in this way will he be put to death.

⁶These have the power to keep the heaven shut, so that there may be no rain in the days when they are prophets: and they have power over the waters to make them into blood, and to send every sort of disease on the earth as their pleasure is.

⁷And when they have come to the end of their witness, the beast which comes up out of the great deep will make war on them and overcome them and put them to death.

⁸And their dead bodies will be in the open street of the great town, which in the spirit is named Sodom and Egypt, where their Lord was put to death on the cross.

⁹And the peoples and tribes and languages and nations will be looking on their dead bodies three days and a half, and will not let their dead bodies be put in the earth.

¹⁰And those who are on the earth will have pleasure and delight over them; and they will send offerings one to another because these two prophets gave great trouble to all on the earth.

¹¹And after three days and a half the breath of life from God went into them, and they got up on their feet; and great fear came on those who saw them.

¹²And a great voice from heaven came to their ears, saying to them, Come up here. And they went up into heaven in the cloud, and were seen by those desiring their death.

¹³And in that hour there was a great earth-shock and a tenth part of the town came to destruction; and in the earth-shock seven thousand persons came to their end: and the rest were in fear, and gave glory to the God of heaven.

¹⁴The second Trouble is past: see, the third Trouble comes quickly.

¹⁵And at the sounding of the seventh angel there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ, and he will have rule for ever and ever.

¹⁶And the four and twenty rulers, who are seated before God on their high seats, went down on their faces and gave worship to God, saying,

¹⁷We give you praise, O Lord God, Ruler of all, who is and who was; because you have taken up your great power and are ruling your kingdom.

¹⁸And the nations were angry, and your wrath has come, and the time for the dead to be judged, and the time of reward for your servants, the prophets, and for the saints, and for those in whom is the fear of your name, small and great, and the time of destruction for those who made the earth unclean.

¹⁹And the house of God which is in heaven was open; and the ark of his agreement was seen in his house, and there were flames and voices and thunders and an earth-shock and a rain of ice.

12And a great sign was seen in heaven: a A woman clothed with the sun, and with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.

²And she was with child; and she gave a cry, in the pains of childbirth.

³And there was seen another sign in heaven; a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven crowns.

⁴And his tail was pulling a third part of the stars of heaven down to the earth, and the dragon took his place before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when the birth had taken place he might put an end to her child.

⁵And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who was to have rule over all the nations with a rod of iron: and her child was taken up to God and to his high seat.

⁶And the woman went in flight to the waste land, where she has a place made ready by God, so that there they may give her food a thousand, two hundred and sixty days.

⁷And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels going out to the fight with the dragon; and the dragon and his angels made war,

⁸And they were overcome, and there was no more place for them in heaven.

⁹And the great dragon was forced down, the old snake, who is named the Evil One and Satan, by whom all the earth is turned from the right way; he was forced down to the earth, and his angels were forced down with him.

¹⁰And a great voice in heaven came to my ears, saying, Now is come the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ: because he who says evil against our brothers before our God day and night is forced down.

¹¹And they overcame him through the blood of the Lamb and the word of their witness; and loving not their lives they freely gave themselves up to death.

¹²Be glad then, O heavens, and you who are in them. But there is trouble for the earth and the sea: because the Evil One has come down to you, being very angry, having the knowledge that he has but a short time.

¹³And when the dragon saw that he was forced down to the earth, he made cruel attacks on the woman who gave birth to the male child.

¹⁴And there were given to the woman two wings of a great eagle, so that she might go in flight into the waste land, to her place, where she is given food for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the snake.

¹⁵And the snake sent out of his mouth after the woman a river of water, so that she might be taken away by the stream.

¹⁶And the earth gave help to the woman, and with open mouth took up the river which the dragon sent out of his mouth.

¹⁷And the dragon was angry with the woman and went away to make war on the rest of her seed, who keep the orders of God, and the witness of Jesus:

13And he took his place on the sand of the sea. And I saw a beast coming up out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads, and on his horns ten crowns, and on his heads unholy names.

