He gives me the agility of a deer; he enables me to negotiate the rugged terrain.

Such is the lot God allots the wicked, and the heritage of his appointment from God.”

if I have eaten its produce without paying, or caused the death of its owners,

You, whose garments are hot when the earth is still because of the south wind,

A prayer of David. Listen O Lord! Answer me! For I am oppressed and needy.

The Lord writes in the census book of the nations, “This one was born there.” (Selah)

As for the singers, as well as the pipers – all of them sing within your walls.

Take note of my brief lifespan! Why do you make all people so mortal?

Yet he delivered them for the sake of his reputation, that he might reveal his power.

Diverse weights and diverse measures – the Lord abhors both of them.

Your misdeeds have stopped these things from coming. Your sins have deprived you of my bounty.’

I will uproot your images of Asherah from your midst, and destroy your idols.

For a period of about forty years he put up with them in the wilderness.

You know that everyone in the province of Asia deserted me, including Phygelus and Hermogenes.

The curtain for the gate of the courtyard was of blue, purple, and scarlet yarn and fine twisted linen, the work of an embroiderer. It was thirty feet long, and like the hangings in the courtyard, it was seven and a half feet high,

For all of you have conspired against me! No one informs me when my own son makes an agreement with this son of Jesse! Not one of you feels sorry for me or informs me that my own son has commissioned my own servant to hide in ambush against me, as is the case today!”

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.”

He passed his sons through the fire in the Valley of Ben-Hinnom and practiced divination, omen reading, and sorcery. He set up a ritual pit to conjure up underworld spirits and appointed magicians to supervise it. He did a great amount of evil in the sight of the Lord and angered him.

In the eighth year of his reign, while he was still young, he began to seek the God of his ancestor David. In his twelfth year he began ridding Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, Asherah poles, idols, and images.

So, watch out!” says the Lord. “The time will soon come when people will no longer call those places Topheth or the Valley of Ben Hinnom. But they will call that valley the Valley of Slaughter and they will bury so many people in Topheth they will run out of room.