But Ishmael son of Nethaniah managed to escape from Johanan along with eight of his men, and he went on over to Ammon.

Yet in days to come I will reverse Ammon’s ill fortune.” says the Lord.

ב (Bet) The precious sons of Zion were worth their weight in gold – Alas! – but now they are treated like broken clay pots, made by a potter.

I will place the corpses of the people of Israel in front of their idols, and I will scatter your bones around your altars.

You engaged in prostitution with the Egyptians, your sexually aroused neighbors, multiplying your promiscuity and provoking me to anger.

You engaged in prostitution with the Assyrians because your sexual desires were insatiable; you prostituted yourself with them and yet you were still not satisfied.

Therefore I handed her over to her lovers, the Assyrians for whom she lusted.

“Son of man, turn toward the Ammonites and prophesy against them.

The Dedanites were your clients. Many coastlands were your customers; they paid you with ivory tusks and ebony.

“Yet your people say, ‘The behavior of the Lord is not right,’ when it is their behavior that is not right.

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

I will have no pity on her children, because they are children conceived in adultery.

I made some of your sons prophets and some of your young men Nazirites. Is this not true, you Israelites?” The Lord is speaking!

Shave your heads bald as you mourn for the children you love; shave your foreheads as bald as an eagle, for they are taken from you into exile.

With what should I enter the Lord’s presence? With what should I bow before the sovereign God? Should I enter his presence with burnt offerings, with year-old calves?

So he said, “These are the two anointed ones who stand by the Lord of the whole earth.”

“Since, I, the Lord, do not go back on my promises, you, sons of Jacob, have not perished.

These were the sons of Esau’s son Reuel: chief Nahath, chief Zerah, chief Shammah, chief Mizzah. These were the chiefs descended from Reuel in the land of Edom; these were the sons of Esau’s wife Basemath.

This is the account of Jacob. Joseph, his seventeen-year-old son, was taking care of the flocks with his brothers. Now he was a youngster working with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father’s wives. Joseph brought back a bad report about them to their father.

The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron and gave them a charge for the Israelites and Pharaoh king of Egypt to bring the Israelites out of the land of Egypt.