²And the beast which I saw was like a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power and his seat and great authority.

³And I saw one of his heads as if it had been given a death-wound; and his death-wound was made well: and all the earth was wondering at the beast.

⁴And they gave worship to the dragon, because he gave authority to the beast; and worshipping the beast, they said, Who is like the beast? and who is able to go to war with him?

⁵And there was given to him a mouth to say words of pride against God; and there was given to him authority to go on for forty-two months.

⁶And his mouth was open to say evil against God, and against his name and his Tent, even against those who are in heaven.

⁷And it was given to him to make war on the saints and to overcome them: and there was given to him authority over every tribe and people and language and nation.

⁸And all who are on the earth will give him worship, everyone whose name has not been from the first in the book of life of the Lamb who was put to death.

⁹If any man has ears, let him give ear.

¹⁰If any man sends others into prison, into prison he will go: if any man puts to death with the sword, with the sword will he be put to death. Here is the quiet strength and the faith of the saints.

¹¹And I saw another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and his voice was like that of a dragon.

¹²And he makes use of all the authority of the first beast before his eyes. And he makes the earth and those who are in it give worship to the first beast, whose death-wound was made well.

¹³And he does great signs, even making fire come down from heaven on the earth before the eyes of men.

¹⁴And those who are on the earth are turned from the true way by him through the signs which he was given power to do before the beast; giving orders to those who are on the earth to make an image to the beast, who was wounded by the sword, and came to life.

¹⁵And he had power to give breath to the image of the beast, so that words might come from the image of the beast, and that he might have all those who did not give worship to the image of the beast put to death.

¹⁶And he gives to all, small and great, the poor and those who have wealth, the free and those who are not free, a mark on their right hand or on their brows;

¹⁷So that no man might be able to do trade but he who has the mark, even the name of the beast or the number of his name.

¹⁸Here is wisdom. He who has knowledge let him get the number of the beast; because it is the number of a man: and his number is Six hundred and sixty-six.

14And I saw the Lamb on the mountain of Zion, and with him a hundred and forty-four thousand, marked on their brows with his name and the name of his Father.

²And a voice from heaven came to my ears, like the sound of great waters, and the sound of loud thunder: and the voice which came to me was like the sound of players, playing on instruments of music.

³And they made as it seemed a new song before the high seat, and before the four beasts and the rulers: and no man might have knowledge of the song but the hundred and forty-four thousand, even those from the earth whom God has made his for a price.

⁴These are they who have not made themselves unclean with women; for they are virgins. These are they who go after the Lamb wherever he goes. These were taken from among men to be the first fruits to God and to the Lamb.

⁵And in their mouth there was no false word, for they are untouched by evil.

⁶And I saw another angel in flight between heaven and earth, having eternal good news to give to those who are on the earth, and to every nation and tribe and language and people,

⁷Saying with a loud voice, Have fear of God and give him glory; because the hour of his judging is come; and give worship to him who made heaven and earth and the sea and the fountains of water.

⁸And a second angel came after, saying, Destruction has come to Babylon the great, which gave to all the nations the wine of the wrath of her evil ways.

⁹And a third angel came after them, saying with a loud voice, If any man gives worship to the beast and his image, and has his mark on his brow or on his hand,

¹⁰To him will be given of the wine of God's wrath which is ready unmixed in the cup of his wrath and he will have cruel pain, burning with fire before the holy angels and before the Lamb:

¹¹And the smoke of their pain goes up for ever and ever; and they have no rest day and night, who give worship to the beast and his image, and have on them the mark of his name.

¹²Here is the quiet strength of the saints, who keep the orders of God, and the faith of Jesus.

¹³And a voice from heaven came to my ears, saying, Put in writing, There is a blessing on the dead who from now on come to their end in the Lord: yes, says the Spirit, that they may have rest from their troubles; for their works go with them.

¹⁴And I saw a white cloud, and on the cloud I saw one seated, like a son of man, having on his head a crown of gold, and in his hand a sharp curved blade.

