The king asked, “Where is your master’s grandson?” Ziba replied to the king, “He remains in Jerusalem, for he said, ‘Today the house of Israel will give back to me my grandfather’s kingdom.’”

Now Mephibosheth, Saul’s grandson, came down to meet the king. From the day the king had left until the day he safely returned, Mephibosheth had not cared for his feet nor trimmed his mustache nor washed his clothes.

Ahaz sent messengers to King Tiglath-pileser of Assyria, saying, “I am your servant and your dependent. March up and rescue me from the power of the king of Syria and the king of Israel, who have attacked me.”

Now you are declaring that you will resist the Lord’s rule through the Davidic dynasty. You have a huge army, and bring with you the gold calves that Jeroboam made for you as gods.

But as for us, the Lord is our God and we have not rejected him. Aaron’s descendants serve as the Lord’s priests and the Levites assist them with the work.

Give sincere homage! Otherwise he will be angry, and you will die because of your behavior, when his anger quickly ignites. How blessed are all who take shelter in him!

“I, I am the one who consoles you. Why are you afraid of mortal men, of mere human beings who are as short-lived as grass?

Your children faint; they lie at the head of every street like an antelope in a snare. They are left in a stupor by the Lord’s anger, by the battle cry of your God.

The children of your oppressors will come bowing to you; all who treated you with disrespect will bow down at your feet. They will call you, ‘The City of the Lord, Zion of the Holy One of Israel.’

And I will smash them like wine bottles against one another, children and parents alike. I will not show any pity, mercy, or compassion. Nothing will keep me from destroying them,’ says the Lord.”

could my covenant with my servant David and my covenant with the Levites ever be broken. So David will by all means always have a descendant to occupy his throne as king and the Levites will by all means always have priests who will minister before me.

This will be for the priests who are set apart from the descendants of Zadok who kept my charge and did not go astray when the people of Israel strayed off, like the Levites did.

He answered, “But I see four men, untied and walking around in the midst of the fire! No harm has come to them! And the appearance of the fourth is like that of a god!”

When his parents saw him, they were overwhelmed. His mother said to him, “Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been looking for you anxiously.”

Now a wife of one of the prophets appealed to Elisha for help, saying, “Your servant, my husband is dead. You know that your servant was a loyal follower of the Lord. Now the creditor is coming to take away my two boys to be his servants.”

With her dying breath, she named him Ben-Oni. But his father called him Benjamin instead.

He put them on the shoulder pieces of the ephod as stones of memorial for the Israelites, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.

And the responsibilities of the Gershonites in the tent of meeting included the tabernacle, the tent with its covering, the curtain at the entrance of the tent of meeting,

We even saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak came from the Nephilim), and we seemed liked grasshoppers both to ourselves and to them.”

Within the territory of the half-tribe of Manasseh, the rest of Kohath’s descendants received Aner and its pasturelands and Bileam and its pasturelands.