You defeated Edom<n id="1" /> and it has gone to your head.<n id="2" /> Gloat over your success,<n id="3" /> but stay in your palace. Why bring calamity on yourself? Why bring down yourself and Judah along with you?&#8221;<n id="4" />p>

For our fathers were unfaithful; they did what is evil in the sight of<n id="1" /> the <sc>Lordsc> our God and abandoned him! They turned<n id="2" /> away from the <sc>Lordsc>&#8217;s dwelling place and rejected him.<n id="3" />

But Manasseh misled the people of<n id="1" /> Judah and the residents of Jerusalem so that they sinned more than the nations whom the <sc>Lordsc> had destroyed ahead of the Israelites.p>

He did evil in the sight of<n id="1" /> the <sc>Lordsc>, just like his father Manasseh had done. He offered sacrifices to all the idols his father Manasseh had made, and worshiped<n id="2" /> them.

<t /><p class="bodytext">Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned for eleven years in Jerusalem.<n id="1" /> He did evil in the sight of<n id="2" /> the <sc>Lordsc> his God.

<t /><p class="bodytext">Jehoiachin was eighteen<n id="1" /> years old when he became king, and he reigned three months and ten days in Jerusalem.<n id="2" /> He did evil in the sight of<n id="3" /> the <sc>Lordsc>.

<p class="bodytext">&#8220;Everything that has happened to us has come about because of our wicked actions and our great guilt. Even so, our God, you have exercised restraint<n id="1" /> toward our iniquities and have given us a remnant such as this.

<p class="bodytext">They said to me, &#8220;The remnant that remains from the exile there in the province are experiencing considerable<n id="1" /> adversity and reproach. The wall of Jerusalem lies breached, and its gates have been burned down!&#8221;<n id="2" />p>

<t /><p class="bodytext">Then in the month of Nisan, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was brought to me,<n id="1" /> I took the wine and gave it to the king. Previously<n id="2" /> I had not been depressed<n id="3" /> in the king&#8217;s presence.<n id="4" />

So the king said to me, &#8220;Why do you appear to be depressed when you aren&#8217;t sick? What can this be other than sadness of heart?&#8221; This made me very fearful.p>

When Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite official<n id="1" /> heard all this, they were very displeased that someone had come to seek benefit for the Israelites.p>

Sanballat and Geshem sent word to me saying, &#8220;Come on! Let&#8217;s set up a time to meet together at Kephirim<n id="1" /> in the plain of Ono.&#8221; Now they intended to do me harm.p>

He had been hired to scare me so that I would do this and thereby sin. They would thus bring reproach on me and I<n id="1" /> would be discredited.<n id="2" />p>

and I returned to Jerusalem. Then I discovered the evil that Eliashib had done for Tobiah by supplying him with a storeroom in the courts of the temple of God.

So I registered a complaint with the nobles of Judah, saying to them, &#8220;What is this evil thing that you are doing, profaning the Sabbath day?

Should we then in your case hear that you do all this great evil, thereby being unfaithful to our God by marrying<n id="1" /> foreign wives?&#8221;p>

<p class="bodytext">Esther replied, &#8220;The oppressor and enemy is this evil Haman!&#8221;p> <p class="bodytext">Then Haman became terrified in the presence of the king and queen.

For how can I watch the calamity that will befall my people, and how can I watch the destruction of my relatives?&#8221;<n id="1" />p>

<t /><n id="2" /><p class="bodytext">There was a man<n id="3" /> in the land of Uz<n id="4" /> whose<n id="5" /> name was Job.<n id="6" /> And that man was pure<n id="7" /> and upright,<n id="8" /> one who feared God and turned away from evil.<n id="9" />

<t /><p class="bodytext">So Satan went out from the presence of the <sc>Lordsc>, and he afflicted<n id="1" /> Job with a malignant ulcer<n id="2" /> from the sole of his feet to the top of his head.<n id="3" />