¹⁵And another angel came out from the house of God, crying with a loud voice to him who was seated on the cloud, Put in your blade, and let the grain be cut: because the hour for cutting it is come; for the grain of the earth is over-ready.

¹⁶And he who was seated on the cloud sent in his blade on the earth; and the grain of the earth was cut.

¹⁷And another angel came out from the house of God which is in heaven, having a sharp curved blade.

¹⁸And another angel came out from the altar, who has power over fire; and he gave a loud cry to him who had the sharp curved blade, saying, Put in your sharp blade, and let the grapes of the vine of the earth be cut; for her grapes are fully ready.

¹⁹And the angel sent his blade into the earth, and the vine of the earth was cut, and he put it into the great wine-crusher of the wrath of God.

²⁰And the grapes were crushed under foot outside the town, and blood came out from them, even to the head-bands of the horses, two hundred miles.

15And I saw another sign in heaven, great and strange; seven angels having the seven last punishments, for in them the wrath of God is complete.

²And I saw a sea which seemed like glass mixed with fire; and those who had overcome the beast and his image and the number of his name, were in their places by the sea of glass, with God's instruments of music in their hands.

³And they give the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and full of wonder are your works, O Lord God, Ruler of all; true and full of righteousness are your ways, eternal King.

⁴What man is there who will not have fear before you, O Lord, and give glory to your name? because you only are holy; for all the nations will come and give worship before you; for your righteousness has been made clear.

⁵And after these things I saw, and the house of the Tent of witness in heaven was open:

⁶And the seven angels who had the seven punishments came out from the house of God, clothed with linen, clean and bright and with bands of gold about their breasts.

⁷And one of the four beasts gave to the seven angels seven gold vessels full of the wrath of God, who is living for ever and ever.

⁸And the house of God was full of smoke from the glory of God, and from his power, and no one was able to go into the house of God, till the seven punishments of the seven angels were ended.

16And a great voice out of the house of God came to my ears, saying to the seven angels, Go, and let that which is in the seven vessels of the wrath of God come down on the earth.

²And the first went, and let what was in his vessel come down on the earth; and it became an evil poisoning wound on the men who had the mark of the beast, and who gave worship to his image.

³And the second let what was in his vessel come out into the sea; and it became blood as of a dead man; and every living thing in the sea came to an end.

⁴And the third let what was in his vessel come out into the rivers and the fountains of water; and they became blood.

⁵And the voice of the angel of the waters came to my ears, saying, True and upright is your judging, O Holy One, who is and was from all time:

⁶For they made the blood of saints and prophets come out like a stream, and blood have you given them for drink; which is their right reward.

⁷And a voice came from the altar, saying, Even so, O Lord God, Ruler of all, true and full of righteousness is your judging.

⁸And the fourth let what was in his vessel come out on the sun; and power was given to it that men might be burned with fire.

⁹And men were burned with great heat: and they said evil things against the name of the God who has authority over these punishments; and they were not turned from their evil ways to give him glory.

¹⁰And the fifth let what was in his vessel come out on the high seat of the beast; and his kingdom was made dark; and they were biting their tongues for pain.

¹¹And they said evil things against the God of heaven because of their pain and their wounds; and they were not turned from their evil works.

¹²And the sixth let what was in his vessel come out on the great river Euphrates; and it became dry, so that the way might be made ready for the kings from the east.

¹³And I saw coming out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet, three unclean spirits, like frogs.

¹⁴For they are evil spirits, working signs; who go out even to the kings of all the earth, to get them together to the war of the great day of God, the Ruler of all.

¹⁵(See, I come as a thief. Happy is he who is watching and keeps his robes, so that he may not go unclothed, and his shame be seen.)

¹⁶And they got them together into the place which is named in Hebrew Armageddon.

¹⁷And the seventh let what was in his vessel come out on the air; and there came out a great voice from the house of God, from the high seat, saying, It is done.

