and set up in it a place for the ark containing the covenant the Lord made with our ancestors when he brought them out of the land of Egypt.”

“When you direct your people to march out and fight their enemies, and they direct their prayers to the Lord toward his chosen city and this temple I built for your honor,

Then he said to Jehoshaphat, “Will you go with me to attack Ramoth Gilead?” Jehoshaphat replied to the king of Israel, “I will support you; my army and horses are at your disposal.”

The king sent a captain and his fifty soldiers to retrieve Elijah. The captain went up to him, while he was sitting on the top of a hill. He told him, “Prophet, the king says, ‘Come down!’”

But they said, “You’re lying! Tell us what he said.” So he told them what he had said. He also related how he had said, “This is what the Lord says, ‘I have designated you as king over Israel.’”

Eliakim son of Hilkiah, the palace supervisor, accompanied by Shebna the scribe and Joah son of Asaph, the secretary, went to Hezekiah with their clothes torn and reported to him what the chief adviser had said.

On the seventh day of the fifth month, in the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, Nebuzaradan, the captain of the royal guard who served the king of Babylon, arrived in Jerusalem.

Nebuzaradan, the captain of the royal guard, deported the rest of the people who were left in the city, those who had deserted to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the craftsmen.

This is the list of David’s warriors: Jashobeam, a Hacmonite, was head of the officers. He killed three hundred men with his spear in a single battle.

Then David said, “Only the Levites may carry the ark of God, for the Lord chose them to carry the ark of the Lord and to serve before him perpetually.

When Joab saw that the battle would be fought on two fronts, he chose some of Israel’s best men and deployed them against the Arameans.

and whenever burnt sacrifices were offered to the Lord on the Sabbath and at new moon festivals and assemblies. A designated number were to serve before the Lord regularly in accordance with regulations.

There was nothing in the ark except the two tablets Moses had placed there in Horeb. (It was there that the Lord made an agreement with the Israelites after he brought them out of the land of Egypt.)

“When you direct your people to march out and fight their enemies, and they direct their prayers to you toward this chosen city and this temple I built for your honor,

King Ahab of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, “Will you go with me to attack Ramoth Gilead?” Jehoshaphat replied to the king of Israel, “I will support you; my army is at your disposal and will support you in battle.”

But Josiah did not turn back from him; he disguised himself for battle. He did not take seriously the words of Necho which he had received from God; he went to fight him in the Plain of Megiddo.

“Thus says King Cyrus of Persia: “‘The Lord God of heaven has given me all the kingdoms of the earth. He has instructed me to build a temple for him in Jerusalem, which is in Judah.

You provided bread from heaven for them in their time of hunger, and you brought forth water from the rock for them in their time of thirst. You told them to enter in order to possess the land that you had sworn to give them.

There were no restrictions on the drinking, for the king had instructed all of his supervisors that they should do as everyone so desired.

The king then said to Haman, “Go quickly! Take the clothing and the horse, just as you have described, and do as you just indicated to Mordecai the Jew who sits at the king’s gate. Don’t neglect a single thing of all that you have said.”