I first decreed to Zion, ‘Look, here’s what will happen!’ ¹  I sent a herald to Jerusalem. ² 

“This month is to be your beginning of months; it will be your first month of the year. ¹ 

Listen to me, O Jacob, Israel, whom I summoned! I am the one; I am present at the very beginning and at the very end. ¹ 

Who acts and carries out decrees? ¹  Who ²  summons the successive generations from the beginning? I, the Lord, am present at the very beginning, and at the very end – I am the one. ³ 

This is what the Lord, Israel’s king, says, their protector, ¹  the Lord who commands armies: “I am the first and I am the last, there is no God but me.

For I, your servant, ¹  know that I sinned, and I have come today as the first of all the house of Joseph to come down to meet my lord the king.”

The men of Israel replied to the men of Judah, “We have ten shares in the king, and we have a greater claim on David than you do! Why do you want ¹  to curse us? Weren’t we the first to suggest bringing back our king?” But the comments of the men of Judah were more severe than those of the men of Israel.