¹⁸And there were flames and voices and thunders; and there was a great earth-shock so that never, from the time when men were on the earth, had there been so great an earth-shock, so full of power.

¹⁹And the great town was cut into three parts, and the towns of the nations came to destruction: and Babylon the great came into mind before God, to be given the cup of the wine of his wrath.

²⁰And every island went in flight, and the mountains were seen no longer.

²¹And great drops of ice, every one about the weight of a talent, came down out of heaven on men: and men said evil things against God because of the punishment of the ice-drops; for it is very great.

17And one of the seven angels who had the seven vessels came and said to me, Come here, so that you may see the judging of the evil woman who is seated on the great waters;

²With whom the kings of the earth made themselves unclean, and those who are on the earth were full of the wine of her evil desires.

³And he took me away in the Spirit into a waste land: and I saw a woman seated on a bright red beast, full of evil names, having seven heads and ten horns,

⁴And the woman was clothed in purple and bright red, with ornaments of gold and stones of great price and jewels; and in her hand was a gold cup full of evil things and her unclean desires;

⁵And on her brow was a name, SECRET, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF THE EVIL WOMEN AND OF THE UNCLEAN THINGS OF THE EARTH.

⁶And I saw the woman overcome as with the wine of the blood of the saints, and the blood of those put to death because of Jesus. And when I saw her, I was overcome with a great wonder.

⁷And the angel said to me, Why were you surprised? I will make clear to you the secret of the woman, and of the beast on which she is seated, which has the seven heads and the ten horns.

⁸The beast which you saw was, and is not; and is about to come up out of the great deep, and to go into destruction. And those who are on the earth, whose names have not been put in the book of life from the first, will be full of wonder when they see the beast, that he was, and is not, and still will be.

⁹Here is the mind which has wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman is seated:

¹⁰And they are seven kings; the five have come to an end, the one is, the other has not come; and when he comes, he will have to go on for a little time.

¹¹And the beast which was, and is not, is himself the eighth, and is of the seven; and he goes into destruction.

¹²And the ten horns which you saw are ten kings, which still have been given no kingdom; but they are given authority as kings, with the beast, for one hour.

¹³These have one mind, and they give their power and authority to the beast.

¹⁴These will make war against the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, because he is the Lord of lords and King of kings; and those who are with him are named, marked out, and true.

¹⁵And he said to me, The waters which you saw, where the evil woman is seated, are peoples, and armies, and nations and languages.

¹⁶And the ten horns which you saw, and the beast, these will be turned against the evil woman, and will make her waste and uncovered, and will take her flesh for food, and will have her burned with fire.

¹⁷Because God has put it in their hearts to do his purpose, and to be of one mind, giving their kingdom to the beast, till the words of God have effect and are complete.

¹⁸And the woman whom you saw is the great town, which is ruling over the kings of the earth.

18After these things I saw another angel coming down out of heaven, having great authority; and the earth was bright with his glory.

²And he gave a loud cry, saying, Babylon the great has come down from her high place, she has come to destruction and has become a place of evil spirits, and of every unclean spirit, and a hole for every unclean and hated bird.

³For through the wine of the wrath of her evil desires all the nations have come to destruction; and the kings of the earth made themselves unclean with her, and the traders of the earth had their wealth increased by the power of her evil ways.

⁴And another voice from heaven came to my ears, saying, Come out of her, my people, so that you may have no part in her sins and in her punishments.

⁵For her sins have gone up even to heaven, and God has taken note of her evil-doing.

⁶Give to her as she gave, even an increased reward for her works; in the cup which was mixed by her, let there be mixed as much again for herself.

⁷As she gave glory to herself, and became more evil in her ways, in the same measure give her pain and weeping: for she says in her heart, I am seated here a queen, and am no widow, and will in no way see sorrow.

⁸For this reason in one day will her troubles come, death and sorrow and need of food; and she will be completely burned with fire; for strong is the Lord God who is her judge.

