Be very strong! Carefully obey all that is written in the law scroll of Moses so you won’t swerve from it to the right or the left,

or associate with these nations that remain near you. You must not invoke or make solemn declarations by the names of their gods! You must not worship or bow down to them!

How can we find wives for those who are left? After all, we took an oath in the Lord’s name not to give them our daughters as wives.”

He said, “May you be rewarded by the Lord, my dear! This act of devotion is greater than what you did before. For you have not sought to marry one of the young men, whether rich or poor.

However, Saul said nothing about it that day, for he thought, “Something has happened to make him ceremonially unclean. Yes, he must be unclean.”

The woman said, “Why have you devised something like this against God’s people? When the king speaks in this fashion, he makes himself guilty, for the king has not brought back the one he has banished.

and had warned him about this very thing, so that he would not follow other gods. But he did not obey the Lord’s command.

King Baasha of Israel attacked Judah and established Ramah as a military outpost to prevent anyone from leaving or entering the land of King Asa of Judah.

Then Jehu killed all who were left of Ahab’s family in Jezreel, and all his nobles, close friends, and priests. He left no survivors.

The king ruined Topheth in the Valley of Ben Hinnom so that no one could pass his son or his daughter through the fire to Molech.

You will have no place to go, except to kneel with the prisoners, or to fall among those who have been killed. Despite all this, his anger does not subside, and his hand is ready to strike again.

And you have acted even more wickedly than your ancestors! Each one of you has followed the stubborn inclinations of your own wicked heart and not obeyed me.

But if that nation does what displeases me and does not obey me, then I will cancel the good I promised to do to it.

However, Ahikam son of Shaphan used his influence to keep Jeremiah from being handed over and executed by the people.

I will make a lasting covenant with them that I will never stop doing good to them. I will fill their hearts and minds with respect for me so that they will never again turn away from me.

“I, Lord, make the following promise: ‘I have made a covenant with the day and with the night that they will always come at their proper times. Only if you people could break that covenant

Everyone was supposed to free their male and female Hebrew slaves. No one was supposed to keep a fellow Judean enslaved.

We and our wives and our sons and daughters have obeyed everything our ancestor Jonadab commanded us. We have never drunk wine.

The king did not even listen to Elnathan, Delaiah, and Gemariah, who had urged him not to burn the scroll.

If they do this, tell them, ‘I was pleading with the king not to send me back to die in the dungeon of Jonathan’s house.’”