But how can it rest when I, the Lord, have given it orders? I have ordered it to attack the people of Ashkelon and the seacoast.

For how can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me? I couldn’t bear to see my father’s pain.”

Then Naomi said, “Stay put, my daughter, until you know how the matter turns out. For the man will not rest until he has taken care of the matter today.”

Samuel replied, “How can I go? Saul will hear about it and kill me!” But the Lord said, “Take a heifer with you and say, ‘I have come to sacrifice to the Lord.’

David said to the young man who was telling him this, “How do you know that Saul and his son Jonathan are dead?”

So one of the priests whom they had deported from Samaria went back and settled in Bethel. He taught them how to worship the Lord.

“How can you say, ‘I have not made myself unclean. I have not paid allegiance to the gods called Baal.’ Just look at the way you have behaved in the Valley of Hinnom! Think about the things you have done there! You are like a flighty, young female camel that rushes here and there, crisscrossing its path.

Therefore the Lord who rules over all says, “I will now purify them in the fires of affliction and test them. The wickedness of my dear people has left me no choice. What else can I do?

For the sound of wailing is soon to be heard in Zion. They will wail, ‘We are utterly ruined! We are completely disgraced! For our houses have been torn down and we must leave our land.’”

Then they asked Baruch, “How did you come to write all these words? Do they actually come from Jeremiah’s mouth?”

She said to him, “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when you will not share your secret with me? Three times you have deceived me and have not told me what makes you so strong.”

King Rehoboam consulted with the older advisers who had served his father Solomon when he had been alive. He asked them, “How do you advise me to answer these people?”

King Rehoboam consulted with the older advisers who had served his father Solomon when he had been alive. He asked them, “How do you advise me to answer these people?”

The officials of Zoan are nothing but fools; Pharaoh’s wise advisers give stupid advice. How dare you say to Pharaoh, “I am one of the sages, one well-versed in the writings of the ancient kings?”

“I thought to myself, ‘Oh what a joy it would be for me to treat you like a son! What a joy it would be for me to give you a pleasant land, the most beautiful piece of property there is in all the world!’ I thought you would call me, ‘Father’ and would never cease being loyal to me.

They will sing this lament over you: “‘How you have perished – you have vanished from the seas, O renowned city, once mighty in the sea, she and her inhabitants, who spread their terror!

“If thieves came to rob you during the night, they would steal only as much as they wanted! If grape pickers came to harvest your vineyards, they would leave some behind for the poor! But you will be totally destroyed!

In that day people will sing this taunt song to you – they will mock you with this lament: ‘We are completely destroyed; they sell off the property of my people. How they remove it from me! They assign our fields to the conqueror.’

This is how the once-proud city will end up – the city that was so secure. She thought to herself, “I am unique! No one can compare to me!” What a heap of ruins she has become, a place where wild animals live! Everyone who passes by her taunts her and shakes his fist.