⁹And the kings of the earth, who made themselves unclean with her, and in her company gave themselves up to evil, will be weeping and crying over her, when they see the smoke of her burning,

¹⁰Watching from far away, for fear of her punishment, saying, Sorrow, sorrow for Babylon, the great town, the strong town! for in one hour you have been judged.

¹¹And the traders of the earth are weeping and crying over her, because no man has any more desire for their goods,

¹²Gold, and silver, and stones of great price, and jewels, and delicate linen, and robes of purple and silk and red; and perfumed wood, and every vessel of ivory, and every vessel made of fair wood, and of brass, and iron, and stone;

¹³And sweet-smelling plants, and perfumes, and wine, and oil, and well crushed grain, and cattle and sheep; and horses and carriages and servants; and souls of men.

¹⁴And the fruit of your soul's desire has gone from you, and all things delicate and shining have come to an end and will never again be seen.

¹⁵The traders in these things, by which their wealth was increased, will be watching far off for fear of her punishment, weeping and crying;

¹⁶Saying, Sorrow, sorrow for the great town, she who was clothed in delicate linen, and purple, and red; with ornaments of gold and stones of great price and jewels!

¹⁷For in one hour such great wealth has come to nothing. And every shipmaster, and all who are sailing on the sea, and sailors and all who get their living by the sea, were watching from far away,

¹⁸And crying out when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, What town is like the great town?

¹⁹And they put dust on their heads, and were sad, weeping and crying, and saying, Sorrow, sorrow for the great town, in which was increased the wealth of all who had their ships on the sea because of her great stores! for in one hour she is made waste.

²⁰Be glad over her, heaven, and you saints, and Apostles, and prophets; because she has been judged by God on your account.

²¹And a strong angel took up a stone like the great stone with which grain is crushed, and sent it into the sea, saying, So, with a great fall, will Babylon, the great town, come to destruction, and will not be seen any more at all.

²²And the voice of players and makers of music will never again be sounding in you: and no worker, expert in art, will ever again be living in you; and there will be no sound of the crushing of grain any more at all in you;

²³And never again will the shining of lights be seen in you; and the voice of the newly-married man and the bride will never again be sounding in you: for your traders were the lords of the earth, and by your evil powers were all the nations turned out of the right way.

²⁴And in her was seen the blood of prophets and of saints, and of all who have been put to death on the earth.

19After these things there came to my ears a sound like the voice of a great band of people in heaven, saying, Praise to the Lord; salvation and glory and power be to our God:

²For true and upright are his decisions; for by him has the evil woman been judged, who made the earth unclean with the sins of her body; and he has given her punishment for the blood of his servants.

³And again they said, Praise to the Lord. And her smoke went up for ever and ever.

⁴And the four and twenty rulers and the four beasts went down on their faces and gave worship to God who was seated on the high seat, saying, Even so, praise to the Lord.

⁵And a voice came from the high seat, saying, Give praise to our God, all you his servants, small and great, in whom is the fear of him.

⁶And there came to my ears the voice of a great army, like the sound of waters, and the sound of loud thunders, saying, Praise to the Lord: for the Lord our God, Ruler of all, is King.

⁷Let us be glad with delight, and let us give glory to him: because the time is come for the Lamb to be married, and his wife has made herself ready.

⁸And to her it was given to be clothed in delicate linen, clean and shining: for the clean linen is the righteousness of the saints.

⁹And he said to me, Put in the book, Happy are the guests at the bride-feast of the Lamb. And he said to me, These are the true words of God.

¹⁰And I went on my face before his feet to give him worship. And he said to me, See you do it not: I am a brother-servant with you and with your brothers who keep the witness of Jesus: give worship to God: for the witness of Jesus is the spirit of the prophet's word.

¹¹And the heaven was open; and I saw a white horse, and he who was seated on it was named Certain and True; and he is judging and making war in righteousness.

¹²And his eyes are a flame of fire, and crowns are on his head; and he has a name in writing, of which no man has knowledge but himself.

