<t /><p class="poetry"><v id="(4:1)" /><n id="1" /> For look! In those<n id="2" /> days and at that timep> <p class="poetry">I will return the exiles<n id="3" /> to Judah and Jerusalem.<n id="4" />p>

<p class="poetry">You sold Judeans and Jerusalemites to the Greeks,p> <p class="poetry">removing them far from their own country.<n id="1" />p>

Tell Zerubbabel governor of Judah: &#8216;I am ready<n id="1" /> to shake the sky<n id="2" /> and the earth.

The <sc>Lordsc> will take possession of<n id="1" /> Judah as his portion in the holy land and he will choose Jerusalem once again.

Then the leaders of Judah will say to themselves, &#8216;The inhabitants of Jerusalem are a means of strength to us through their God, the <sc>Lordsc> who rules over all.&#8217;

The offerings<n id="1" /> of Judah and Jerusalem<n id="2" /> will be pleasing to the <sc>Lordsc> as in former times and years past.p>

<p class="bodytext">The men of Judah were unable to conquer the Jebusites living in Jerusalem.<n id="1" /> The Jebusites live with the people of Judah in Jerusalem to this very day.<n id="2" />p>

<p class="bodytext">Now the descendants of the Kenite, Moses&#8217; father-in-law, went up with the people of Judah from the City of Date Palm Trees to Arad in the desert of Judah,<n id="1" /> located in the Negev.<n id="2" /> They went and lived with the people of Judah.<n id="3" />p>

The Levite<n id="1" /> said to him, &#8220;We are traveling from Bethlehem<n id="2" /> in Judah to the remote region of the Ephraimite hill country. That&#8217;s where I&#8217;m from. I had business in Bethlehem in Judah, but now I&#8217;m heading home.<n id="3" /> But no one has invited me into their home.

The men of Judah came and there they anointed David as king over the people<n id="1" /> of Judah.p> <p class="bodytext">David was told,<n id="2" /> &#8220;The people<n id="3" /> of Jabesh Gilead are the ones who buried Saul.&#8221;

If these people go up to offer sacrifices in the <sc>Lordsc>&#8217;s temple in Jerusalem,<n id="1" /> their loyalty could shift to their former master,<n id="2" /> King Rehoboam of Judah. They might kill me and return to King Rehoboam of Judah.&#8221;

&#8220;King Manasseh of Judah has committed horrible sins.<n id="1" /> He has sinned more than the Amorites before him and has encouraged Judah to sin by worshiping his disgusting idols.<n id="2" />

He eliminated<n id="1" /> the pagan priests whom the kings of Judah had appointed to offer sacrifices<n id="2" /> on the high places in the cities of Judah and in the area right around Jerusalem. (They offered sacrifices<n id="3" /> to Baal, the sun god, the moon god, the constellations, and all the stars in the sky.)

<t /><p class="bodytext">In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of King Jehoiachin of Judah, on the twenty-seventh<n id="1" /> day of the twelfth month,<n id="2" /> King Evil-Merodach of Babylon, in the first year of his reign, pardoned<n id="3" /> King Jehoiachin of Judah and released him<n id="4" /> from prison.

<t /><p class="bodytext">The sons of Judah:p> <p class="bodytext">Er, Onan, and Shelah. These three were born to him by Bathshua,<n id="1" /> a Canaanite woman. Er, Judah&#8217;s firstborn, displeased the <sc>Lordsc>, so the <sc>Lordsc> killed him.<n id="2" />p>

The <sc>Lordsc> God of Israel chose me out of my father&#8217;s entire family to become king over Israel and have a permanent dynasty.<n id="1" /> Indeed,<n id="2" /> he chose Judah as leader, and my father&#8217;s family within Judah, and then he picked me out from among my father&#8217;s sons and made me king over all Israel.<n id="3" />

In the thirty-sixth year of Asa&#8217;s reign, King Baasha of Israel attacked Judah, and he established Ramah as a military outpost to prevent anyone from leaving or entering the land of King Asa of Judah.<n id="1" />

<p class="bodytext">Amaziah assembled the people of Judah<n id="1" /> and assigned them by families to the commanders of units of a thousand and the commanders of units of a hundred for all Judah and Benjamin. He counted those twenty years old and up and discovered there were 300,000 young men of fighting age<n id="2" /> equipped with spears and shields.<n id="3" />

The Israelites and people of Judah<n id="1" /> who lived in the cities of Judah also contributed a tenth of their cattle and sheep, as well as a tenth of the holy items consecrated to the <sc>Lordsc> their God. They brought them and placed them in many heaps.<n id="2" />

<p class="bodytext">Afterward King Sennacherib of Assyria, while attacking Lachish with all his military might, sent his messengers<n id="1" /> to Jerusalem. The message was for King Hezekiah of Judah and all the people of<n id="2" /> Judah who were in Jerusalem. It read: