“But these things you have concealed in your heart; I know that this is with you:

Accept instruction from his mouth and store up his words in your heart.

Do not lust in your heart for her beauty, and do not let her captivate you with her alluring eyes;

If you think, “These nations are more numerous than I – how can I dispossess them?”

Be careful not to say, “My own ability and skill have gotten me this wealth.”

Now if you say to yourselves, ‘How can we tell that a message is not from the Lord?’ –

Nathan replied to the king, “You should go and do whatever you have in mind, for the Lord is with you.”

Nathan said to David, “You should do whatever you have in mind, for God is with you.”

You will probably ask yourself, ‘Why have these things happened to me? Why have I been treated like a disgraced adulteress whose skirt has been torn off and her limbs exposed?’ It is because you have sinned so much.

You must not hate your brother in your heart. You must surely reprove your fellow citizen so that you do not incur sin on account of him.

His armor bearer said to him, “Do everything that is on your mind. Do as you’re inclined. I’m with you all the way!”

You said to yourself, “I will climb up to the sky. Above the stars of El I will set up my throne. I will rule on the mountain of assembly on the remote slopes of Zaphon.

And he said to me, “Son of man, take all my words that I speak to you to heart and listen carefully.

Remember the whole way by which he has brought you these forty years through the desert so that he might, by humbling you, test you to see if you have it within you to keep his commandments or not.

Do not think to yourself after the Lord your God has driven them out before you, “Because of my own righteousness the Lord has brought me here to possess this land.” It is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is driving them out ahead of you.

Samuel replied to Saul, “I am the seer! Go up in front of me to the high place! Today you will eat with me and in the morning I will send you away. I will tell you everything that you are thinking.

Then you will think to yourself, ‘Who bore these children for me? I was bereaved and barren, dismissed and divorced. Who raised these children? Look, I was left all alone; where did these children come from?’”