¹³And he is clothed in a robe washed with blood: and his name is The Word of God.

¹⁴And the armies which are in heaven went after him on white horses, clothed in delicate linen, white and clean.

¹⁵And out of his mouth comes a sharp sword, with which he overcomes the nations: and he has rule over them with a rod of iron: and he is crushing with his feet the grapes of the strong wrath of God the Ruler of all.

¹⁶And on his robe and on his leg is a name, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.

¹⁷And I saw an angel taking his place in the sun; and he was crying with a loud voice, saying to all the birds in flight in the heavens, Come together to the great feast of God;

¹⁸So that you may take for your food the flesh of kings, and of captains, and of strong men, and of horses and of those who are seated on them, and the flesh of all men, free and unfree, small and great.

¹⁹And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, come together to make war against him who was seated on the horse and against his army.

²⁰And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet who did the signs before him, by which they were turned from the true way who had the mark of the beast, and who gave worship to his image: these two were put living into the sea of ever-burning fire.

²¹And the rest were put to death with the sword of him who was on the horse, even the sword which came out of his mouth: and all the birds were made full with their flesh.

20And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key of the great deep and a great chain in his hand.

²And he took the dragon, the old snake, which is the Evil One and Satan, and put chains on him for a thousand years,

³And put him into the great deep, and it was shut and locked over him, so that he might put the nations in error no longer, till the thousand years were ended: after this he will be let loose for a little time.

⁴And I saw high seats, and they were seated on them, and the right of judging was given to them: and I saw the souls of those who were put to death for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and those who did not give worship to the beast, or to his image, and had not his mark on their brows or on their hands; and they were living and ruling with Christ a thousand years.

⁵The rest of the dead did not come to life again till the thousand years were ended. This is the first coming back from the dead.

⁶Happy and holy is he who has a part in this first coming: over these the second death has no authority, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and will be ruling with him a thousand years.

⁷And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be let loose out of his prison,

⁸And will go out to put in error the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to get them together to the war, the number of whom is like the sands of the sea.

⁹And they went up over the face of the earth, and made a circle about the tents of the saints, and the well loved town: and fire came down out of heaven for their destruction.

¹⁰And the Evil One who put them in error was sent down into the sea of ever-burning fire, where the beast and the false prophet are, and their punishment will go on day and night for ever and ever.

¹¹And I saw a great white seat, and him who was seated on it, before whose face the earth and the heaven went in flight; and there was no place for them.

¹²And I saw the dead, great and small, taking their places before the high seat; and the books were open, and another book was open, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged by the things which were in the books, even by their works.

¹³And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and Hell gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged every man by his works.

¹⁴And death and Hell were put into the sea of fire. This is the second death, even the sea of fire.

¹⁵And if anyone's name was not in the book of life, he went down into the sea of fire.

21And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were gone; and there was no more sea.

²And I saw the holy town, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, like a bride made beautiful for her husband.

³And there came to my ears a great voice out of the high seat, saying, See, the Tent of God is with men, and he will make his living-place with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them, and be their God.

⁴And he will put an end to all their weeping; and there will be no more death, or sorrow, or crying, or pain; for the first things have come to an end.

⁵And he who is seated on the high seat said, See, I make all things new. And he said, Put it in the book; for these words are certain and true.

⁶And he said to me, It is done. I am the First and the Last, the start and the end. I will freely give of the fountain of the water of life to him who is in need.

⁷He who overcomes will have these things for his heritage; and I will be his God, and he will be my son.

⁸But those who are full of fear and without faith, the unclean and takers of life, those who do the sins of the flesh, and those who make use of evil powers or who give worship to images, and all those who are false, will have their part in the sea of ever-burning fire which is the second death.

⁹And one of the seven angels who had the seven vessels in which were the seven last punishments, came and said to me, Come here, and see the bride, the Lamb's wife.

