After Isaac ¹  had been there a long time, ²  Abimelech king of the Philistines happened to look out a window and observed ³  Isaac caressing ⁴  his wife Rebekah.

This happened because of the sins which Jeroboam committed and which he made Israel commit. These sins angered the Lord God of Israel. ¹ 

So it happened that the Jews who were living near them came and warned us repeatedly ¹  about all the schemes ²  they were plotting ³  against us.

For then there will be great suffering ¹  unlike anything that has happened ²  from the beginning of the world until now, or ever will happen.

For in those days there will be suffering ¹  unlike anything that has happened ²  from the beginning of the creation that God created until now, or ever will happen.

Everyone who saw the sight ¹  said, “Nothing like this has happened or been witnessed during the entire time since ²  the Israelites left the land of Egypt! ³  Take careful note of it! Discuss it and speak!”

When everyone who had known him previously saw him prophesying with the prophets, the people all asked one another, “What on earth has happened to the son of Kish? Does even Saul belong with the prophets?”

At that time ¹  those who live on this coast ²  will say, ‘Look what has happened to our source of hope to whom we fled for help, expecting to be rescued from the king of Assyria! How can we escape now?’”

Now he has brought it about. The Lord has done just as he threatened to do. This disaster has happened because you people sinned against the Lord and did not obey him. ¹ 

For I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers and sisters, ¹  so that you may not be conceited: A partial hardening has happened to Israel ²  until the full number ³  of the Gentiles has come in.

They said to me, ‘Make us gods that will go before us, for as for this fellow Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has happened to him.’

What follows is a record of what happened to Jerusalem and Judah because of the Lord’s anger; he finally threw them out of his presence. ¹  Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.

You will probably ask yourself, ¹  ‘Why have these things happened to me? Why have I been treated like a disgraced adulteress whose skirt has been torn off and her limbs exposed?’ ²  It is because you have sinned so much. ³ 

What follows is a record of what happened to Jerusalem and Judah because of the Lord’s anger when he drove them out of his sight. ¹  Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.

As for my food that I gave you – the fine flour, olive oil, and honey I fed you – you placed it before them as a soothing aroma. That is exactly what happened, declares the sovereign Lord.

It so happened that when our adversaries heard that we were aware of these matters, ¹  God frustrated their intentions. Then all of us returned to the wall, each to his own work.

All of this happened on the thirteenth day of the month of Adar. They then rested on the fourteenth day and made it a day for banqueting and happiness.

Day after day I was with you, teaching in the temple courts, yet ¹  you did not arrest me. But this has happened so that ²  the scriptures would be fulfilled.”

The same thing happened in Iconium ¹  when Paul and Barnabas ²  went into the Jewish synagogue ³  and spoke in such a way that a large group ⁴  of both Jews and Greeks believed.

Messengers ¹  told David what had happened, ²  so he summoned them, for the men were thoroughly humiliated. The king said, “Stay in Jericho ³  until your beards have grown again; then you may come back.”