In the eleventh year, in the third month, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came to me:

In the twelfth year, on the fifteenth day of the month, the word of the Lord came to me:

When your people say to you, ‘Will you not tell us what these things mean?’

“But you made the Nazirites drink wine; you commanded the prophets, ‘Do not prophesy!’

Then Haggai, the Lord’s messenger, spoke the Lord’s word to the people: “I am with you!” says the Lord.

On the twenty-first day of the seventh month, the Lord spoke again through the prophet Haggai:

“The Lord who rules over all says, ‘Ask the priests about the law.

Then the Lord spoke again to Haggai on the twenty-fourth day of the month:

Tell Zerubbabel governor of Judah: ‘I am ready to shake the sky and the earth.

Then I asked the messenger who spoke with me, “What are these, sir?”

He replied, “Don’t you know what these are?” And I said, “No, sir.”

When the days of mourning had passed, Joseph said to Pharaoh’s royal court, “If I have found favor in your sight, please say to Pharaoh,

The Gazites were told, “Samson has come here!” So they surrounded the town and hid all night at the city gate, waiting for him to leave. They relaxed all night, thinking, “He will not leave until morning comes; then we will kill him!”

Neither man nor woman would David leave alive so as to bring them back to Gath. He was thinking, “This way they can’t tell on us, saying, ‘This is what David did.’” Such was his practice the entire time that he lived in the country of the Philistines.

Then Abner sent messengers to David saying, “To whom does the land belong? Make an agreement with me, and I will do whatever I can to cause all Israel to turn to you.”

Then the king and his men advanced to Jerusalem against the Jebusites who lived in the land. The Jebusites said to David, “You cannot invade this place! Even the blind and the lame will turn you back, saying, ‘David cannot invade this place!’”

Solomon was told, “Look, Adonijah fears you; see, he has taken hold of the horns of the altar, saying, ‘May King Solomon solemnly promise me today that he will not kill his servant with the sword.’”

and the Lord will fulfill his promise to me, ‘If your descendants watch their step and live faithfully in my presence with all their heart and being, then,’ he promised, ‘you will not fail to have a successor on the throne of Israel.’

The young advisers with whom Rehoboam had grown up said to him, “Say this to these people who have said to you, ‘Your father made us work hard, but now lighten our burden.’ Say this to them: ‘I am a lot harsher than my father!

Say to him, ‘This is what the Lord says: “Haven’t you committed murder and taken possession of the property of the deceased?”’ Then say to him, ‘This is what the Lord says: “In the spot where dogs licked up Naboth’s blood they will also lick up your blood – yes, yours!”’”