¹⁰And he took me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and let me see the holy town Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God,

¹¹Having the glory of God: and her light was like a stone of great price, a jasper stone, clear as glass:

¹²She had a wall great and high, with twelve doors, and at the doors twelve angels; and names on them, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel.

¹³And on the east were three doors; and on the north three doors; and on the south three doors; and on the west three doors.

¹⁴And the wall of the town had twelve bases, and on them the twelve names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb.

¹⁵And he who was talking with me had a gold measuring-rod to take the measure of the town, and of its doors, and its wall.

¹⁶And the town is square, as wide as it is long; and he took the measure of the town with the rod, one thousand and five hundred miles: it is equally long and wide and high.

¹⁷And he took the measure of its wall, one hundred and forty-four cubits, after the measure of a man, that is, of an angel.

¹⁸And the building of its wall was of jasper, and the town was clear gold, clear as glass.

¹⁹The bases of the wall of the town had ornaments of all sorts of beautiful stones. The first base was jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, chalcedony; the fourth, emerald;

²⁰The fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolite; the eighth, beryl; the ninth, topaz; the tenth, chrysoprase; the eleventh, jacinth; the twelfth, amethyst.

²¹And the twelve doors were twelve pearls; every door was made of one pearl; and the street of the town was clear gold, as clear as glass.

²²And I saw no Temple there; because the Lord God, the Ruler of all, and the Lamb are its Temple.

²³And the town has no need of the sun, or of the moon, to give it light: for the glory of God did make it light, and the light of it is the Lamb.

²⁴And the nations will go in its light: and the kings of the earth will take their glory into it.

²⁵And the doors of it will never be shut by day (for there is no night there):

²⁶And the glory and honour of the nations will come into it:

²⁷And nothing unclean may come into it, or anyone whose works are cursed or false; but only those whose names are in the Lamb's book of life.

22And I saw a river of water of life, clear as glass, coming out of the high seat of God and of the Lamb,

²In the middle of its street. And on this side of the river and on that was the tree of life, having twelve sorts of fruits, giving its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree give life to the nations.

³And there will be no more curse: and the high seat of God and of the Lamb will be there; and his servants will be worshipping him;

⁴And they will see his face; and his name will be on their brows.

⁵And there will be no more night; and they have no need of a light or of the shining of the sun; for the Lord God will give them light: and they will be ruling for ever and ever.

⁶And he said to me, These words are certain and true: and the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, sent his angel to make clear to his servants the things which are now to come about.

⁷See, I come quickly. A blessing on him who keeps the words of this book of the prophet.

⁸And I, John, am he who saw these things and to whose ears they came. And when I had seen and given ear, I went down on my face to give worship at the feet of the angel who made these things clear to me.

⁹And he said to me, See you do it not; I am a brother-servant with you and with your brothers the prophets, and with those who keep the words of this book: give worship to God.

¹⁰And he said to me, Let not the words of this prophet's book be kept secret, because the time is near.

¹¹Let the evil man go on in his evil: and let the unclean be still unclean: and let the upright go on in his righteousness: and let the holy be holy still.

¹²See, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give to every man the outcome of his works.

¹³I am the First and the Last, the start and the end.

¹⁴A blessing on those whose robes are washed, so that they may have a right to the tree of life, and may go in by the doors into the town.

¹⁵Outside are the dogs, and those who make use of evil powers, those who make themselves unclean, and the takers of life, and those who give worship to images, and everyone whose delight is in what is false.

¹⁶I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give witness to you of these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, the bright and morning star.

¹⁷And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him who gives ear, say, Come. And let him who is in need come; and let everyone desiring it take of the water of life freely.

¹⁸For I say to every man to whose ears have come the words of this prophet's book, If any man makes an addition to them, God will put on him the punishments which are in this book:

¹⁹And if any man takes away from the words of this book, God will take away from him his part in the tree of life and the holy town, even the things which are in this book.

²⁰He who gives witness to these things says, Truly, I come quickly. Even so come, Lord Jesus.

²¹The grace of the Lord Jesus be with the saints. So be it.