“I, the Lord, say: ‘This shows how I will ruin the highly exalted position in which Judah and Jerusalem take pride.

Shout for joy, Daughter Zion! Shout out, Israel! Be happy and boast with all your heart, Daughter Jerusalem!

In fact, even the hairs on your head are all numbered. Do not be afraid; you are more valuable than many sparrows.

since we heard about your faith in Christ Jesus and the love that you have for all the saints.

You, however, the Lord has selected and brought from Egypt, that iron-smelting furnace, to be his special people as you are today.

Then he will enter the beautiful land. Many will fall, but these will escape: Edom, Moab, and the Ammonite leadership.

All flesh is not the same: People have one flesh, animals have another, birds and fish another.

with a bud under the first two branches from it, and a bud under the next two branches from it, and a bud under the third two branches from it; according to the six branches that extended from it.

The Lord’s spirit empowered Jephthah. He passed through Gilead and Manasseh and went to Mizpah in Gilead. From there he approached the Ammonites.

The Israelites did evil in the Lord’s sight, so the Lord turned them over to Midian for seven years.

The Israelites again did evil in the Lord’s sight, so the Lord handed them over to the Philistines for forty years.

So her sons married Moabite women. (One was named Orpah and the other Ruth.) And they continued to live there about ten years.

However, for your father David’s sake I will not do this while you are alive. I will tear it away from your son’s hand instead.

Just then a prophet from Judah, sent by the Lord, arrived in Bethel, as Jeroboam was standing near the altar ready to offer a sacrifice.

They speak sinful words. So let them be trapped by their own pride and by the curses and lies they speak!

We have heard about Moab’s pride, their great arrogance, their boasting, pride, and excess. But their boastful claims are empty!

At that time the Egyptians will be like women. They will tremble and fear because the Lord who commands armies brandishes his fist against them.

Look, my servants will shout for joy as happiness fills their hearts! But you will cry out as sorrow fills your hearts; you will wail because your spirits will be crushed.

His dominion will be vast and he will bring immeasurable prosperity. He will rule on David’s throne and over David’s kingdom, establishing it and strengthening it by promoting justice and fairness, from this time forward and forevermore. The Lord’s intense devotion to his people will accomplish this.

What’s more, she is indeed my sister, my father’s daughter, but not my mother’s daughter. She became my wife.